Southwest Forest Health and Wildfire Prevention Act of 2004

Southwest Forest Health and Wildfire Prevention Act of 2003 - (Sec. 5) Directs the Secretary of Agriculture, acting through the Chief of the Forest Service, to: (1) establish three Institutes (one each in Arizona (at Northern Arizona University), New Mexico, and Colorado) to promote the use of adaptive ecosystem management to reduce the risk of wildfires, and restore the health of forest and woodland ecosystems in States of the interior West (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah); and (2) assist the Institutes to promote the use of collaborative processes and such management.

Defines adaptive ecosystem management as a natural resource management process under which planning, implementation, monitoring, research, evaluation, and incorporation of new knowledge are combined into a management approach that: (1) is based on scientific findings and the needs of society; (2) treats management actions as experiments; (3) acknowledges the complexity of these systems and scientific uncertainty; and (4) uses the resulting new knowledge to modify future management methods and policy. Requires each Institute to: (1) develop, conduct research on, transfer, promote, and monitor restoration-based hazardous fuel reduction treatments to reduce the risk of severe wildfires and improve the health of dry forest and woodland ecosystems in the interior West; (2) synthesize and adapt scientific findings from conventional research to implement such fuel reduction treatments on a landscape scale using an adaptive ecosystem management framework; (3) translate for and transfer to affected entities (land managers, stakeholders, concerned citizens, and States of the interior West) any scientific and interdisciplinary knowledge about such fuel reduction treatments; (4) assist affected entities with the design of adaptive management approaches (including monitoring) for the implementation of such fuel reduction treatments; and (5) provide peer-reviewed annual reports. Requires each Institute to: (1) develop and demonstrate capabilities in the natural, physical, social, and policy sciences, and explicitly integrate those disciplines in the performance of such duties; and (2) develop an annual work plan for review by the Secretary.

(Sec. 6) Prescribes requirements for cooperation among the Institutes and Federal programs relating to ecological restoration, wildfire risk reduction, and wildfire management technologies. (Sec. 7) Requires the Secretary to evaluate and report to specified congressional committees every five years on the programs and activities of each Institute. (Sec. 8) Authorizes appropriations.