Part 1: Assessing the Need for Change
Review of the Fire Strategy and Effectiveness of Fuels Treatment
Key Findings
Background
New Information and Understanding
Conformance with the National Fire Plan
Key Findings
Background
New Information and Understanding
Compatibility with HFQLG Recovery Act
Key Findings
Background
New Information and Understanding
Impacts to Grazing
Key Findings
Background
New Information and Understanding
Impacts to Recreation
Key Findings
Background
New Information and Understanding
Community Impacts
Key Findings
Background
New Information and Understanding
Draft SNFPA Management Review and Recommendations
Compatibility with HFQLG Recovery Act
Draft Findings |
Part 1: Assessing the Need for Change |
February 14, 2003 |
Background
The Herger-Feinstein Quincy Library Group Forest Recovery Act of 1998 directs the Secretary of Agriculture to test the effectiveness of certain resource management activities in a pilot project. The potential environmental effects of the Pilot Project were analyzed in the HFQLG FEIS. The SNFPA significantly limits full implementation of resource management activities[13] outlined in the Pilot Project. The HFQLG Act contains provisions for limiting resource management activities. These provisions are the basis for the limitations imposed under the SNFPA. They allow limitations based on:
- Issuance of new California spotted owl guidelines.
- New guidelines necessary to maintain viability for other Forest Service Sensitive species.
More specifically, the HFQLG Act requires that implementation of the Pilot Project be consistent with California spotted owl guidelines issued subsequent to the Act, and applicable federal law.[14]
In response to the appeals filed against the SNFPA Record of Decision (ROD), the Chief of the Forest Service affirmed the ROD as meeting the "minimum requirements of Federal law and regulation,"[15] but directed further review of three aspects of the decision. One of these was the relationship between the SNFPA and the Pilot Project. The Chief directed the Regional Forester to examine the approach to management across the Sierra Nevada taken by the ROD, and determine if it was adequately balanced with goals of the HFQLG Act. In addition, the review would determine if opportunities existed to harmonize the goals of these two efforts.
Many of the goals of the SNFPA and the HFQLG Pilot Project are similar. Both seek to:
- Improve and restore ecological conditions across the landscape
- Protect and maintain California spotted owl habitat
- Protect human communities and sensitive wildlife habitat from wildfire by strategically locating fuel treatments across broad landscapes
- Promote restoration and protection of aquatic, riparian and meadow ecosystems
- Protect, increase, and restore old forest conditions
- Apply the principles of adaptive management
The SNFPA and the Pilot Project are both integrated management plans with different approaches to achieving similar goals.
A primary difference between the two approaches is how each address the output of commodity forest products. The SNFPA changed eleven forest plans to remove the objective of producing commercial forest products. Outputs are generated solely as incidental by-products of fuel reduction activity. The Pilot Project includes commodity output as a legitimate and important objective of land management. In a white paper on regeneration silviculture discussing group selection, dated October 1998, this important objective is defined: "Our goal is to provide management direction which will yield commodity resources while sustaining the health and diversity of the forest ecosystem."
Prior to the SNFPA, Congress directed the Forest Service to implement the Pilot Project to test its effectiveness. The Pilot Project represents a "locally-developed, consensus-based resource management program."[16] This program seeks protection of ecological values and provision of environmentally acceptable commodity production. A review of the congressional record shows that there was an understanding of the untested nature of some of the forest management activities included in the Pilot Project. In addition, there was also considerable discussion of the scientific uncertainty regarding the environmental outcomes of those activities.[17] The intent was that the Pilot Project would provide information needed to reduce this uncertainty, and ascertain if the proposed resource management activities created beneficial outcomes. A Post-Pilot Project evaluation by an independent panel of scientists was to be completed to determine its effectiveness.
13 Record of Decision, Sierra Nevada Forest Plan Amendment Pg. 50.
14 HFQLG Forest Recovery Act Sec. 401 c 3.
15 Decision for the Appeals of the Record of Decision for the Sierra Nevada Forest Plan Amendment and its Final Environmental Impact Statement.
16 S. Rep. No. 138, 105th Cong., 1st Session pg. 5.
17 S. Rep. No. 138, 105th Cong., 1st Session pg. 20.
USDA Forest Service · Pacific Southwest Region