Model of stewardship — the Clearwater Stewardship Project Lolo Forest — Tim Love, Ranger and Gordy Sanders, Forester   BY SHERRY DEVLIN, THE MISSOULIAN   SEELEY LAKE - Invariably, someone in the crowd snickers when Gordy Sanders describes how his lumber mill bought timber from the U.S. Forest Service by installing 18 sweet-smelling toilets.   Then Sanders, resource manager for Pyramid Mountain Lumber Co., starts talking about his commitment to the community where Pyramid has done business for 54 years and to the forests that close tight around the town.   Seeley Lake District Ranger Tim Love chimes in, telling how the town relies upon its namesake lake for drinking water and how outhouses at campgrounds upstream were polluting the lake. "Those newly installed vault toilets," he says, "will help keep our drinking water clean."   By taking advantage of the Forest Service's fledgling stewardship contracting authority, the Seeley Lake Ranger District accomplished 10 years' worth of campground upgrades in two field seasons, Love says. And erased miles of backcountry roads to make the mountains more hospitable to grizzly bears. And replaced undersized culverts that blocked the migration of bull trout up Clearwater River tributaries. And opened the forest canopy so goshawks could more easily find their prey.   SEE FULL STORY >> MORE INORMATION ON THE CLEARWATER STEWARDSHIP PROJECT >> Stewardship contracting — More than a tool, a way of doing business   Stewardship end-result contracting is a tool used by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to accomplish a wide variety of restoration objectives while meeting the needs of rural communities. With stewardship contracting, the agency can more completely address the total ecological needs of an area by describing the "end result" it wants to achieve in a certain area and its contractor can then develop and implement a mutually agreed-upon plan to achieve that goal. The agencies intend to put greater emphasis on multi-objective outcomes — call it restoration work as many do or end-result management as others do — but it adds up to a highly collaborative management technique.   READ MORE ABOUT STEWARDSHIP CONTRACTING >> USDA FOREST SERVICE STEWARDSHIP CONTRACTING HOME >> BLM STEWARDSHIP CONTRACTING FACT SHEET >> Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, agencies begin landmark collaboration   BY SUSAN GALLAGHER, THE MISSOULIAN (AP)   New agreements between the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and two federal agencies clear the way for habitat improvement projects spanning 10 years and nearly 260,000 acres in Montana and Wyoming. Agreements the foundation, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management signed Friday for 85,000 acres in western Montana and 174,000 acres west of Pinedale, Wyo., draw on a mechanism called "stewardship contracting," authorized by Congress in 1999. SEE FULL STORY >> MORE ABOUT STEWARDSHIP CONTRACTING AND OTHER COLLABORATION NEWS IN OUR NEWSLETTER >> CONTACT US Phone: (406) 495-1069 Toll Free: (888) 495-0757   RED LODGE CLEARINGHOUSE The Red Lodge Clearinghouse is a program of the Liz Claiborne Art Ortenberg Foundation. HOME PAGE INDEX To view an index of past home pages from our site, click here.

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