Collaborative Forest Management in Plumas County

Thoughts and observations on the development of collaborative forest management efforts in Plumas County.


 For several years now, the focus of national forest management by the USDA Forest Service has been collaboration to restore forests at a landscape scale.  Congress passed the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLR) legislation in 2009.

When the CFLR legislation became law the Quincy Library Group, one of the first collaborative groups to focus on national forest restoration, had already been influencing landscape-scale efforts in the Northern Sierra Nevada for 17 years.  After 15 years the Herger-Feinstein Quincy Library Group Forest Recovery Act (HFQLG) ended in 2013 and while the QLG continues to meet monthly Forest Service restoration results on national forests have decreased dramatically with management efforts now largely focused on work in the Storrie and Moonlight Fire areas as a result of millions of dollars in settlement funds.  The Forest Service is now largely reacting to past fires instead of proactively trying to create fire resilient forests and reduce the severity of the next fire.

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