Governor Greg Gianforte and the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation threw their support behind a new U.S. Forest Service management plan last week that coordinates timber harvests across three national forests in the state, with the goal of bolstering the wood products industry and reducing wildfire risk.
What the Plan Covers
The Montana Tri-Forest Federal Sustained-Yield Unit brings together the Beaverhead-Deerlodge, Custer Gallatin, and Helena-Lewis and Clark national forests under a shared management framework. Leadership from all three forests will coordinate on forest health work, including timber harvests, with all timber processed within the unit’s boundaries.
Over the first ten-year action period, the plan calls for a combined timber volume offer of 300 to 500 million board feet — a significant commitment to sustained harvest levels that supporters say will provide the consistency Montana mills need to remain viable.
State and Federal Officials Unite in Missoula
The announcement came at an event in Missoula, where DNRC Director Amanda Kaster joined Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz to formally endorse the effort. Kaster framed the initiative as inseparable from the health of Montana’s wood products sector, saying, “Healthy forests and healthy wood products infrastructure go hand in hand.”
Governor Gianforte, who has made timber production a consistent priority of his administration, echoed that view. “A reliable timber supply supports good-paying jobs, keeps local mills running, and improves our ability to manage forests,” he said.
The DNRC’s role in the plan draws on two existing cooperative frameworks. Montana and the Forest Service signed a Shared Stewardship Agreement in 2025, intended to advance coordinated, cross-boundary forest management and accelerate restoration efforts while reducing statewide wildfire risk. The department also partners with the Forest Service through the Good Neighbor Authority program, which allows DNRC to perform management and restoration work on federal lands.
Policy and Political Context
The tri-forest plan fits squarely within Gianforte’s broader push to increase active management on federal lands in Montana. His administration has consistently argued that decades of reduced harvest activity have left Montana forests overstocked and vulnerable to catastrophic wildfire, beetle infestations, and disease — and that increased timber production is both an economic and a fire-prevention strategy.
The approach also aligns with the Trump administration’s direction on federal land management. Forest Service Chief Schultz’s participation signals that Washington is supportive of the kind of state-federal coordination the Gianforte administration has sought to formalize through agreements like the 2025 Shared Stewardship compact. Montana has been among the more aggressive states in pursuing such arrangements, positioning DNRC as an active partner rather than a bystander on federally managed timberland.
For rural Montana communities dependent on wood products jobs, the sustained-yield framework offers something the industry has long sought: a predictable, multi-year supply signal that allows mills to make capital investments with greater confidence. The 300-to-500-million-board-foot target in the first decade gives operators a planning horizon that single-year timber sales cannot provide.
What Comes Next
Implementation will depend on the three forest units executing coordinated sale offerings under the plan’s framework, with DNRC continuing its Good Neighbor Authority work alongside Forest Service staff. The Shared Stewardship Agreement provides the legal and operational backbone for that collaboration as the plan moves from announcement to on-the-ground activity.
Forest health and timber supply issues are expected to remain prominent in Montana’s political environment heading into the November 2026 general election, with candidates across statewide races likely to stake out positions on federal land management and the role of logging in wildfire mitigation. The Gianforte administration’s endorsement of the tri-forest plan adds a concrete policy accomplishment to that debate.
Montana’s energy and natural resource sectors have seen a range of major federal and state coordination efforts recently. Proposed rare earth exploration in the state’s Sheep Creek area and domestic critical minerals processing coming back online reflect a broader push to activate Montana’s natural resource base across multiple industries.