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Public Involvement
Southwest Jemez Mountains Restoration Project: Public Involvement
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The Forest Service, Valles Caldera Trust, Pueblo of Jemez, New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute, and The Nature Conservancy are leading a collaboration process to develop a cross-jurisdictional forest restoration strategy. Adjacent land managers partnering with us on this restoration strategy include Bandelier National Monument, Los Alamos National Lab, and Pueblo of Santa Clara. Other partners include Bureau of Indian Affairs-Southern Pueblos, State Forestry, Sandoval County, Firewise community associations, New Mexico Forest Industry Association, various environmental conservation and wildlife groups and agencies, research scientists, and other diverse groups interested in restoring these lands.
The Forest Service, Valles Caldera Trust and other lead partners developed this collaboration plan as a living, evolving plan intended to guide collaboration processes and activities among land managers and stakeholders in planning restoration activities in the Southwest Jemez Mountains Restoration planning area. We hired a neutral facilitator to manage the collaborative process, which is intended to be highly interactive, open, and deliberative.
We are initiating collaboration opportunities early, while gathering data and assessing existing conditions, before specific projects are proposed, and expect to continue to collaborate at each step of the way. Our collaboration opportunities will be designed to build trusting and productive work relationships among the lead partners and other interested parties.
There will be multiple opportunities and levels of collaboration available to develop the strategy and other related restoration planning products. Interested parties can determine their own degree of participation, in any phase of planning, from simply staying on mailing lists and reviewing documents posted on the web, to more actively participating on a technical collaborative working group to contribute to development of those planning documents.
During the assessments phase, before and during initial development of the restoration strategy, we will collaborate on comparing existing and desired (reference) conditions for multiple resources, to determine specific restoration needs and priorities. During the strategy phase, we’ll use a facilitator to lead a highly interactive and collaborative process to develop the 10-year landscape restoration strategy. This key collaboration phase involves determining who wants to participate in a collaboration working group, forming the group and group guidelines, then working together and in subcommittees to design the strategy, using FLRA criteria (est. 6-12 months). During project-level NEPA phase, each land management agency will work with interested parties to design site-specific project proposals and complete the NEPA analysis and decision-making process. Different projects may be planned simultaneously each year on different jurisdictions. For implementation and monitoring, after completing NEPA decisions, there are opportunities to be involved in implementing treatment actions on the ground, and to participate in monitoring and evaluation activities.
We will begin in the fall of 2009 by collaborating on the completion of ecological conditions assessments and 10-year landscape-scale forest restoration strategy in accordance with the Forest Landscape Restoration Act. Those wishing to participate should complete the participation interest form so the lead partners and the facilitator can better tailor collaboration activities to the specific interests of each group or individual. Collaboration activities will likely include opportunities for: small group discussions (in live or web-based meetings), field trips, collaboration working groups, informal phone calls to individuals, emails, commenting on draft documents, and other opportunities. We will not simply solicit written comments on completed documents, or just hold a public meeting to present completed plans.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
- Visit this site for the latest status reports, notices, planning documents, maps, and other information. Related information is available on the lead partner’s websites.
- Subscribe to the e-mail List to receive news and website updates.
- Complete the Participation Interest Form to let us know how you wish to participate.
- Use the web-based Comment Form to submit your comments and suggestions on draft documents or other information.
- Contact specific ID team members or managers to discuss your concerns or ideas related to ecological restoration in this area.
- Email comments/questions about this effort to: jemezrestoration@fs.fed.us.
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