Panelists urge more active forest management, tribal collaboration as wildfire costs outpace funding

Todd Myers, vice president for research at the Washington Policy Center, told a Spokane audience that Washington is not meeting its CO2 reduction goals and faces unhealthy forests that increase wildfire risk. He said budgeting often focuses on paying for fires after they occur rather than preventing them and argued ‘‘we need to be managing our forests and getting them back to a healthy state’’ through thinning, harvesting and restoration.

Michael, director of policy and outreach for the Kalispel Tribe’s Natural Resources Department, described a tribal response to the 2015 Tower Fire and a subsequent Tribal Forest Protection Act planning project covering 90,000 acres (about 40,000 federal acres). He said the tribe completed NEPA planning with state and federal partners and that implementation has begun, but the project is being litigated in federal court in Spokane.

Panelists and audience members raised the scale and cost of the work. Todd said he has seen short-term estimates but no single comprehensive price tag; ‘‘we have, I think, in Washington state something like 1,000,000 acres that need to be treated,’’ he said, and stressed the gap between available funds and the scale of need. He also warned that mills and processing capacity are a bottleneck: private investors typically want a guaranteed long-term supply before building processing infrastructure.

Amanda Parrish, executive director of the Lands Council, highlighted local collaborative projects in Northeast Washington and the Colville National Forest that combine conservation with economic activity. She and Michael both said bottom-up approaches (local coalitions and conservation-economy projects) produce more durable outcomes than top-down directives.

On tools, panelists recommended a mix of strategies. Amanda and others promoted prescribed fire as a cost-efficient way to treat large areas, with Amanda saying it lets ‘‘you cover a lot of ground’’ and Todd acknowledging community concerns about smoke but noting attitudes have shifted since earlier controversies. Todd also pointed to federal authorities such as Good Neighbor Authority that allow states and tribes to work on neighboring federal lands, and he said tribes and counties increasingly have tools to act locally.

Panelists emphasized that funding alone is insufficient without permitting and infrastructure. Michael described that the tribal project required extensive coordination across ownership patterns—private, state and federal lands—and that litigation poses uncertainty to scheduled work. Todd noted efforts to turn low-value materials into products such as cross-laminated timber (CLT) have faced mixed success but remain an important part of building demand for treated biomass.

The discussion closed with calls for continued local partnerships, clearer long-term supply commitments to attract mill investment, and a combination of mechanical treatments, prescribed burns and regulatory reforms to speed restoration work. The panel did not propose a single funding figure or a formal motion; several projects are underway and some are facing litigation.

The program wrapped after closing remarks; no formal votes or decisions were taken during the event.