Forestry Conference

March 3-4, 2010

Washington Group Plaza

Boise, Idaho

The sustainability premise
The current and future condition of our forests determines their ability to contribute to our society’s energy security, climate change mitigation and resilience goals. Current conditions in the forested areas of Idaho and Montana put forests at risk of stand-replacing wildfires as well as insect and disease outbreaks. Management actions could improve forest conditions and help meet renewable energy and carbon sequestration goals. Forest management actions must be ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially desirable to be sustainable.

Toward a “social license”
Forest managers can take action to meet these three sustainability conditions only after attaining a “social license” for implementation. Several efforts are underway in this region to create such licenses. The stories behind these efforts are encouraging and perhaps could be applied more widely, if more people knew about them. We need to consider what is needed to build additional social license or cooperative capacity to move more rapidly in practical, commonsensical ways.