Colorado Forest Resilience Planning Guide Adopted and Endorsed by the CO Forest Health Council
Forests across Colorado provide invaluable social, economic, and ecological benefits, and ensuring their resilience requires coordinated efforts. The Colorado Forest Resilience Planning Guide offers a framework for agencies, private landowners, and local collaboratives to align their forest management strategies, leverage resources effectively, and sustain forest health. And as of February 2025, the Planning Guide, is now adopted and endorsed by the Colorado Forest Health Council as recommendations to the Colorado Governor and State Legislature.
Informed by applied research and practice, the idea of collaborative readiness crystalized in the Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative around the need to get resources to our place-based coalitions and community-connected partners, and to do so in a fair and transparent way that accounts for differences in local context and ability to put resources to use on the ground.
This guide, conceived and developed by the Colorado Forest Health Council with funding support from the Colorado State Forest Service (CSFS) and the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute (CFRI), empowers communities to implement strategies across counties and tribal lands, with a focus on mitigating, responding to, and recovering from common disturbances like wildfires. Featuring 15 actionable steps, it provides tools to strengthen collaboration, integrate community values, and access science-based resources tailored to local landscapes.
By fostering collaborative planning and adaptive management, this guide also helps communities better position themselves to secure funding and achieve lasting forest health and resilience. Learn more about how this resource can support your forest management efforts on the Colorado State Forest Service website!
Header photo: Members of the Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative worked with the U.S. Forest Service to co-host a community tour of the Magic Feather Prescribed Burn located in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado. (Eric Tokuyama)