- Collaboration agreement promotes cooperative management of Forest Service lands.
- The agreement focuses on recreation, watershed, wildfire risk and timber.
- A number of conservation groups have shared their opposition to the agreement.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz signed a revolutionary agreement on Thursday that is meant to foster collaboration between the state and the Forest Service for how public lands are managed.
The 20-year agreement that was signed in the Gold Room of the state Capitol building will build cooperation for how things like recreation, watershed, timber production and wildfire risk are managed in Utah’s lands owned by the Forest Service.
“It’s more than a partnership, it’s friendship,” Schultz said.
He added that the Forest Service and the state are going to be “good neighbors.”
“You don’t always get along with your neighbors, but you work things out,” Schultz said.
Utah has over 8 million acres of Forest Service land. Cox emphasized that this agreement does not change any ownership or authority over federal lands.
“This partnership will help us reduce wildfire risk, better protect water resources, support recreation and local economies and ensure that these forests are cared for responsibly,” the governor said. “Our commitment is rooted in one of collaboration.”
This agreement is a framework to establish years of collaboration
Joel Ferry, the executive director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, shared that this 20-year agreement is a broad framework that establishes the start of collaboration between the state and the Forest Service. He added that, over time, subsequent and more specific agreements will be made for the management of specific programs, projects and pieces of land.
The two entities will take time to identify specific lands and programs that they can collaborate on. Part of the agreement will allow Utah to take on the management of things such as building trails or maintaining campsites.
Instead of the state having to wait on the federal agency to get things done, this agreement’s collaboration allows the state to have a say at the front end of things.
“There’s still public process. This doesn’t put any of that aside, but it speeds these processes up to where it’s reasonable,” Ferry said.
The agreement covers all the Forest Service lands in Utah as well as all the resources and entities on those lands. It also supports an executive order from President Donald Trump last year that promotes more domestic timber production.
Are there other agreements like this?
Last year, the Forest Service signed similar agreements with Montana and Idaho, but each state’s agreement is specifically catered to that state’s needs. Schultz said that other states like Wyoming, South Dakota, Alaska and Georgia have expressed interest in similar agreements.
“We use the term cooperative federalism, where you’re working with the states and giving the states a greater seat at the table in the actual decision-making process,” Schultz said.
He added that they are working on agreements not just with states but also with Native American tribes and counties.
“The state and the people of the state are so close to what’s going on, the local communities, and there’s a lot of local knowledge and there’s a lot of local expertise, and the Forest Service can benefit from that,” Schultz said.
Schultz is from Idaho, which Ferry says helps him better understand the issues of the West.
Building on a previous stewardship agreement
This new 20-year agreement builds on a previous shared stewardship partnership between Utah and the Forest Service that has been in place since 2019. That previous agreement focused on forest treatments and wildfire management; the new one is a lot broader and contains a lot more.
That shared stewardship partnership is still in place; it has just been built upon and the new agreement also includes wildfire management. Ferry said that last year, Utah had over 1,100 wildfires that burned more than 160,000 acres.
Cox said the new agreement “combines our collective capacity, our funding and expertise to efficiently manage select National Forest System lands all across our state.”
How conservation groups have reacted to the new agreement
After the agreement was announced and signed, a number of local and national conservation groups shared their opposition to the new agreement. The Center for Biological diversity said that the agreement allows Utah to assert control over the national forests while “cutting public oversight and weakening environmental reviews.”
“Utah politicians have failed repeatedly to sell off public lands outright, so now they’re teaming up with their Trump cronies to push the same disgraceful agenda,” said Laiken Jordahl, national public lands advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This agreement strips federal protections, shuts the public out of decision-making and puts Utah’s old-growth forests directly on the chopping block. The American people will see this latest scheme for what it is, a backdoor push to privatize our public lands.”
Save our Canyons, a Utah nonprofit organization, also shared concerns about the agreement, specifically over the new push to expand commercial timber production, Utah trying to gain control over federal lands and a decrease in environmental reviews through the National Environmental Policy Act.
On Thursday, Cox emphasized that the agreement does not change who controls and owns the lands. He also shared that the highest standards under the National Environmental Policy Act will continue to be upheld.
“We are concerned that more state control and the prioritization of private industry will harm those values we cherish,” said Jack Stauss, executive director of Save our Canyons in a release. “While this expanded Shared Stewardship Agreement unfolds, we will keep a close eye on projects in our local forest and advocate for science-backed practices that prioritize forest health over industry profit.”