Governor Newsom signed a
Joint Agreement for Shared Stewardship of California’s Forests
and Rangelands that includes a long term,
coordinated, science-based forest management strategy between the
State and The U.S. Forest Service. Since the U.S. Forest Service
owns the majority of California’s forestland, this joint
agreement will become central to securing tangible federal
commitments and aligning resources to maintain a contiguous,
healthy, wildfire-resilient landscape. The recent passage of
the Great American Outdoors Act should bring increased federal
investment into California’s wildlands to help fund the projects
in this agreement.
The agreement is grounded in science-driven management and
includes commitments to treat nearly 1 million acres of forest
and wildland annually, develop unified project plans, promote
biodiversity, watershed health, carbon storage and other
ecological co-benefits. Specifically, through this
agreement California and the U.S. Forest Service commit to
execute the following activities together:
Treat one million acres of forest and wildland annually to
reduce risk of catastrophic wildfire (building on the state’s
existing 500,000-acre annual commitment);
Develop a shared 20-year plan for forest health and
vegetation treatment that establishes and coordinates priority
projects;
Expand use of ecologically sustainable techniques for
vegetation treatments such as prescribed fire;
Increase pace and scale of forest management by improving
ecologically sustainable timber harvest in California and grow
jobs by tackling structural obstacles, such as workforce and
equipment shortfalls and lack of access to capital;
Prioritize co-benefits of forest health such as carbon
sequestration, biodiversity, healthy watersheds and stable rural
economies;
Recycle forest byproducts to avoid burning slash piles;
