BILLINGS – Timber harvests would increase but logging would be prohibited within 50 feet of streams under a proposed conservation plan for 548,000 acres of state-owned land in central and western Montana.
The proposal was crafted by the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to address the impacts of state land management on threatened or endangered wildlife, including Canada lynx, grizzly bears and three species of trout.
In the past, impacts to those species by logging on state forests was handled largely on a case-by-case basis.
The proposed conservation plan would establish broad guidelines to govern logging and other activities for the next 50 years. It would also give the state blanket authority for the incidental “take” — defined as killing, injuring or harassing — of at-risk species.
“It’s not a tool for stopping projects. It’s a tool for ensuring we minimize impacts and offset impacts,” said Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Amelia Orton-Palmer.
Annual timber production would increase from about 53 million board feet to more than 57 million board feet under the plan. Habitat improvements would come through the stream buffer zone, seasonal road closures and restrictions on helicopter activity over forest lands.
Evironmental groups criticized the proposal as a missed opportunity to strengthen protections for threatened wildlife.
They want the stream buffer doubled to prohibit logging within 100 feet of streams and more attention paid to the long-term problems posed by climate change.
“They are looking for an excuse to continue doing the same,” said Anne Hedges with the Montana Environmental Information Center. “This document really is managing for the timber industry more than the species.”
DNRC project manager Mike O’Herron said the projections for an increased timber harvest come from opening up to logging 40,000 acres in the Stillwater State Forest.
But overall, he said, the plan strikes a balance between environmental and timber industry interests. Some comments received on a draft of the plan had called for the stream buffers to be eliminated entirely, O’Herron said.
The final proposal “tends to go down the middle,” he said.
O’Herron added that land opened up to harvest in the Stillwater forest would be partially offset by the 8,000 acres off limits because of the stream buffer. A less restrictive, “partial harvest” zone would cover an additional 19,000 acres of state land, he said.
The conservation plan is subject to a 30-day comment period that ends Oct. 17. Final adoption of the document by the Montana Land Board could come as early as November.