Federal Agencies Announce Guidelines for Stewardship
Contracts and Agreements

Key Element of Healthy Forest Initiative will Improve Forest
and Rangeland Health While Increasing Collaboration

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 15, 2004 -- The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service today announced guidelines to develop and implement stewardship contracts and agreements. Part of the President’s Healthy Forests Initiative, stewardship contracting will improve the health of the land, ensure thriving landscapes and contribute to the development of dynamic economics by assisting land managers to enhance and restore forest and rangeland health while strengthening the role of communities and others who contribute to such efforts.

Stewardship contracting is designed to assist managers in enhancing and restoring the health of America’s forests and rangelands. The focus is on improving the health of the land, ensuring thriving landscapes and contributing to development of dynamic economies.

The availability of the contracts will assist the two Departments in improving the health of our forests and rangelands while enhancing the role communities and others to contribute to such efforts.

The contracts will allow private companies, communities, and others who engage in contracts to retain forest and rangeland products in exchange for the service of thinning trees and brush and removing dead wood. Long-term contracts foster a public/private partnership to restore forest and rangeland health by giving those who undertake the contracts the ability to invest in equipment and infrastructure. This equipment and infrastructure are needed to productively use material generated from forest thinning, such as brush and other woody biomass, to make wood products or to produce biomass energy, all at savings to taxpayers.

“Stewardship contracting allows federal land managers to achieve land management goals, including fuels reduction activities for public lands at high risk to catastrophic wildfire while meeting local and rural community needs,” said Mark Rey, under secretary for natural resources and environment at USDA. “The severe fire seasons of the last few years have emphasized the need to reduce fires risk on federal lands and have underscored the need for a new way of doing business.”

The BLM/Forest Service guidance describes:

• project design goals and objectives;
• office roles and responsibilities;
• direction for use of value offset and excess receipts;
• how to submit a project, report accomplishments, and track finances; and
• how to engage in third-party monitoring, coordination, and collaboration.

Stewardship contracting is another important tool that supports the President’s Healthy Forests Initiative and will help make forests and rangelands more resilient to natural disturbances, such as wind, flood, fire, insects, and disease.

“Stewardship contracting will demonstrate a ‘new environmentalism’ — land stewardship based on partnerships and common ground rather than litigation and confrontation,” Interior’s Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management, Rebecca Watson said. “It is part of a new culture of communication, cooperation, and consultation, in the service of conservation — a culture that Secretary Norton calls the ‘Four C’s.’”

The guidance reflects public comments received in response to draft guidelines released in June 2003. Congress authorized stewardship contracting in Fiscal Year 2003. A notice will be published in the Federal Register. The final guidance is posted on agency web sites www.blm.gov and www.fs.fed.us on January 15, 2004.

This page was created by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Office of Public Affairs 1849 C Street, Room 406-LS Washington, DC 20240 Phone: (202) 452-5125 Fax: (202) 452-5124

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