Institutions That Influence Cross-Boundary Forest Management: Four Cases of Shared Stewardship in Practice

The USDA Forest Service’s 2018 Shared Stewardship Strategy emphasizes the need to coordinate work with actors across boundaries to increase the pace and scale of land management, particularly as it relates to forest restoration and wildfire mitigation. We researched how the Strategy was being implemented at the project level by conducting forty-four interviews with individuals closely involved with four large-scale cross-boundary hazardous fuels reduction projects. Our objectives were to identify institutions that facilitated and challenged cross-boundary work under the Strategy and document how actors innovated to overcome challenges they encountered. We found that Shared Stewardship had the greatest opportunity to shift the larger forest management paradigm within states that created new institutions specifically to support the Strategy and its objectives. However, numerous institutional challenges such as yearly funding levels and complex bureaucratic requirements, frustrated efforts to increase the pace and scale of management actions under the Strategy. Study Implications: We conducted research on cross-boundary projects that met the intent of the USDA Forest Service’s Shared Stewardship Strategy. We found that the cross-boundary tenets of the Strategy were best supported when states worked together with the federal government to create new institutions that facilitate multijurisdictional work. Our interviewees said that various bureaucratic hurdles remain difficult to navigate, and that they believe annual funding appropriations are not currently enough to support significant increases in the pace and scale of management. Our interviewees said Shared Stewardship supported cross-boundary actions, but more remains to be done to best support multijurisdictional work.