1. Forest Products Industry Perspective on Stewardship Contracts
Tom Troxel
Intermountain Forest Association
Rapid City, SD

2. Stewardship Contracts
An opportunity to:
Increase on the ground management
Maintain, or increase, forest products infrastructure
Contribute to local tax base and economy

3. Reaction of Forest Products Companies
Varies from very positive to negative
Most have not purchased or operated a Stewardship Contract
Complex, with much more paperwork
Pragmatic understanding of the symbiotic relationship with the Forest Service

4. Rocky Mountain Region Stats (for contracts past advertisement)
48 Stewardship Contracts
46 Service/2 Timber
36 on AR and PSI NFs
2 Timber SC on Bighorn NF
34 million board feet

5. Forest Products Infrastructure
Wyoming has lost forest products infrastructure
Forest products infrastructure easier to lose than to rebuild
Critical tool for implementing management
#1 Issue – Predictable, consistent supply of timber

6. Recommendations to Forest Service:
Complete evaluation and award within 30 days, i.e., Bench and Woodrock
Provide more transparency into evaluation process, i.e., FPL Grant Evaluation
Align NEPA analysis and decisions with objective of bidder creativity

7. Recommendations to Forest Service:
Include escalation provisions
Provide flexibility for on-the-ground variations
Develop consistent definition for “local workforce” – bullseye vs boundaries

8. Recommendations to Forest Service:
Collaboration as “means to an end”, not the “objective”
“Green sheet” Stewardship Contract
“Goods for services” requires “goods”

9. Recommendations to Forest Service:
Align stewardship work with forest products companies expertise –
Precommercial thinning
Aspen restoration
Road alignment, closure, decommissioning
Sell volume by scale or weight

10. Recommendations to Forest Service:
Provide Engineering Estimates