The Idaho Working Lands Coalition announced the release of their new Website.  The coalition partners represent landowners, conservationists, and sportsmen  who share a common interest - reserving space for private forests, farms and ranches in Idaho's future landscape.  The Website includes background information, a blog, and a subscription form to receive the free monthly newsletter The State of Working Lands.

Mountain Megas is the Brookings Institute's recent report from the Blueprint for American Prosperity Program.  The study proposes a federal partnership to ensure prosperity of the new metropolitan areas.  The analysts consider three dimensions of prosperity - sustainable, productive, and inclusive growth.

Navigating a Changing Market is the theme for New West's Third Annual Conference on Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies.   The October sessions in Missoula (23rd and 24th) bring planners, developers, economists, and journalists together to discuss development trends in the region.  This year's discussions should be well worth the time of all stakeholders, given the abrupt change in mortgage and credit markets. 

Note that the first day includes workshops that qualify for continuing education credits in several fields:  insurance agents, attorneys, planners, and real estate agents.

Forestland For Sale, a report from the Open Space Institute, discusses land conservation implications of forest fragmentation.  The divestment of forest industry's large blocks of forestland to investment groups has led to subsequent transactions.  The heuristic of buy wholesale (large blocks), sell retail (smaller blocks) increases fragmentation of ownership and challenges conservation objectives.

 The Upper Lochsa Land Exchange between the Clearwater National Forest and Western Pacific Timber, LLC is proceeding.  Over 39,000 of checkerboard ownership in the Lochsa Drainage will be exchanged for National Forest lands in northern Idaho.  See the Clearwater NF website for details, including parcel maps.