The Kootenai Forest Stakeholders Coalition (KFSC) is a Montana-made partnership of recreationalists, business owners, timber mill operators and conservationists. Together, we are deeply invested in the future of the Kootenai National Forest (KNF). We are dedicated to finding common-ground solutions to public land management challenges. We believe there is room for everyone  across our vast forest. And, we believe our economy will thrive when our natural resources are managed in accord with the ecological needs of the forest, best available scientific research, and the needs of the local community.

We believe good forest management has many benefits – good paying jobs and opportunities for young workers in both the timber industry and recreation economy, plus clean water, healthy fish and wildlife habitat, and timber stands with a diverse variety of species, age classes, and habitat niches. We support development of local milling infrastructure and a healthy forest products industry.

We support the increasing management focus on reducing wildfire risk in priority areas near our communities. We applaud and support the increasing cooperation between agencies and landowners in shared stewardship work, cross boundary projects, and implementation of the Montana Forest Action Plan, the Lincoln County Wildfire Protection Plan, and the FS Wildfire Crisis Implementation Plan.

We support the Kootenai Forest Plan’s goals, including a management focus on increasing health and diversity of forest stands, and we support the plan’s recommended harvest goals of 70-90 million board feet per year.

The KFSC works in tandem with land managers at the Forest Service to make recommendations on individual recreation and timber projects at the district level. The KFSC assembles a team of locals from each district across the KNF to work in partnership, representing the needs of the community. Working with a culture of respect, we aim for representative teams with community members from broad backgrounds including timber professionals, outdoors people, conservationists, local business owners, motorized recreational users, and more. The team works side-by-side with the Forest Service – using our Forest Management Guidelines as a reference to inform our process at the project level – to produce sustainable projects that come to completion swiftly. We aim to avoid litigation by using this model of collaboration and broad community support.

An important part of our group’s mission is to identify and protect some of the premier existing wild country in the Kootenai National Forest, as well as enhancing opportunities for both motorized and quiet recreation. We have worked to propose improvements to some of the land designations for roadless areas identified in the Forest Plan. We are actively seeking feedback on this Common Ground Proposal, and we intend to seek Congressional designation for some specific areas dedicated to motorized recreation and to Wilderness.

The KFSC provides a forum and a locally-driven means for our community to have a voice in forest management. We welcome new community members who are willing to operate with a culture of respect and are interested in having a voice in local land management.