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Collaboration and reform in federal forest management were the main themes Tuesday during a roundtable discussion held in the Flathead Valley by U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Montana.

During the first of three such meetings he plans to hold this week, Daines said he is working to develop a comprehensive forest management bill that would get the nod from all three members of Montana’s congressional delegation. “I think there’s an opportunity to try to get something done, that’s why I want to seize this moment,” Daines said, adding that “D.C. moves at glacial speed.”

Lumber-mill representatives, environmental leaders and commissioners from Northwest Montana counties historically dependent on logging gathered in the conference room at F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber to discuss ways to make national forests more economically productive, while satisfying environmental concerns.

Daines summarized what he believes is a history of federal mismanagement of national forest land, noting the state’s timber harvests on those lands have declined by 82 percent since the peak of logging activity in 1987.

He said that millworker employment has fallen by half during that time, putting about 3,000 Montanans out of work. Daines also said the U.S. Forest Service was spending too much money fighting lawsuits and wildfires while pine beetle infestations leave massive stands of dead timber that could be salvaged if logging companies were allowed to use the resource.

From DailyInterLake.com: http://www.dailyinterlake.com/members/log-supply-a-pressing-timber-issue/article_315e7678-b716-11e4-a055-dba1c85ac239.html