Northwest Forest Plan Review

Plans & Reports

NORTHWEST FOREST PLAN REVIEW

Pacific Southwest Region Action Plan

Prepared by the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Region

Background: During the week of June 23, 2003 Pacific Southwest Regional Forester Jack Blackwell reviewed Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) implementation on the Klamath, Shasta-Trinity, Six Rivers, Mendocino, Modoc and Lassen National Forests. Senior biologist Jack Ward Thomas who led teams of scientists that laid the groundwork for the NWFP, assisted with the review along with forest supervisors and district rangers from the California national forests.

Purpose: The review had two purposes: To identify areas in which the Forest Service in California can improve its management under the NWFP to more closely accomplish the ecological outcomes and social outputs envisioned when the NWFP was adopted in 1994. And, to identify ways to improve accomplishment of the National Fire Plan goals on the California NWFP forests to protect communities, watersheds and wildlife habitats.

Findings: The review identified ten findings in three broad areas: implementation of the National Fire Plan in the NWFP, forest management under the NWFP, and NWFP processes. All together the inter-related findings answer the question: “How is the Northwest Forest Plan working in the national forests of northern California?”

The review concluded that the NWFP is not meeting the long-term ecological promises for sustainable old growth and late successional forests, nor is the NWFP meeting the social promises for economic outputs that were made at the time of its inception in 1994. Another critical conclusion is that the NWFP hampers the accomplishment of National Fire Plan goals to reduce fuels to protect wildlife habitats, watersheds and communities from catastrophic wildfire.

Actions: The Pacific Southwest Region is taking action to more aggressively implement the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) to protect old growth and related wildlife habitat and to produce the social goods and services promised by the 1994 plan.

The PSW Region will more aggressively implement fuels treatments in the NWFP forests to accomplish National Fire Plan goals.

The proposed short-term actions will be within the current authorities of the NWFP, but those actions will still fall short of what was promised in 1994, and will fall far short of what is needed to protect these forests from catastrophic wildfire without long-term changes to the NWFP.

The specific short-term actions are the following:

• Review the Hayfork AMA Implementation and develop a project proposal under the settlement agreement
• Review the cost of project preparation within the NWFP area in California
• Develop a Programmatic Section 7 Consultation for LSRs to implement the NFP
• Fully participate with the SEIS for Survey and Manage (S&M)
• Request a Delegation of Authority for the Pacific Southwest Regional Forester for pre-disturbance survey exceptions
• Seek exemption from S&M requirements for projects in NFP fire risk categories 2 and 3
• Seek exemption of all activities outside of late successional and old growth (LS/OG) forest stands from survey and manage standards and guidelines
• Refocus S&M program from intensive pre-disturbance surveys to extensive strategic surveys
• Revise the National Guide for Watershed Analysis to delete requirements for recommendations section

Over the next several months, the Pacific Southwest Region will confer with tribes, federal and state agencies, county government and interest groups to explore ideas for longer-term actions to more fully address concerns raised in the review. The short- and long-term actions will be focused on more fully meeting promises made by the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan and more fully accomplishing the goals of the National Fire Plan.

NWFP Review Action Plan
PSW Region, August 4, 2003

USDA Forest Service - Northwest Forest Plan Review
Last Modified: Tuesday, 05 August 2003 at 11:56:10 EDT