A fine line on Idaho's public lands

Ask U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo where the discussion on managing Idaho's federal lands should start, and he doesn't hesitate. "Collaboration," said Crapo, a Republican who has championed bringing Idaho ranchers, loggers and motorized recreationists together with environmentalists to find compromise. Crapo met with members of the Clearwater Basin Collaborative group Wednesday in Lewiston to discuss the next step now that they have reached a broad agreement on how to manage the Clearwater-Nez Perce National Forest - all 4 million acres of it. Timber companies, county officials, the Nez Perce Tribe, recreation groups, sportsmen, and conservation groups agreed to a work plan that includes increasing logging and other active management. Also in the plan are additional federal wilderness and Wild Rivers designations on the national forest in north-central Idaho that is popular for recreation. Republican state Rep. Lawerence Denney remains unconvinced. He sponsored a resolution in the Idaho Legislature, patterned after a similar bill in Utah, that demanded the federal government turn over all of the 34 million acres of federal land within Idaho - 64 percent of the state's land mass. He co-chairs an interim committee of the Legislature examining whether to follow Utah's lead. The panel will meet at the Capitol from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday. "Whether we gain title or we don't is secondary," Denney said. "I hope that we can come to some solution that can benefit the resource." He and many Idahoans seek to solve the dramatic drop in timber harvest and the thousands of jobs lost over the past 30 years in the timber industry. They blame the millions of acres burned by wildfire over the past two decades on the lack of active management to reduce fuels...more