Boise and Payette National Forests

The Boise and Payette National Forests in Idaho are home to diverse landscapes — from alpine meadows and mountain peaks to desert sagebrush plains and river canyons.

The Boise National Forest and Payette National Forest are extremely diverse wildlands that contain meadows, mountains, desert plains and river canyons.

We work with diverse partners to restore degraded habitat and form a connected, healthy landscape. We also work to create forest restoration jobs for local citizens.

Why Boise and Payette National Forests

Spanning nearly five million acres across some of Idaho's most diverse landscapes, these forests encompass desert grasslands, high elevation conifer forests and alpine peaks. 

Work we are doing

The Wilderness Society is leading two collaborative forest restoration efforts in central Idaho’s Payette and Boise National Forests.  

Our partners

We are one of many partners working to protect, restore and connect the lands and wildlife of these forests while creating local jobs.

  • Members of the Western Clean Energy Advocates (WCEA), signed a letter encouraging Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper to  to sign SB 252, to increase the renewable energy portfolio standard for rural electric providers

    . WCEA is a diverse and growing coalition working to transform the way we produce, use, and distribute energy across the West. WCEA aims to create jobs, protect the West’s water, wildlife, and ecosystems, address climate change, and enhance energy security.

  • Smart Steps to Establish a Responsible Program for Renewable Energy on Public Lands

    Since its first day in office, the Obama Administration has made rapid and responsible expansion of renewable energy a top priority. The public lands have played a major role in achieving early goals, but only because of focused effort to correct decades of inattention and inactivity toward developing renewable energy as a major component of the nation’s energy mix.

  • Expanding energy development to meet the growing needs of America must be balanced with protecting vital wild places. 

    The Wilderness Society has launched a new quarterly report "By The Numbers" to track how many acres of American land have been protected by Congress and the Executive branch, and how many acres have been leased out to energy development.

  • Tim Woody

    Witness testimony today by Noble’s Offshore Installation Manager Todd Case as he was questioned by the National Transportation Safety Board revealed that the Kulluk drill rig -- which Shell attempted to tow across the Gulf of Alaska with a single tow vessel before it broke loose and ran aground last New Year’s Eve -- should have had multiple tow vessels for safe transport.

    Case was aboard the Kulluk when it went adrift and ran aground on a small island south of Kodiak.

  • Tim Woody

    U.S. Representatives Don Young and Doc Hastings have introduced H.R. 1964 in an effort to scrap the Department of the Interior’s recently finalized, comprehensive plan for the western Arctic’s National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, the nation’s largest tract of public land. The bill is scheduled for a hearing tomorrow on Capitol Hill.

  • jdickson

    Identifying smart steps the Obama Administration, including the Department of the Interior and Bureau of Land Management, can take to continue building a responsible program for renewable energy  are part of a “blueprint for action” released by The Wilderness Society today.