Want to know how the forest's battle against invasive weeds is going? Maybe after this summer's smoke-filled skies, you're wondering about wildfire trends. Or perhaps you want to track how populations of elk, cutthroat trout or northern goshawks are faring.
All of that information and lots more can be found in the Bitterroot National Forest's recently published 2006 Forest Plan Monitoring and Evaluation Report.
“To have such a long period of monitoring data used to evaluate conditions and trends across the forest is a notable achievement,” said Sue Heald, the Bitterroot forest's planning and recreation staff officer. “This information helps us make better, more informed decisions.”
The report reviews a wide variety of management activities. Its findings can lead to changes in the way those lands are managed.
“It's a major benefit to use as an adaptive management tool,” Heald said. “It allows us to look at what's going right and what's going wrong, and then decide where adjustments might be needed.”
While the annual reports are good for tracking trends over a long period of time, Heald said they also include information about new ways of doing business and new research findings.
“The importance of partnerships seems to be a major theme of this year's report,” Heald said.
People in both the public and private sector are finding ways to work together toward common management goals on national forest lands.
A good example was the Ravalli County Resource Advisory Committee's efforts to obtain a grant to map and treat a pair of new invasive weeds showing up in riparian areas, Heald said.
The advisory committee brings a variety of people with differing viewpoints together to consider issues facing the management of public lands.
Other cooperative efforts occurred on a number of different watershed restoration efforts, especially in the Threemile and Ambrose creek drainages, she said.
The monitoring report also found that logging operations effects' on soil were much less severe than what was predicted, Heald said.
“We're seeing some pretty minor soil impacts from logging,” she said.
Efforts to fence cattle off sensitive riparian areas also seem to be working well, Heald said.
“That's been very successful,” she said. “The riparian areas are bouncing back with new shrubs and reductions in the amount of sediment in the streams.”
The information contained in the report should be interesting to anyone who cares about the Bitterroot National Forest.
“These lands belong to the people of the United States,” Heald said. “This is a chance for people to see how they're being managed. People can see how their tax dollars are being spent.”
Want to see the report?
View it online at www.fs.fed.us/r1/bitterroot/projects/. A compact disc or paper copies are available upon request from the Bitterroot National Forest supervisor's office, 1801 N. First, Hamilton, MT 59847; (406) 363-7100. The report is also available at ranger district offices in Stevensville, Darby, Sula and the West Fork.
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