ural communities, such as Seeley Lake in the upper Blackfoot watershed, depend on their surrounding landscapes to provide clean air and water, to support populations of native fish and wildlife, and ultimately, to drive the local economy. Yet a community is only as vibrant as the landscape it is embedded within. For this reason, rural communities have an important stake in keeping their surrounding forestlands healthy and productive, and The Blackfoot Clearwater Landscape Stewardship Project was crafted with this relationship in mind. The restoration goals of the project are to foster a biologically resilient landscape, to treat forest health problems, to provide a source of employment for local residents, and in so doing, to maintain and enhance a traditional way of life.
Stream mitigation will be an important component of landscape restoration. Photo by Tim Love of the Lolo National Forest.
This pilot project will allow the Forest Service to plan and implement landscape restoration projects on 400,000 acres in the Lolo National Forest portion of the Blackfoot watershed and the adjacent Blackfoot Community Conservation Area. It builds on the lessons learned from the very successful Clearwater stewardship contracting and restoration experiences, implements the Lolo National Forest Plan revisions, and applies the concept at a landscape scale as a demonstration project.
It is anticipated that over the next ten years numerous key restoration projects will be undertaken through this project to address water quality, sediment control and reduction, endangered species protection, weed management, habitat restoration and recreation needs. Restoration activities will include road relocation and closures; culvert and bridge replacements; stream restoration and bank stabilization; invasive species management; trail head and campground improvements, under story removal and vegetative treatment; tree planting and pre-commercial thinning; prescribed burning; and trail reclamation and relocation. These restoration projects will have a multi-party monitoring component to assess their relative success.
It is also anticipated that USFS will annually achieve historic levels of harvesting (4 MMBF/Yr) as part of its forest management on the Seeley Ranger District. All receipts from stewardship projects will go toward restoration work. Participants will secure matching funds for the stewardship activities and seek additional congressional requests to implement this ten-year pilot project.
