[Title 36 CFR 219.36]
[Code of Federal Regulations (annual edition) - July 1, 2002 Edition]
[Title 36 - PARKS, FORESTS, AND PUBLIC PROPERTY]
[Chapter II - FOREST SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE]
[Part 219 - PLANNING]
[Subpart A - National Forest System Land and Resource Management Planning]
[Sec. 219.36 - Definitions.]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]


36PARKS, FORESTS, AND PUBLIC PROPERTY22002-07-012002-07-01false219.36Sec. 219.36PARKS, FORESTS, AND PUBLIC PROPERTYFOREST SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTUREPLANNINGNational Forest System Land and Resource Management Planning
Sec. 219.36  Definitions.

    Definitions of the special terms used in this subpart are set out in 
alphabetical order in this section as follows:
    Adaptive management: An approach to natural resource management 
wherein the effects of policies, plans, and actions are monitored for 
the purpose of learning and adjusting future management actions. 
Successive iteration of the adaptive process is essential in 
contributing to sustainability.

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    Assessment or analysis area: The geographic area included within the 
scope of a broad-scale assessment or local analysis.
    Candidate species: Species identified by the United States Fish and 
Wildlife Service (USFWS) or the National Marine Fisheries Service 
(NMFS), which are considered to be candidates for listing under the 
Endangered Species Act as published in the Federal Register.
    Conservation agreement: A formal agreement between the Forest 
Service and the USFWS and/or NMFS identifying management actions 
necessary to prevent the need to list species under the Endangered 
Species Act.
    Current climatic period: The period of time since establishment of 
the modern major vegetation types, which typically encompass the late 
Holocene Epoch including the present, including likely climatic 
conditions within the planning period. The climatic period is typically 
centuries to millennia in length, a period of time that is long enough 
to encompass the variability that species and ecosystems have 
experienced.
    Desired condition: A statement describing a common vision for a 
specific area of land or type of land within the plan area. Statements 
of desired conditions should include the estimated time required for 
their achievement.
    Desired non-native species: Those species of plants or animals which 
are not indigenous to an area but valued for their contribution to 
species diversity or their high social, cultural or economic value.
    Disturbance regime: Actions, functions, or events that influence or 
maintain the structure, composition, or function of terrestrial or 
aquatic ecosystems. Natural disturbances include, among others, drought, 
floods, wind, fires, insects, and pathogens. Human-caused disturbances 
include actions such as recreational use, livestock grazing, mining, 
road construction, timber harvest, and the introduction of exotic 
species.
    Diversity of plant and animal communities: The distribution and 
relative abundance of plant and animal communities and their component 
species occurring within an area.
    Ecological conditions: Components of the biological and physical 
environment that can affect the diversity of plant and animal 
communities, including species viability, and the productive capacity of 
ecological systems. These could include the abundance and distribution 
of aquatic and terrestrial habitats, roads and other structural 
developments, human uses, and invasive and exotic species.
    Ecological sustainability: The maintenance or restoration of the 
composition, structure, and processes of ecosystems including the 
diversity of plant and animal communities and the productive capacity of 
ecological systems.
    Ecosystem composition: The plant and animal species and communities 
in the plan area.
    Ecosystem processes: Ecological functions such as photosynthesis, 
energy flow, nutrient cycling, water movement, disturbance, and 
succession.
    Ecosystem structure: The biological and physical attributes that 
characterize ecological systems.
    Focal species: Focal species are surrogate measures used in the 
evaluation of ecological sustainability, including species and ecosystem 
diversity. The key characteristic of a focal species is that its status 
and trend provide insights to the integrity of the larger ecological 
system to which it belongs. Individual species, or groups of species 
that use habitat in similar ways or which perform similar ecological 
functions, may be identified as focal species. Focal species serve an 
umbrella function in terms of encompassing habitats needed for many 
other species, play a key role in maintaining community structure or 
processes, are sensitive to the changes likely to occur in the area, or 
otherwise serve as an indicator of ecological sustainability. Certain 
focal species may be used as surrogates to represent ecological 
conditions that provide for viability of some other species, rather than 
directly representing the population dynamics of those other species.
    Forest Service NEPA procedures: The Forest Service policy and 
procedures for implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) 
and the

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Council on Environmental Quality regulations (40 CFR chapter V) as 
described in Chapter 1950 of the Forest Service Manual and Forest 
Service Handbook 1909.15, Environmental Policy and Procedures Handbook 
(See 36 CFR 200.4 for availability).
    Inherently rare species: A species is inherently rare if it occurs 
in only a limited number of locations, has low population numbers, or 
has both limited occurrences and low population numbers, and those 
conditions are natural characteristics of the life history and ecology 
of the species and not primarily the result of human disturbance.
    Inventoried roadless areas: Areas are identified in a set of 
inventoried roadless area maps, contained in Forest Service Roadless 
Area Conservation, Draft Environmental Impact Statement, Volume 2, dated 
May 2000, which are held at the National headquarters office of the 
Forest Service, or any subsequent update or revision of those maps.
    Major vegetation types: Plant communities, which are typically named 
after dominant plant species that are characteristic of the macroclimate 
and geology of the region or sub-region.
    Native species: Species of the plant and animal kingdom indigenous 
to the plan area or assessment area.
    Plan area: The geographic area of National Forest System lands 
covered by an individual land and resource management plan. The area may 
include one or more administrative units.
    Productive capacity of ecological systems: The ability of an 
ecosystem to maintain primary productivity including its ability to 
sustain desirable conditions such as clean water, fertile soil, riparian 
habitat, and the diversity of plant and animal species; to sustain 
desirable human uses; and to renew itself following disturbance.
    Range of variability: The expected range of variation in ecosystem 
composition, and structure that would be expected under natural 
disturbance regimes in the current climatic period. These regimes 
include the type, frequency, severity, and magnitude of disturbance in 
the absence of fire suppression and extensive commodity extraction.
    Reference landscapes: Places identified in the plan area where the 
conditions and trends of ecosystem composition, structure, and processes 
are deemed useful for setting objectives for desired conditions and for 
judging the effectiveness of plan decisions.
    Responsible official: The officer with the authority and 
responsibility to oversee the planning process and make decisions on 
proposed actions.
    Reviewing officer: The supervisor of the responsible official.
    Social and economic sustainability: Meeting the economic, social, 
aesthetic, and cultural needs and desires of current generations without 
reducing the capacity of the environment to provide for the needs and 
desires of future generations, considering both local communities and 
the nation as a whole. It also involves the capacity of citizens to 
communicate effectively with each other and to make sound choices about 
their environment.
    Species: Any member of the animal or plant kingdom that is described 
as a species in a peer-reviewed scientific publication and is identified 
as a species by the responsible official pursuant to a plan decision, 
and must include all species listed under the Endangered Species Act as 
threatened, endangered, candidate, or proposed for listing by the U.S. 
Fish and Wildlife Service or National Marine Fisheries Service.
    Species-at-risk: Federally listed endangered, threatened, candidate, 
and proposed species and other species for which loss of viability, 
including reduction in distribution or abundance, is a concern within 
the plan area. Other species-at-risk may include sensitive species and 
state listed species. A species-at-risk also may be selected as a focal 
species.
    Species viability: A species consisting of self-sustaining and 
interacting populations that are well distributed through the species' 
range. Self-sustaining populations are those that are sufficiently 
abundant and have sufficient diversity to display the array of life 
history strategies and forms to provide for their long-term persistence 
and adaptability over time.
    Successional stages: The different structural and compositional 
phases of vegetation development of forests and

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grasslands that occur over time following disturbances that kill, 
remove, or reduce vegetation and include the major developmental or 
seral stages that occur within a particular environment.
    Timber production: The sustained long-term and periodic harvest of 
wood fiber from National Forest System lands undertaken in support of 
social and economic objectives identified in one or more land and 
resource management plans. For purposes of this regulation, the term 
timber production includes fuel wood.
    Undeveloped areas: Areas, including but not limited to inventoried 
roadless areas and unroaded areas, within national forests or grasslands 
that are of sufficient size and generally untrammeled by human 
activities such that they are appropriate for consideration for 
wilderness designation in the planning process.
    Unroaded areas: Any area, without the presence of a classified road, 
of a size and configuration sufficient to protect the inherent 
characteristics associated with its roadless condition. Unroaded areas 
do not overlap with inventoried roadless areas.

Subpart B [Reserved]