Good Neighbor & Stewardship Agreements

The Importance of Cross-Boundary Collaboration in R5

To maximize the benefits of land management, the Forest Service and partners need to collaboratively engage in the Shared Stewardship of our natural resources across jurisdictional boundaries to address natural resource challenges on a landscape scale. Shared Stewardship can increase the impact of our restoration work and enable us to more actively manage our lands through leveraging the strengths of different organizations. Cross-boundary collaboration also directly contributes to the Forest Service vision to increase pace and scale of restoration across our National Forests. Collaboration increases the Forest Service’s ability to leverage non-federal resources and expertise. With fixed capacity on the Forest Service side, and an immense need for forest and watershed restoration work, Good Neighbor and Stewardship Authorities allow us to strengthen coordination with partners to increase pace and scale of restoration.

What is the Good Neighbor Authority?

The Good Neighbor Authority (GNA) allows the Forest Service to enter into agreements with State, County, and Tribal agencies to perform forest, rangeland, and watershed restoration services on, and adjacent to, National Forest System lands. The authority allows the Forest Service to enter into up to 10-year agreements with partner agencies that have the mandate to conduct forest and watershed restoration activities, who then perform the activities on behalf of the Forest Service. Adjacency of land is not required, and there are no restrictions on mutual interests or mutual benefits.

Relevant Legislation

You can find the relevant regulations on the Good Neighbor Authority in the Forest Service Handbook.

What are Stewardship Agreements?

Stewardship Agreements (SA) are a tool that the Forest Service can use to engage any non-federal partner when there is mutual interest and mutual benefit presented in a proposed project to be implemented on National Forest System lands. The project(s) under the agreement must meet one of the seven land management goals specified in policy under the Stewardship Authority. SA can be entered into for up to 20 years.

Relevant Legislation

The national Stewardship Contracting Reporting, Guidance, and Directives website is an excellent resource for in depth information on the guidance, legislation, and authorities governing stewardship contracting and agreement processes. Additionally, the Forest Service handbook section governing stewardship can be downloaded.

Good Neighbor vs. Stewardship Agreements

It is important to use the right tool for the right project with the right partner. There are some key differences between Good Neighbor and Stewardship agreements that both the Forest Service and partner should consider when selecting what instrument to utilize. Some of those differences are summarized below and more in-depth discussion can be found here.

Master vs. Supplemental Project Agreements

The Forest Service can enter into a Master Good Neighbor or Master Stewardship Agreement (MSA) with its partners. These Master Agreements establish the intent to collaborate and define the broad parameters and geographic area for collaboration in terms of topics of interest and logistics such as roles and responsibilities. No funding or implementation commitments are made in Master Agreements. Once specific project(s) and project areas have been identified, partners develop and sign Supplemental Project Agreement(s) (SPA) which are tiered to the Master Agreement. Usually, one SPA encompasses one project, although modifications to SPAs may add additional projects. SPAs tend to have a shorter timeline, which parallels the anticipated project-level timeline, that fall within the Master Agreement’s timeline. The Master and Supplemental Project Agreement system allows for long term cross-boundary collaboration between the Forest Service and partners. Note that the Forest Service can, and does, also enter into standalone Stewardship or Good Neighbor agreements.

Roles and Responsibilities

There are a variety of roles and responsibilities that both the Forest Service and partner can take on within Good Neighbor and Stewardship Agreements. Depending on the capacity of the partner agency, and the comfort level of National Forest leadership on engaging with partners on various projects, the partner agency can take on anywhere from small parts of implementation to nearly all of a project. The specifics should be clearly delineated for each step of project implementation in the agreements, and SPAs or modifications as relevant, but there are some pointers to keep in mind. The Forest Service is responsible for the NEPA Decision, although the overall process (i.e. work leading up to the NEPA Decision) and project execution may rely more heavily on the partner. In general, it is important that the Forest Service staff are comfortable delegating tasks to partners and that both parties are able to establish and maintain regular communication.