Letter: Proposal considers all stakeholders

Dear Editor:

We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished with the Three Rivers Challenge with representatives from timber, recreation and wilderness sitting and staying at the table to find a compromise that protects special places, saves and creates jobs and preserves our wood processing tradition in Troy and the Yaak.

It’s been a long and sometimes rocky three-plus years to agreement.

First and foremost, it’s about jobs:  Keeping the forest-related jobs we’ve got, creating opportunities and incentives for new jobs, and enhancing values of products already being yielded from the forest. There are other components – community unity, motorized and non-motorized recreation and wilderness – but first and foremost, it’s about jobs.

Our proposal is a simple piece of community and economic development: a business proposal. Each and all of the stakeholders and parties to this agreement get some of what they would like

The timber aspect of the agreement creates a special project area (large enough to be economically attractive over the coming years) in which new tools, or newly-collated tools bundled together for the first time, will allow the Forest Service to work more effectively in areas of common ground, such as – though not limited to – our all-important wildland-urban interface.

We were fortunate to escape significant fires on the Kootenai last year, but we know that it is only a matter of time before we are faced with another significant fire event, and we would like to be as ready as possible.

And in addition to providing a more streamlined and less-polarized and more predictable flow of fiber from the Kootenai, the proposal will create new business opportunities for emerging markets such as biomass and watershed restoration while preserving traditional access for recreation – motorized and non-motorized.

Lastly, our demonstration of a diverse working group will help attract outside investment to stimulate the local economy.

Please feel free to contact us for more information.

Yaak Valley

Forest Council

(Editor’s note: The letter was signed by Wayne Hirst, Robyn King, Donna O’Neil, Jerry Wandler and Joel Chandler).