A University of Idaho study has found that collaborative forest partnerships help to advance restoration projects on federal land and are ideal for large-scale plans.

Collaboratives bring together federal land managers, conservationists, communities and other stakeholders. They develop restoration plans that often call for thinning and replanting forests to make them healthier and less likely to sustain catastrophic damage from fire.

UI Policy Analysis Group researchers said findings “suggest that collaborative decision-making is associated with increases in planning efficiency, and the scale and complexity of project activities.”

It can also help identify potential legal issues early, the researchers said.

Forests deemed in need of restoration greatly exceed the amount already treated, a situation aggravated by fire-suppression costs and other budget impacts, UI said. The number of Forest Service staff available for non-fire duties has dropped, and environmental analyses are taking longer.

“In response to these challenges, there has been an increasing reliance on non-federal partners to supplement agency capacity in the form of funding and staff for planning, implementation and monitoring,” UI said.

Idaho Conservation League Public Lands Director John Robison said the cooperative approach is helpful.

“What we have done through the Boise and Payette forest coalitions, and others, is to get people together with different perspectives to find zones of agreement and work out suggestions for the Forest Service to address concerns,” he said. Coalitions also help the Forest Service “design projects that advance everyone’s interests. So public involvement is important.”

UI said at least 10 collaborative groups are “actively working across Idaho to bring together diverse interests and resolve longstanding conflicts related to land use on public forests while meeting ecological, social and economic objectives.”

Of 421 Idaho projects completed between 2004 and 2017, 63% fell under a categorical exclusion (CE), which does not require substantial environmental analysis and thus requires the least effort. CE projects took the least time and were the smallest.

Just 8% of projects required Environmental Impact Statement Records of Decision. They were among the largest and had the longest planning timelines.

UI said collaborative approaches took about two-thirds longer than traditional methods, in median days from initiation to approval, across all projects regardless of size or complexity. But timelines for collaborative projects were not statistically different after accounting for variations in forests, project types and levels of analysis.

Collaborative projects treated nearly three times as many acres.

“Our finding that collaborative governance of forests is associated with larger and more complex projects is significant because it reinforces the perception of participants that investments in collaborative forms of resource governance have positive influences on various measures of performance,” UI said.

About 15% of Idaho projects between 2004 and 2017 were appealed or objected to, and 4.5% were litigated.

“After controlling for differences in scale and complexity, we found that collaborative projects were no more likely to be appealed and were 2.7 times more likely to be litigated,” UI said. “Further investigation is needed to understand whether the higher probability of litigation is associated with unobserved variables such as the presence of threatened or endangered species and the ideological preferences of judges.”

Chelsea Pennick McIver, Jace Hogg, Dennis R. Becker and Philip S. Cook wrote the report.