Idaho Department of Lands

 About IDL: The Idaho Department of Lands (IDL) believes in its employees and values stewardship, service, accountability and cohesiveness. Our goals emphasize our people and processes, financial stewardship, and customer focus. We strive for a culture in which leadership equips, entrusts and expects employees to make decisions in fulfillment of our mission. View our Strategic Plan here.   Under the direction of the Idaho State Board of Land Commissioners, IDL manages more than 2.4 million acres of state endowment trust land under a constitutional mandate to produce maximum long-term financial returns for public schools and several other State of Idaho institutions.  Leases and other contracts are used to authorize revenue generating activities such as timber harvest, grazing, farming, mining, commercial use, residential use, and conservation in a prudent and sustainable manner.  

Managing endowment trust lands (Download PDF reader)is only part of our story. We also protect public resources such as water quality, fish, wildlife habitat, and recreation on public trust lands, and ensure the protection of water quality and other resources by overseeing forestry and mining practices across all ownerships in the state. We also work to reclaim abandoned mines in Idaho. One of our most important resource protection responsibilities is fire prevention and suppression.  We also provide assistance to landowners to manage their forest lands, work with communities to plant trees in urban settings, help keep working forests working through the Forest Legacy Program, and work with many partners to promote healthy forests on a landscape level. IDL also is the administrative arm of the Idaho Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.