Community roots, lasting impact

The Salmon-Challis National Forest is no stranger to wildfire. Its rugged terrain spans 4.3 million acres across Central Idaho with much of the land affected by fires over the past few decades.

The need to accelerate reforestation has only grown. The small yet dedicated forest silviculture crew took on the main responsibility for that work. But that changed three years ago when the Salmon-Challis National Forest joined forces with Salmon Valley Stewardship, a local nonprofit with deep roots in the community.

For more than two decades, Salmon Valley Stewardship has been at the heart of natural resource stewardship in Lemhi County, Idaho. Their work focuses on community and landscape resiliency in a sparsely populated region where USDA Forest Service-managed lands play an essential role in everyday life. Of the 4,500 square miles that make up Lemhi County, more than 90% is federally managed.

With this unique landscape and tight-knit population, Salmon Valley Stewardship’s experience engaging the community in land stewardship made them a natural partner for this reforestation effort.

Partnership in action

After signing a five-year agreement with the Forest Service in 2023, the work began. Salmon Valley Stewardship hired a full-time reforestation partnership coordinator and seasonal technicians that nearly doubled the capacity of the Salmon-Challis crew. Through this shared investment, the partnership solidified its commitment to actionable results in the years after wildfire, important work to the rural Lemhi County communities dependent upon healthy forests.

“At the heart of Salmon Valley Stewardship’s work is community,” said Maggie Seaberg, the organization’s executive director. “Our multi-year reforestation agreement with the Salmon-Challis National Forest is getting great work done on the ground. But beyond that, it’s building a network of reforestation experts in our local workforce that can provide benefits to Lemhi County for a long time to come. We’re so pleased with the first few years of this partnership, and the future looks bright as we continue forward together.”

New lodgepole pine trees, also called “buttons,” emerge from an area severely damaged during the 2022 Moose Fire that started on the Salmon-Challis National Forest. Lodgepole pines special cones that stay closed until fire heats them to the point they open to release seeds, helping new trees grow and making them key players in forest regeneration. (USDA Forest Service photo)

Three years in, the results are speaking for themselves.

The partnership has addressed reforestation needs on more than 40,000 acres of national forest land affected by historic wildfires. After the 2022 Moose Fire, which burned more than 130,000 acres northwest of Salmon, the Salmon Valley Stewardship’s crew surveyed nearly 24,000 acres within the fire footprint for regeneration. The survey maps show where burned areas are naturally regenerating and where intervention, such as planting, may help.

Other projects the partnership is tackling like cone collection to collect seeds to replant in the area, and tree planting are jumpstarting the next chapter of forest growth. As an economic bonus, new jobs added to the local workforce by Salmon Valley Stewardship offer meaningful employment opportunities in the locally relevant field of reforestation.

“What we’ve accomplished in the first few years of this reforestation partnership has been beyond what I think any of us could have imagined,” said Amanda Rollwage, timber and silviculture program lead for the Salmon-Challis National Forest. “The nimbleness of Salmon Valley Stewardship’s reforestation staff has allowed work to get done in these large wildfire footprints in ways we wouldn’t be able to do alone. They are also providing a great nexus between the Forest Service and local community.”

Looking Ahead

The partnership shows that shared goals and local expertise are crucial to transforming challenges into accomplishments in rural areas like Lemhi County.

Salmon Valley Stewardship and the Forest Service are continuing to build on these early successes, expanding their efforts to meet reforestation goals while strengthening the local workforce. With this added capacity and a strong foundation of trust and collaboration, they’re well positioned to tackle whatever the future may hold for the Salmon-Challis and to keep the region’s forests healthy, resilient, and thriving for generations to come.

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