It’s often been easy here in Lincoln County—the most northwestern and historically polarized county in Montana—to find some philosophies upon which different groups can disagree; it can seem sometimes that we’re less practiced in mapping our common ground. A new coalition in which our group, the Yaak Valley Forest Council, is a founding partner, however, is committed to doing just that, and we believe that in addition to using such a map to help each of the various interests in this geographically immense yet relatively unpopulated county accomplish the others’ goals, we can also help encourage a new way of doing business in the community.
 
The Yaak Valley is defined as those million acres lying north of the Kootenai River, all the way up to Canada, and crossing over slightly into the Idaho panhandle. The Yaak is in many ways the wildest valley in the Lower 48, a place where no species is known to have gone extinct since the last Ice Age despite it having not a single acre of designated wilderness. As such, the Yaak has been identified by the U.S. Forest Service as the most underserved area in the National Wilderness Preservation System—which makes recent decisions by the Forest Service to remove all recommended wilderness from its current Forest Plan revision all the more confusing and contradictory. Local environmentalists are working to correct this injustice, and though ours should not be the only voices heard on this issue, we feel a responsibility to help develop models that will enable us to regain these critical protections for public lands. Such efforts are all the more important in an era of diminished legal guidelines on these matters.

Over the last five years, the Lincoln County Coalition has brought together representatives of the economic development community, timber sale contractors, mill workers, mill owners, environmentalists, snowmobilers, loggers, backcountry skiers, hunters and anglers, ATV enthusiasts, educators, elected officials, and general business people have crossed old battle lines to share countless cups of coffee, tins of homemade cookies, and disparate viewpoints. For the first time, we’ve spent more time listening to each others’ needs than trying to stress our own. (Amazingly, we’ve had fun in the process).We have all learned from years of fighting that no one group will be able to have its needs met individually, and so we have decided to stand together, in the hopes of each meeting some if not all of our most attainable needs. We believe also that this agreement will benefit the community in general, and enhance the way that Lincoln County, and the Kootenai National Forest, are viewed by the outside world.

A map of common-sense common ground has emerged in some—certainly, not all—areas,  Within this common ground we are proposing a “Three Rivers Challenge,” in the hope of meeting some of our various goals while widening and strengthening community in all ways: economically, ecologically, and socially. Through hard work and give and take, we’ve come to an agreement which, though not the ideal goal of everyone, is something our informal group, the Lincoln County Coalition, is proud to have crafted.

Our agreement is structured into three interlocking parts, each of which supports the other, just as each of the three parts is interrelated within our community. The agreement supports:

1. A Wilderness and recreation project, in which some agreements are made  concerning recreational use of a small portion of the Three Rivers District of the  Kootenai National Forest, while protecting the needs of wildlife;
   
2. Increased stewardship and restoration forestry in the wildland-urban  interface, designed to help revitalize a local wood products industry; and
   
3. Building a mechanism by which the community can secure management of  certain  critical area forestlands currently owned by industrial timber interests, in  order that we can continue to manage those lands in such a way as to preserve  traditional community access, production of fiber, and wildlife values.

This last component—“community forests” or “Restoration Forests,” in which cutover private timberlands are repaired and brought back into sustainable productivity—is a huge issue statewide, and we think our project can help come up with creative ideas and solutions that will be of value not just here, but elsewhere in Montana and the West.

Eventual revenues from such “Restoration Forest” lands (such as energy production from biomass, and small-diameter utilization—with the aid of tax code revisions) could be used to purchase more industrial timberlands, and to help supplement local school budgets and property tax demands. Of the many new homes being built in Montana, we envision many of those homebuilders and buyers requesting that their wood derive from this or similar small community agreements. Such creative solutions as those proposed to the delegation by this coalition are more vital than ever in these days of bipartisan rancor. If the nation cannot much longer tolerate such lack of statesmanship in Washington, then how can local communities—neighbors—be expected to survive it much longer, either?

In each of these areas of agreement, we’ll be asking for the Governor’s and delegation’s support in this small but vital experiment in collaboration. We feel that the decades of gridlock and polarization have not been good for anyone, nor for any single resource, and we are willing to try something different. We know that the word “collaboration” arouses fear among some people, but we are willing and committed to try this small experiment in this corner of Lincoln County. If we can do it here, it can be done anywhere.

Rick Bass is the author of 21 books of fiction and nonfiction and lives in northwest Montana, where he is a board member of the Yaak Valley Forest Council.