Forest Service Planning: Better Integration of Broad-Scale Assessments
Into Forest Plans Is Needed (Letter Report, 02/15/2000, GAO/RCED-00-56).

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Forest Service's
ecosystem planning efforts, including the Great Lakes Ecological
Assessment, focusing on the: (1) views of the Forest Service, other
federal agencies, and GAO on key elements that broad-scale ecosystem
based assessments should contain to maximize their value to the forest
planning process; (2) extent to which the Forest Service has
incorporated these elements into the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment
and whether it has integrated the assessment into the forest planning
process; and (3) extent to which the Forest Service's proposed planning
regulations ensure that future broad-scale assessments contain these
elements and are integrated into the forest planning process.

GAO noted that: (1) in recent years, the Forest Service, others, and GAO
have concluded that assessments should have certain key elements or
characteristics to maximize their value in addressing issues that extend
beyond the boundaries of national forests; (2) Forest Service officials
in charge of assessments should make clear to Congress, the public, and
their staff what the objectives of the assessment are and what its
products will be, as well as who will be responsible for delivering the
products, at what time, and at what cost; (3) if the agency does not
conduct assessments at all or does not ensure that they contain these
and other elements, it increases the risk that the planning process will
continue to be costly, time-consuming, and less than fully effective;
(4) in conducting the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment, the Forest
Service has adopted some of these key elements and characteristics; (5)
however, regional and forest officials have not viewed the assessment as
a priority and have thus not provided the leadership, guidance, and
funding necessary to successfully complete it in a timely manner; (6) in
GAO's opinion, the Forest Service has not effectively integrated the
assessment into its process for revising forest plans in the Lake
States; (7) as a result, GAO believes that the agency risks repeating
the inefficiency and waste of resources that occurred during the first
round of forest planning, when it did not adequately address broad-scale
issues and individual national forests independently attempted to gather
and analyze data; (8) moreover, without the benefit of the assessment's
analysis and conclusions on the range of ecologically viable and legally
sufficient alternatives, the agency is more likely to find that the
public will: (a) challenge the revised forest plans, causing the agency
to delay, amend, or withdraw them; and (b) become frustrated with the
planning process if the management alternatives it helped develop do not
prove to be ecologically viable or legally sufficient; and (9) the
Forest Service's proposed planning regulations also incorporate some of
the key elements that are important to broad-scale ecosystem-based
assessments, but they could be strengthened to ensure that future
assessments have these elements and are better integrated into the
forest planning process.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  RCED-00-56
     TITLE:  Forest Service Planning: Better Integration of Broad-Scale
             Assessments Into Forest Plans Is Needed
      DATE:  02/15/2000
   SUBJECT:  Data collection
             National forests
             Forest management
             Environmental policies
             Strategic planning
             Environmental monitoring
IDENTIFIER:  Pacific Northwest Forest Plan
             Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project
             Forest Service Great Lakes Ecological Assessment
             Michigan
             Wisconsin
             Minnesota

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GAO/RCED-00-56

A
Report to Congressional Requesters
February 2000 FOREST SERVICE PLANNING
Better Integration of Broad- Scale Assessments Into Forest Plans Is Needed

Letter 3 Appendixes Appendix I: Other Uses of Data From the Great Lakes Ecological
Assessment 36 Appendix II: Time Line for the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment 38 Appendix III: Funding for the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment 40 Appendix IV: Comments From the Forest Service 42 Appendix V: Scope and Methodology 51 Appendix VI: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments 52
Tables Table 1: Funding for the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment for Fiscal Years 1995- 2000 and Estimated Funding for Fiscal Year 2001 40
Figures Figure 1: The Boundaries of the Lake States National Forests and the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment 19
Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division
Lett er
B- 284394 February 15, 2000 The Honorable Frank Murkowski Chairman, Committee on Energy and
Natural Resources United States Senate
The Honorable Don Young Chairman, Committee on Resources House of Representatives
The U. S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service manages about 192 million acres of land, including about 20 percent of the nation's forestlands. Since 1976, the agency has been required by law to develop a land and resource management plan commonly called a forest plan for each national forest or for groups of forests and to revise each plan at least once every 15 years. A forest plan spells out how the agency intends to (1) meet its responsibilities to protect the lands and resources that it manages and (2) provide products and services to the public. The first round of forest planning began in 1979, when the Forest Service approved the first of 125 plans that cover the 155 forests in the National Forest System. This round concluded with the Forest Service's approval of the last plan in 1995. In the second round of planning, over half of the plans must be revised during fiscal years 2000 through 2002.
In a 1997 report on the Forest Service's planning process, we found that the first round of forest planning was costly and time- consuming and the Forest Service often failed to achieve its planned objectives. 1 These difficulties occurred, in part, because the Forest Service lacked the data and technology to adequately address broad- scale ecological and socioeconomic issues that extend beyond the forests' administrative boundaries and the agency's jurisdiction. Without sound information to address these issues, the Forest Service has faced environmental and other challenges to the legality of its plans and projects, and courts have required the agency to delay, amend, or withdraw them. Moreover, as we reported in
1 Forest Service Decision- Making: A Framework for Improving Performance( GAO/ RCED- 9771, Apr. 29, 1997) and Tongass National Forest: Lack of Accountability for Time and Costs Has Delayed Forest Plan Revision( GAO/ T- RCED- 97- 153, Apr. 29, 1997).
1998, inefficiency and waste within the planning process have cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. 2 To avoid such challenges and reduce inefficiency and waste during the second round of forest planning, most, if not all, of the national forests must improve how they address broad- scale conditions and issues.
Since the early 1990s, a consensus has grown among scientists and federal land managers that ecosystem- based assessments 3 could be useful in addressing broad- scale ecological and socioeconomic issues. The Forest Service has begun to use such assessments in revising its original forest plans during the second round of forest planning. For instance, in January 1995, the agency started the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment to gather and analyze information on ecological, social, and economic conditions- such as vegetation, fire patterns, climatic conditions, land ownership, and seasonal home ownership-to support resource planning and management for the seven national forests in the Lake States region of Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. 4 Moreover, on October 5, 1999, the Forest Service proposed new planning regulations that would encourage all of the national forests to use broad- scale assessments in revising their forest plans. 5
Concerned about the potential costs, timeliness, and effectiveness of the Forest Service's planning process in general and of broad- scale ecosystembased assessments in particular, you asked us to examine several planning efforts, including the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment. In this report, we discuss (1) the views of the Forest Service, other federal agencies, and GAO on the key elements that broad- scale ecosystem based assessments should contain to maximize their value to the forest planning process; (2) the extent to which the Forest Service has incorporated these elements into the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment and whether it has integrated
2 See Forest Service: Lack of Financial and Performance Accountability Has Resulted in Inefficiency and Waste( GAO/ T- RCED/ AIMD- 98- 135, Mar. 26, 1998). 3 An ecosystem is an interconnected community of plants and animals, including humans, and the physical environment within which they interact. 4 The seven Lake States national forests are the Chippewa and Superior in Minnesota; the Ottawa, Hiawatha, and Huron- Manistee in Michigan; and the Chequamegon and Nicolet in Wisconsin. The Chequamegon and Nicolet forests are managed as one administrative unit. The seven forests are located in the Forest Service's Eastern Region (Region 9).
5 64 Fed. Reg. 54074 (Oct. 5, 1999).
the assessment into the forest planning process; and (3) the extent to which the Forest Service's proposed planning regulations ensure that future broad- scale assessments contain these elements and are integrated into the forest planning process.
Results in Brief In recent years, the Forest Service, others, and we have concluded that assessments should have certain key elements or characteristics to
maximize their value in addressing issues that extend beyond the boundaries of national forests. For example, assessments must occur early in the process of revising forest plans and must be open and accessible to all interested federal and nonfederal parties. Forest Service officials in charge of assessments should make clear to the Congress, the public, and their staff what the objectives of the assessment are and what its products will be, as well as who will be responsible for delivering the products, at what time, and at what cost. If the agency does not conduct assessments at all or does not ensure that they contain these and other elements, it increases the risk that the planning process will continue to be costly, timeconsuming, and less than fully effective.
In conducting the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment, the Forest Service has adopted some of these key elements and characteristics. However, regional and forest officials have not viewed the assessment as a priority and have thus not provided the leadership, guidance, and funding necessary to successfully complete it in a timely manner. In our opinion, the Forest Service has not effectively integrated the assessment into its process for revising forest plans in the Lake States. As a result, we believe that the agency risks repeating the inefficiency and waste of resources that occurred during the first round of forest planning, when it did not adequately address broad- scale issues and/ or individual national forests independently attempted to gather and analyze data. Moreover, without the benefit of the assessment's analysis and conclusions on the range of ecologically viable and legally sufficient alternatives, the agency is more likely to find that the public will (1) challenge the revised forest plans, causing the agency to delay, amend, or withdraw them, and (2) become frustrated with the planning process if the management alternatives it helped develop do not prove to be ecologically viable and/ or legally sufficient. Accordingly, we are recommending that the Secretary of Agriculture direct the Chief of the Forest Service to develop a strategy for funding and completing the assessment in time to support the revision of the Lake States forest plans.
The Forest Service's proposed planning regulations also incorporate some of the key elements that are important to broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments, but they could be strengthened to ensure that future assessments have these elements and are better integrated into the forest planning process. For instance, the regulations state that (1) forest plans must be based on the best available scientific information and analyses, including information from a variety of geographic areas, some of which may best be obtained from broad- scale assessments and (2) assessments should be conducted for geographic areas that extend beyond the boundaries of national forests and should reach conclusions. However, the proposed regulations are deficient in important areas. For example, they (1) generally leave the decision on whether to conduct an assessment to the discretion of the Forest Service's national forest supervisors, although it may be more appropriate for higher- level officials to make that decision; (2) do not state when in the planning process an assessment should occur; (3) are silent on the need for clear objectives and identifiable products; and (4) do not require the forests to identify their strategies for involving the public. In light of these deficiencies, we are recommending that the Secretary of Agriculture direct the Chief of the Forest Service to make further revisions to the proposed planning regulations that would maximize the value of broad- scale assessments and better integrate them into the forest planning process.
Background The Forest Service, created in 1905, is required by law to manage its lands to provide high levels of six renewable surface uses-outdoor recreation,
rangeland, timber, watersheds and waterflows, wilderness, and wildlife and fish-to current users while sustaining undiminished the lands' ability to produce these uses for future generations. In addition, the agency is required by its guidance and regulations to consider the production of nonrenewable subsurface resources, such as oil, gas, and hardrock minerals, 6 in its planning.
The field structure of the Forest Service's National Forest System consists of 9 regional offices, 115 forest offices, and 588 district offices that manage lands in 44 states, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. The Eastern Regional Office (Region 9) oversees the national forests in 13 states in the Northeast and Midwest, including the Great Lakes states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and
6 Hardrock minerals include gold, silver, lead, iron, and copper.
Minnesota. 7 The agency is a hierarchical organization whose management is highly decentralized and whose regional foresters and forest supervisors have considerable autonomy and discretion in interpreting and applying the agency's policies and directions.
Legislation Established the In carrying out its mission, the Forest Service follows a planning process
Forest Service's Current that is largely based on laws enacted during the 1970s. This process
Planning Process includes (1) developing a forest plan for managing each forest that blends
national and regional priorities with the local forest's capabilities and needs and (2) reaching project- level decisions for implementing the plan. 8 The plan articulates what the Forest Service expects to do to meet its obligations to manage the national forest for multiple uses in a sustainable manner. The National Forest Management Act of 1976 and its implementing regulations require that the agency, in revising a forest plan, go through a series of steps, including issuing a notice of its intent to the public, presenting a range of management alternatives along with an analysis of their likely effects, soliciting and considering public comments on those alternatives, developing a final alternative, and making a final decision.
In analyzing the potential effects of management alternatives, the Forest Service must comply with the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. This act and its implementing regulations specify procedures for considering the environmental consequences of proposed federal actions and incorporating these considerations and public input into an agency's planning process. The act requires that a federal agency prepare a detailed environmental impact statement for every major federal action that may significantly affect the quality of the human environment. As part of this process, a federal agency must assess the effects of the proposed action in combination with the direct, indirect, and cumulative
7 See our report Land Management: The Forest Service's and BLM's Organizational Structures and Responsibilities( GAO/ RCED- 99- 227, July 29, 1999) for more information on the organizational structure of the Forest Service. 8 Projects are on- the- ground activities, such as harvesting timber, restoring species' habitats, and constructing campsites.
impact 9 of activities occurring on other federal and nonfederal lands. The environmental impact statement is designed to ensure that important effects on the environment will not be overlooked or understated before the government makes a commitment to a proposed action. The Forest Service must also comply with the requirements of other environmental statutes, including the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Wilderness Act, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, as well as of other laws, such as the National Historic Preservation Act.
The Forest Service approved the first forest plans for the national forests in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan in 1986 and must complete their revisions by no later than October 2001. The Forest Service has not yet formally begun revising the plans for the Michigan national forests because of provisions in the agency's appropriations acts for fiscal years 1998 and 1999. These provisions prohibited the Forest Service from expending funds on forest plan revisions until it issued new planning regulations. However, forests were exempted from the moratorium if the Forest Service had notified the public before October 1, 1997, of its intent to revise their plans. In 1996, the Forest Service issued a notice of intent to revise the plans for Wisconsin's national forests, and in 1997 it did the same for Minnesota's national forests. Thus, these forests were exempted from the moratorium. As of January 2000, the agency was in the process of developing management alternatives for these forests, which it plans to present to the public for comment in late 2000 or early 2001.
The Forest Service Has During the past decade, the Forest Service has taken several steps to
Taken Several Steps to improve its planning process. For example, to better accommodate the
Improve Its Planning requirements of the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental
Process Policy Act, and other environmental laws, the Forest Service has turned to
a science- based, ecological approach for managing its lands and resources. This approach, called ecosystem management, integrates ecological capabilities with social values and economic relationships to produce,
9 Regulations issued in 1978 by the Council on Environmental Quality to implement the provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act require federal agencies to assess the effects of a proposed action on such resources as water, wildlife, and soils in combination with those of other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions occurring on both federal and nonfederal lands.
restore, or sustain ecosystems' integrity 10 and desired conditions, uses, products, values, and services over the long term. Ecosystem management takes an integrated, holistic approach to natural resource issues and is therefore suitable for examining ecological and socioeconomic conditions beyond the boundaries of national forests. 11
The agency has positioned itself to better implement ecosystem management by using satellite imagery, geographic information systems, 12 and desktop computer technology. These technologies provide for gathering, interpreting, and manipulating detailed data on a wide variety of ecological and socioeconomic variables covering millions of acres. To further its ecosystem management approach, the Forest Service has used these technological tools to support broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments.
One of the earliest broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments was performed in the Pacific Northwest as part of an effort to develop a regional plan for managing federal lands within the range of the threatened northern spotted owl. 13 When this regional plan, known as the Northwest Forest Plan, was approved in 1994, the courts lifted the injunctions that had barred the Forest Service from selling timber in northern spotted owl habitat. Such assessments have also been done for the interior Columbia River basin, including portions of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, and Utah; the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California; the southern portion of the Appalachian Mountains stretching from northern Virginia and eastern West Virginia to northwestern South
10 The Forest Service defines ecosystem integrity as the completeness of an ecosystem that, at multiple geographic and temporal scales, maintains its characteristic diversity of biological and physical components, spatial patterns, structure, and functional processes within its approximate historical range of variability.
11 For a more complete description of ecosystem management, see Ecosystem Management: Additional Actions Needed to Adequately Test a Promising Approach( GAO/ RCED- 94- 111, Aug. 16, 1994). 12 Geographic information systems technology is the computer hardware and software that allow for the assembly, storage, manipulation, and display of geographic reference data (i. e., data that are associated with specific places on earth, such as the location of a watershed or an old- growth forest).
13 See Ecosystem Planning: Northwest Forest and Interior Columbia River Basin Plans Demonstrate Improvements in Land- Use Planning( GAO/ RCED- 99- 64, May 26, 1999).
Carolina, northern Georgia, and northern Alabama, 14 and the OzarkOuachita Highlands in Arkansas and Missouri.
Broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments can involve other federal land management agencies, such as the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, and the Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as other federal agencies, including the Department of Commerce's National Marine Fisheries Service and the Environmental Protection Agency. For instance, the assessment team for the Northwest Forest Plan included scientists from all of these federal land management and regulatory agencies, while the assessment team for the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project included scientists from these agencies, other federal agencies, and universities.
Key Elements In recent years, the Forest Service and other federal agencies have learned
Maximize the Value of lessons about conducting broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments to
improve land management decisions on federal lands, including national Broad- Scale
forests. 15 Broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments have proved useful in Ecosystem- Based
(1) identifying and addressing ecological, social, and economic issues that Assessments to Forest
extend beyond the boundaries of national forests and (2) defining ranges of ecologically viable and legally sufficient management alternatives and their
Planning consequences. Our work over the past 5 years has shown that in revising
their forest plans, most, if not all, of the national forests must address these types of issues. 16 Doing so is necessary to enable them to comply with laws such as the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. Experience has also shown that certain key elements maximize the value of broad- scale assessments to forest planners. For example, an
14 The Southern Appalachian Assessment: Summary Report, prepared by federal and state agencies and coordinated through the Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere Cooperative (July 1996).
15 See Lessons Learned Workshop: Policy, Process, and Purpose for Conducting Ecoregion Assessments, USDA Forest Service, Albuquerque, New Mexico (July 30 to Aug. 1, 1996), and The Ecosystem Approach: Healthy Ecosystems and Sustainable Economies, Report of the Interagency Ecosystem Management Task Force (June 1995).
16 Ecosystem Management: Additional Actions Needed to Adequately Test a Promising Approach( GAO/ RCED- 94- 111, Aug. 16, 1994), Forest Service Decision- Making: A Framework for Improving Performance( GAO/ RCED- 97- 71, Apr. 29, 1997), and Ecosystem Planning: Northwest Forest and Interior Columbia River Basin Plans Demonstrate Improvements in Land- Use Planning( GAO/ RCED- 99- 64, May 26, 1999).
assessment is more effective if it occurs early in the process of revising a forest plan and is open and accessible to all interested federal and nonfederal parties. Similarly, an assessment is improved when Forest Service officials make clear to the Congress, the public, and agency personnel what its objectives are and what its products will be, as well as who will be responsible for delivering the products, at what time, and at what cost.
Assessments Should Occur To be useful to decisionmakers in developing ecologically viable and legally
Early in the Forest Plan sufficient management alternatives, an assessment should occur early in
Revision Process the process of revising a forest plan. For instance, during the development
of the Northwest Forest Plan, the assessment and the decision- making were conducted sequentially. The assessment, which took about 3 months, was completed first, and the plan was approved about 9 months later. Conversely, during the development of the interior Columbia River basin plan, when the assessment and the decision- making were conducted concurrently, false starts and delays plagued the planning process. Officials responsible for developing the assessment and planning revisions concluded that running parallel assessment and decision- making processes does not work well. According to them, an assessment should be completed before planners identify and propose a range of management alternatives.
The Assessment Process Land managers with relevant experience from the Forest Service and the
Should Be Open to All Department of the Interior agree that the value of broad- scale ecosystemInterested
Parties based assessments is increased if the assessment process is open, and the
results of the assessment are available, to all interested federal and nonfederal parties. These parties include not only federal, state, local, and tribal government agencies but also individual citizens and private landowners, as well as representatives of academia, industry, and interest groups.
Other federal and nonfederal parties can (1) help define the issues that need to be addressed at a broad geographic scale, (2) help identify all pertinent information relating to the issues and often provide information on nonfederal lands and resources more quickly and at less cost than if the Forest Service attempted to develop the data itself, and (3) provide valuable analytical capabilities. In return, assessments can allow the public to participate more meaningfully in the Forest Service's decision- making. Assessments-especially those that make use of geographic information
systems technology and are accessible on the Internet-can (1) provide the public with information on the current condition of federal lands and resources, as well as on the legal requirements and ecological conditions that help define the range of viable management alternatives and their consequences, and (2) allow interested parties to better analyze how various management alternatives might affect the ecological, social, and economic conditions of the region. For example, the data gathered for the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project are stored in geographic information systems and can be retrieved not only by the Forest Service but also by the public. Data gathered for the Southern Appalachian Assessment are also available on the Internet. As a result, pertinent information which is not restricted to the administrative boundaries of the national forests can be used for decision- making by many levels of government.
Although Forest Service land managers agree on the value of public participation in broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments, they also caution that a one- size- fits- all, standardized approach to involvement by interested federal and nonfederal parties is not desirable. Circumstances such as the contentiousness of the issues and the level of public interest and concern, and therefore the most appropriate public participation process, can vary greatly by forest and region.
Assessments Should Have While most, if not all, national forests will need to include broad- scale
Clear Objectives and ecosystem- based assessments in the process for revising their forest plans,
Identifiable Products the objectives of the assessments will vary. Some assessments will address
ecological, social, and/ or economic issues already identified by forest planners. Other assessments will be tasked with identifying issues to be addressed during the revision process. Still other assessments will be asked to do both. Assessments may also provide basic social, economic, and ecological data for a region when it is practical and efficient for them to do so. Therefore, the Forest Service will need to make clear the objectives of a given assessment and the products that will be prepared to support those objectives.
For example, in the Pacific Northwest, the issue at hand was the loss of oldgrowth forests and the associated social and economic effects of trying to restore and preserve the forests. Thus, the assessment focused on developing and analyzing management options to provide the greatest economic and social returns that could be sustained over time without violating laws protecting the northern spotted owl and other old- growth-
dependent species. In the southern Appalachian Mountains, the assessment was tasked with gathering data on conditions in the region in order to identify potentially serious problems before they threatened the well- being of the region's natural resources. In the interior Columbia River basin, the assessment was designed to provide data on conditions in the basin that were directly relevant to a known problem (the conservation of fish habitat), as well as to identify emerging issues related to ecosystem management. In addition, all of these assessments provided basic data on ecological and socioeconomic conditions and made estimates about the probable outcomes of the federal agency's current management practices and trends.
Once the agency has settled on the objectives of an assessment, the likelihood of its achieving them will increase, we believe, if it prepares a thorough scope of work. Such a scope of work would identify what types of products and what level of detail are expected from the assessment team, as well as who is responsible for producing the products and when they are to be delivered. A scope of work is useful for holding agency personnel accountable and for communicating the design of the assessment to the Congress, the public, and other interested parties.
Assessments Should Be There is a general consensus that for an assessment to be effective, it
Conducted for Appropriate should be conducted within a geographic area that coincides with the
Geographic Areas and nature of the issues to be addressed or has common ecological or
Should Include Both socioeconomic conditions. For example, to address the habitat needs of
the northern spotted owl, the assessment conducted for the Northwest Federal and Nonfederal
Forest Plan gathered and analyzed information on the availability and Lands
condition of habitat for the species within its natural range. Other issues, such as providing high- quality water and restoring aquatic systems, are being addressed at smaller, more appropriate geographic scales. Moreover, the plan can be tailored to the ecological conditions of particular geographic areas (e. g., old- growth rain forests in western Washington and drier forests in northern California).
The boundaries of other assessments have been determined by a combination of ecological and socioeconomic conditions rather than a single, or several, core issues. For example, the boundary of the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Management Project study area was a consensus boundary based on a wide variety of ecological and social issues, most of which did not correspond to one another geographically.
There is also a general consensus that for assessments to be effective, they should include both federal and nonfederal lands. This is especially true in areas such as the southern Appalachian Mountains, where the majority of the land is in nonfederal ownership and the Forest Service must work with other landowners to adequately address broad- scale ecological and socioeconomic issues. The Southern Appalachian Assessment covered some 37.4 million acres of land, of which almost 84 percent is in private ownership.
Assessments Should Include Although their objectives will vary, all assessments should include three
Data Gathering, Analyses, basic steps gathering data; analyzing data; and drawing conclusions about
and Conclusions but Not past, current, and likely future ecological, social, and/ or economic trends
Make Decisions and conditions. Assessments do not, however, result in decisions.
By using past conditions (historic range of variability) as a baseline and comparing them to current and projected future conditions, an assessment team should draw conclusions about which ecosystems are functioning well and which are degraded or on the way toward degradation and thus are in need of restoration or protection. Assessment teams tasked with identifying issues will do so on the basis of these conclusions. For assessments designed to address known issues, these conclusions help identify the location for implementing possible solutions and the range of ecologically viable alternatives.
For example, the science assessment team involved in developing a management plan for federal lands in the interior Columbia River basin gathered and analyzed ecological, social, and economic data and then made predictions about potential future ecological and economic conditions under three different management scenarios-the status quo (which would combine commodity production and conservation), aggressive restoration, and a system of reserves in which human activity would be limited. These predictions helped the project's planning team explore a range of management alternatives that could sustain the ecosystem while meeting the public's needs for products and services. Similarly, the Southern Appalachian Assessment supported the revision of individual forest plans by gathering and analyzing large quantities of data to understand, among other things, how lands, resources, economies, and people are related within the larger context of the surrounding lands and how national forest management affects their relationships.
While broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments should reach conclusions, they should not result in decisions. As noted in the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project, the mix of products and services provided on federal lands is as much a social decision as it is a scientific one and trade- offs among legally sufficient and ecologically viable management alternatives are ultimately made by society. Similarly, the Southern Appalachian Assessment stated that the assessment does not attempt to provide solutions for the problems identified. The assessment avoided prescriptions because prescribing is a political process in which all Americans must have a part. Instead, the assessment team tried to provide the information that people need for a productive discussion of the issues.
In the past, the Forest Service has used broad- scale assessments to support its decision- making process in two different ways. One approach has been to use an assessment as the basis for agency decisions that apply simultaneously to multiple forests (the President's Northwest Forest Plan). The second approach has been to use an assessment as the basis for decisions made separately by individual forest supervisors (the Southern Appalachian Assessment). The agency has not chosen a preferred approach, and both may be valid, depending on regional circumstances.
Regardless of which approach the Forest Service chooses, it is important for the agency to maintain the data, maps, and other products of assessments for future use and update the data over time. Under law, forest plans must be revised periodically and can be amended when circumstances warrant. Therefore, information on broad- scale issues will continue to be relevant to the agency's decision- making. Several approaches could be used to keep broad- scale data useful, depending on the type of data. For example, some landscape conditions covered by assessments such as soil types or the location of water bodies-will not change appreciably over time. Data on these conditions do not need to be updated but must be maintained in a usable form. Other conditions-such as the human population or forest cover-will change appreciably over time across the assessment area as a result of the actions of many landowners, not just the Forest Service. Such data could periodically be updated for the assessment area; the frequency of the updates might depend on the rate of change relative to the cost of the update. A third category of conditions includes the results of the Forest Service's own actions, such as timber harvesting, road construction, or stream restoration on its own land. Currently, the Forest Service monitors the site- specific effects of these types of activities, but such monitoring does not fully capture changes in broad- scale conditions. In 1997, we reported that the Forest Service had
not made monitoring a high priority and that a lack of thorough monitoring data had hampered its decision- making ability. 17
Assessments' Costs Should Although broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments cost money to
Be Identified and Funding perform, they can save both time and money if they eliminate duplicative
Should Be Secured data gathering and analysis by individual national forests. Performing
assessments also increases the likelihood that the Forest Service will avoid or prevail against challenges to its compliance with environmental and other laws. However, federal funding and resources may not be sufficient to cover all of the issues that could be addressed or to gather all of the potentially limitless ecological, economic, and social data that could be collected. Therefore, realistic objectives and estimates of resource needs- and of what can be expected from an assessment given different funding levels-need to be identified before an assessment is begun. Additionally, the Forest Service needs to allocate funds to accomplish the objectives in a timely manner.
The costs and time to do assessments can vary widely. For example, the assessment for the Northwest Forest Plan was completed in about 3 months and cost less than $3.5 million. The assessment for the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project took several years and cost about $22.7 million.
The Northwest Forest Plan assessment focused primarily on the northern spotted owl and other old- growth- dependent species and left other issues, such as providing high- quality water, to be addressed at smaller, more appropriate, geographic scales. The assessment for the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project addressed not just old- growthdependent species but also other endangered and threatened species-such as anadromous fish (including salmon) and the grizzly bear-with different and/ or more extensive habitat requirements. The assessment also addressed issues such as costly outbreaks of wildfires, insects, and diseases; invasions of exotic weeds; declines in soil fertility and water and air quality; wilderness preservation; mounting legal challenges; and unpredictable flows of commodities such as timber and livestock forage. The assessment team for the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project assembled over 170 data layers or maps of particular
17 Forest Service Decision- Making: A Framework for Improving Performance( GAO/ RCED97- 71, Apr. 29, 1997).
variables, such as vegetation types, grizzly bear range, employment, and income.
The Great Lakes Regional and forest officials conducting the Great Lakes Ecological
Ecological Assessment Assessment have implemented some of the lessons learned about the key
elements of assessments but have not viewed it as a priority and thus have Includes Some Key
not provided the leadership, guidance, and funding necessary to Elements but Has Not
successfully complete it in a timely manner. As a result, the assessment has Been Well Integrated
not been well integrated into the process being used to revise forest plans in the Lake States region. If these problems are not corrected, the agency
Into Forest Planning risks (1) repeating the inefficiency and waste that occurred during the first
round of forest planning, (2) spending even more money to defend against subsequent challenges to the forest plans' ecological viability and legality, and (3) frustrating members of the public who were encouraged to offer alternatives but were not given the information needed to develop them.
The Forest Service Has The Forest Service has implemented some of the lessons learned about the
Implemented Some of the key elements of broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments to support the
Lessons Learned about Key Lake States national forests in revising their plans. For instance, the agency
Elements is conducting the assessment at a geographic scale that will allow it to
address ecological and socioeconomic issues that extend beyond the forests' administrative boundaries. In addition, it is gathering data extensively and making the data available to the national forests, as well as to other interested federal and nonfederal parties.
The Assessment Is Being The Great Lakes Ecological Assessment is being conducted at a geographic
Conducted at Appropriate scale that will allow the Forest Service to address ecological and
Geographic Scales and Includes socioeconomic issues that extend beyond the forests' administrative
Both Federal and Nonfederal boundaries. The geographic area covered by the assessment is based on (1)
Lands the Forest Service's National Hierarchical Framework of Ecological Units,
which identifies areas with common ecological features, conditions, and issues, 18 and (2) the location of major cities linked to the forests'
18 In Nov. 1993, the Forest Service adopted the National Hierarchical Framework of Ecological Units as a classification and mapping system for use in forest planning. This hierarchy divides the earth into ecological units that have similar biological and physical potential. In other words, combinations of similar factors, such as climate, soil type, vegetation and water availability, are often indicative of certain types of ecosystems that can be classified and mapped.
management. The area of ecological interest within the assessment area encompasses approximately 62. 7 million acres (98,000 square miles) in northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, including about 6. 5 million acres of national forestland (see fig. I). The area is characterized by conifer (e. g., spruce; fir; and white, red, and jack pine) and deciduous (e. g., maple, oak, aspen, birch, beech) tree species across relatively flat terrain shaped in the past by glaciers and now dotted with thousands of freshwater lakes. The climate is temperate and is affected by the presence of the Great Lakes. The socioeconomic area covered by the assessment extends farther south to encompass such cities as Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis- St. Paul.
Figure 1: The Boundaries of the Lake States National Forests and the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment Superior N.F. Chippewa N.F.
Ottawa N.F. Hiawatha N.F.
MINNESOTA
Chequamegon N.F.
St. Paul
Nicolet N.F. Huron N.F.
Minneapolis WISCONSIN
Manistee N.F.
Milwaukee MICHIGAN
Detroit IOWA
Chicago OHIO ILLINOIS INDIANA Socioeconomic analysis area
National forest Ecological analysis area
Source: Forest Service.
Using the National Hierarchical Framework of Ecological Units, the assessment team has divided the geographic area bounded by the assessment into ecological units at four nested geographic scales ranging from hundreds of acres to millions of square miles. While the largest unit is defined solely by geomorphology 19 and climate, the smaller units are refined to include specific soil and plant characteristics. This classification system provides land managers with information for making informed decisions for different ecological areas. For example, an outbreak of a forest pest may be influenced by management decisions across a large ecological unit, while the viability of a particular plant species may be linked to management decisions that affect a very small ecological unit.
An Extensive Amount of Data Since it was organized in 1995, the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment
Has Been Gathered and Made team has gathered an extensive amount of ecological and socioeconomic
Available to Interested Parties data. These data have been made available to the Lake States national
forests, as well as to other interested federal and nonfederal parties. Originally, the assessment was to have two phases. During the first phase, the assessment team would gather data on ecological and socioeconomic issues. During the second phase, the team would analyze the data and draw conclusions, which it would report to the national forests and others. The assessment team has assembled over 150 sets of environmental, ecological, biological, social, and economic data and has produced maps of many of these data sets across the assessment area. 20 All of the maps produced by the assessment team are integrated into geographic information systems that allow them to be overlaid to provide more information about possible relationships among ecological, social, and economic conditions.
The assessment team has facilitated the consistent classification and mapping of similar ecological units across the Lake States an outcome of particular importance to land managers. 21 This information is useful in developing forest plans because it identifies areas at different geographic
19 Geomorphology refers to features of the earth's surface, such as mountains and valleys. 20 The data are both tabular and spatial. The two kinds of data sets can be illustrated as follows: Tabular data can show, for example, the percentages of the Lake States national forests that are covered with jack pine, aspen/ birch, and oak ecosystems. Spatial data can show where these different ecosystems are located on a map.
21 This work builds on efforts initiated in the early 1990s by the Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin departments of natural resources and federal agencies, including the Forest Service, to map similar ecological units consistently across the three states.
scales that have relatively uniform ecological conditions, such as similar forest types or comparable susceptibility to wildfire. In combination with information on factors such as climate and soil type, this information can be used to identify an area's ecological potential. The information can also be used in reaching project- level decisions such as restoring an endangered species' habitat, harvesting timber, or building roads because areas with relatively uniform ecological conditions tend to respond similarly to specific management activities.
Most of the data assembled by the assessment team had already been gathered but were being maintained by a variety of federal, state, and academic organizations, including the Lake State forests, and thus were not always compatible from place to place. The assessment team has made the data more compatible by using consistent definitions, computer systems, and scales of mapping. For example, the team stitched together three independently developed state- specific maps of historical forest types into one map that allows comparisons of forest types across the states and between past and current conditions. To facilitate data gathering during the first few years, the assessment team worked closely with many parties, including natural resource scientists and specialists in federal, state, and local governments; academia; and nongovernmental organizations.
To share the data gathered, the assessment team has made its data sets and maps available not only to the national forests but also to the public and other government agencies, either directly or on the Internet. In the opinion of some of the state officials with whom we spoke, the assessment has been a model in terms of sharing information and expertise between federal and state agencies. The officials attributed savings in both time and resources to the data and expertise provided by or gleaned from the assessment. (For more detail, see app. I.) On the other hand, the representatives of some nongovernmental organizations told us either they were largely unaware of the assessment's work until mid- 1998 or they thought public participation was very limited.
Other Lessons About Key Other lessons learned about how to conduct broad- scale ecosystem- based
Elements of Assessments assessments have not been applied in the Lake States. The Forest Service
Have Not Been Applied has not given the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment clear objectives that
would support forest planning and has not integrated the assessment's products and timing into the agency's schedules for revising the national forest plans. In fact, the assessment team recently concluded that formal
linkages between the [assessment] and national forest planning do not exist.
The Assessment Does Not Have In the 5 years since the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment began, the
Clear Objectives Linked to the Forest Service has never clearly identified its objectives with respect to
Forest Planning Process forest planning. (See app. II for a time line of the assessment.) In addition,
the assessment has relied on funding from a variety of sources at various times for a variety of purposes. (See app. III for a description of the assessment's funding for fiscal years 1995 through 2001.) As a result, the assessment's objectives have, at one time or another, been expanded to include activities that do not directly support the Lake States national forests in revising their plans and contracted to exclude other activities that would assist them in reaching more informed decisions.
As originally proposed by Forest Service ecologists in September 1994, the assessment was not intended to directly support the Lake States forests in revising their plans. Rather, it was intended to (1) study fire- dependent ecosystems 22 in the Lake States to improve the agency's management of them and (2) further refine and demonstrate the usefulness of geographic information system technology and the Forest Service's National Hierarchical Framework of Ecological Units. The assessment team has continued to receive funding from the Forest Service as well as from other sources to address these objectives. However, the assessment team leader and the Forest Service expected that the assessment, though not directly supporting the plans' revisions, would indirectly support the forests in their planning and management activities because of the general nature of the data being collected.
22 Forests, grasslands, and other ecosystems historically composed of plant species that evolved with and are maintained by periodic fire.
In November 1994, planners with the Lake States national forests requested that the proposal be expanded to include a comprehensive ecological assessment of the Lake States. Their hope was that the assessment would identify the unique benefits that the forests could provide in the region and would assist the planners in assessing the large- scale effects of proposed actions. In January 1995, the supervisors for the Lake States national forests agreed to provide seed money for the assessment. They also agreed that the assessment should include social and economic issues. At the same time, the supervisors, together with the Eastern Regional Office, initiated a project to identify (1) issues affecting the Lake States region that transcend the boundaries of individual national forests and (2) the data and analysis that would be needed to address these issues in revising the forest plans. That project was completed in November 1995 and identified 15 broad- scale issues such as loss of species' diversity, recreational demands, and timber supply and recommended that data be gathered and analyzed to address the issues. 23 The assessment team has gathered some readily available data on these and other issues.
Although the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment has received funding from the Lake States forests, it has also relied on funding from sources other than the Forest Service to operate. In fiscal years 1996 through 1998, the assessment received 45 percent of its funding from the National Partnership for Reinventing Government. 24 According to the assessment team leader and others, this infusion of money allowed the team to significantly increase its data gathering and, without it, the team would likely have been able to gather data only on fire- dependent systems, as originally proposed. However, restrictions on the use of funds from other sources have limited the team's ability to respond to the immediate needs of the forest planning teams. For example, under the funding agreement, the assessment team devoted resources to data visualization and decision support systems (ecosystem modeling) that the forests did not ask for and have not used. In addition, according to some forest officials, the assessment team was unable to respond to requests for data from the forests because it was engaged in meeting obligations under its funding
23 North Woods Broad- Scale Issue Identification Project: A Working Document for the Lake States National Forests, Lake States Issue Assessment Team, Forest Service (Nov. 1995). 24 The National Partnership for Reinventing Government (formerly known as the National Performance Review) was initiated by the administration in 1993 to improve the efficiency and quality of individual agencies' operations, as well as of governmentwide systems, such as those for procurement and budgeting.
agreement. Similarly, in July 1999, the assessment team received funding from the Joint Fire Science Program. 25 While this money allowed the assessment team to gather data on and analyze natural disturbance patterns, the funds cannot be used to address social and economic issues.
The Assessment's Products and To provide for constructive public participation in the process of revising
Timing Have Not Been Integrated the plans for the Lake States national forests and to allow the forests to
Into the Forest Service's make timely, informed decisions, the assessment team should have
Schedules for Revising National completed its analysis of the broad- scale issues identified in November
Forest Plans 1995 and reached conclusions early in the process. The team and the
national forests have analyzed some of the data gathered to date, but other data have not been gathered, and conclusions have not been reached on many of the issues identified in November 1995. In addition, in November 1999-4 years after the first broad- scale issues were identified and about a year before the Minnesota and Wisconsin national forests are scheduled to issue draft alternatives-the Lake States national forests requested substantial additional information and analysis to support revisions to their forest plans. Only then did the forest supervisors and the assessment team meet to discuss products, schedules, and costs.
The assessment team has done, or is currently doing, some analysis of the data it has gathered, including (1) comparing past and current vegetation and disturbance patterns and (2) assessing the best locations for white pine ecosystem restoration projects. In addition, the individual Lake States national forests are using the assessment's data and maps to help them address broad- scale issues and develop management alternatives. For example, officials at the Chequamegon and Nicolet national forests in Wisconsin have used the assessment's data sets, maps, and geographic information systems to help assess (1) resource conditions and trends on the national forests and other lands, (2) the existing management direction of the national forests, and (3) the forests' unique role in northern Wisconsin. The forests concluded that they have greater potential than other lands in the region to provide large, continuous areas of northern hardwoods (maple, oak, and beech) important habitat for many species such as migratory birds. Officials on the Chippewa and Superior national
25 The Joint Fire Science Program is funded and administered by the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Geological Survey. The program is intended to provide federal land managers with information and tools for managing wildland fuels (trees, shrubs, grasses) so as to prevent the catastrophic wildfires that degrade the health of ecosystems and place people and infrastructure at risk.
forests in Minnesota told us they were using the assessment's data to provide (1) the public with quantitative descriptions of the forests' ecological units for use in developing management alternatives and (2) input for a model that analyzes the social and economic consequences of management alternatives. According to a resource specialist working for the Huron and Manistee national forests in Michigan, she used the assessment's maps of ecological units to update the regional list of sensitive species by identifying habitats in the Lake States similar to those on the forests and looking for occurrences of the species in those areas.
However, in November 1999, the Lake States national forests requested substantial additional data and analysis to support revisions of their forest plans, including assistance in identifying the historic range of variability to help define a range of ecologically viable and legally sufficient management alternatives. 26 The forests also needed more data on and analysis of (1) rare conditions such as old- growth forest, (2) habitat fragmentation, and (3) timber supply, especially regarding the role of the national forests in sustaining timber production. In addition, the forests requested that the assessment team provide more narrative discussion to help them understand the data and analyses. Some of the data that the forest supervisors requested in November 1999-including information on the historic range of variability and habitat fragmentation-were identified as needed for forest planning in November 1995 by the North Woods BroadScale Issue Identification Project.
Meanwhile, the Wisconsin and Minnesota national forests should be well along in the process of revising their forest plans. The Chequamegon and Nicolet national forests notified the public of their intent to revise their plan in 1996, and the Chippewa and Superior national forests notified the public of their intent to revise their plans in 1997. These forests are scheduled to issue their draft proposals late in 2000 or early in 2001.
To be useful to the national forests in developing ecologically viable and legally sufficient management alternatives, the assessment should have already completed its data gathering and analysis and reached conclusions. However, the forest supervisors' request for data in November 1999
26 The historic range of variability is defined as the limits of change in the composition, structure, and processes of the biological and physical components of an ecosystem resulting from natural variations in the frequency, magnitude, and patterns of natural disturbances and ecological processes characteristic of an area before European settlement.
indicates that much is yet to be done. The assessment team leader told us that the team would not be able to provide all of the data and analysis by the time they are needed under current funding and staffing levels. As we observed in the first round of forest planning, such gaps in data and analysis could further delay the forests' plan revision schedules. Alternatively, the plans could be revised before broad- scale ecological and socioeconomic issues are adequately addressed. Moreover, without the benefit of the assessment's analyses and conclusions, the Forest Service cannot adequately identify the range of ecologically viable and legally sufficient alternatives and their ecological and socioeconomic consequences. As a result, the revised forest plans are more likely to be challenged, and the agency is more likely to delay, amend, or withdraw the plans. Under either scenario, residents of the Lake States who are economically dependent on the forests, communities and elected officials, and regional businesses and organizations live in uncertainty of the forests' future. In addition, individual forests risk increasing public frustration with the planning process if the management alternatives developed with public participation prove not to be ecologically viable and/ or legally sufficient. For example, the Chippewa and Superior national forests solicited and received proposals for management alternatives from several public interest groups. Those groups invested time and resources working on proposals without the benefit of thorough information on the historic range of variability, even though the forests stated the requirement that alternatives lead to conditions that fall within that range.
Integration Into Forest Despite the recognized benefits of broad- scale ecosystem- based
Planning Has Not Occurred assessments in revising forest plans, the Forest Service's regional and
Because the Assessment forest officials have not viewed the assessment as a priority. Thus, they
Has Not Been a High have been unwilling to provide the leadership, guidance, and funding
necessary to complete the assessment in a timely manner. As we reported Priority
in 1999, issues that the Forest Service treats as priorities (1) benefit from a sense of urgency and strong leadership by top- level management, (2) are addressed through a strategy that provides the agency's managers with adequate direction and sets standards for holding them accountable, and (3) receive the resources necessary to implement the strategy. 27 The Great Lakes Ecological Assessment meets none of these criteria.
27 Western National Forests: Status of Forest Service's Efforts to Reduce Catastrophic Wildfire Threats (GAO/ T- RCED- 99- 241, June 29, 1999).
Although the issues being addressed by the assessment extend beyond the administrative boundaries of the individual Lake States national forests, neither the Forest Service's Eastern Regional Office nor the forest supervisors have provided the needed leadership. Rather, the assessment team has assumed leadership by default. Moreover, neither the region nor the forests felt an urgent need to complete the assessment in a timely manner. According to the assessment team leader, he first learned of the schedules for revising the Wisconsin and Minnesota national forest plans when the Forest Service notified the public of its intent to revise the plans in 1996 and 1997, respectively. Additionally, the forest supervisors and the team leader did not meet until November 1999 to discuss objectives, time frames, or costs for obtaining specific types of data and analyses the forests would need to finish revising their plans-4 years after the forests identified the broad- scale issues they would need to analyze in revising their plans.
In addition, Forest Service headquarters did not provide the region with any written guidance or directives on when to conduct the assessment or how to use its products, nor did it set standards for holding the region accountable. The region, in turn, took a hands- off approach and gave the forest supervisors the discretion to use or not use the assessment as they saw fit. An Eastern Region official told us the region did not believe that guidance was needed because the forest supervisors had originally supported the assessment and thus did not need to be told to use it. Our discussions with current and former staff on the forests and the assessment team revealed, however, that some forest supervisors and some regional officials were reluctant to support the assessment.
The final, and probably the most telling, indication that the assessment is not a high priority is the lack of attention given to its funding needs. The region and forests never asked the assessment team to identify what could be expected from the assessment given different funding levels, nor did they rank the issues identified in 1995 and 1999 so that available funds would be allocated to the agency's highest priorities. According to one of the forest supervisors who agreed to fund the assessment in 1995, the supervisors provided only modest seed money to begin the assessment because they did not expect the assessment to succeed in supporting revisions to forest plans. Another forest supervisor, who agreed to fund the assessment in 1995, told us that the supervisors as a group wanted to limit the scope of the assessment and tried to do so by limiting its funding.
Furthermore, unlike the Northwest Forest Plan and the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project, the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment has not been identified as a special project for funding in the Forest Service's fiscal year budget justifications, and the region has not withheld money from the forests' annual budgets to fund the assessment. Without adequate funding from the Forest Service, the assessment team has had to seek funding from other sources and has had to complete some activities that have not directly served the most immediate needs of forest planners.
Proposed Planning For broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments to be of value, the Forest
Regulations Need to Service will need to integrate them into its planning process. Toward this
end, on October 5, 1999, the agency proposed regulations that would revise Better Integrate
its process for developing forest plans. The draft regulations address some Assessments Into the
of the lessons learned to date about the key elements of broad- scale Planning Process
ecosystem based assessments and their role in forest planning. However, the regulations could be strengthened to ensure that they contain those key elements and are better integrated into the forest planning process.
Proposed Regulations The Forest Service's proposed planning regulations address some of the
Address Some Lessons lessons learned about the key elements of broad- scale ecosystem- based
Learned About Key assessments. For instance, they state that (1) forest plans must be based on
Elements the best available scientific information and analyses, including
information from a variety of geographic areas, some of which can only be obtained, or can best be obtained, from broad- scale assessments, and (2) assessments should be conducted at appropriate geographic scales and reach conclusions.
The draft regulations establish ecological, social, and economic sustainability as the overall goal for managing the national forests and state that ecological sustainability-on which social and economic sustainability depends is the agency's first priority. 28 To maintain and restore ecological sustainability, the proposed regulations would require the collection and analysis of information on ecosystems' composition, structure, and
28 Ecological sustainability is defined as the maintenance or restoration of an ecological system's composition, structure, and function, which are characteristic of a plan area over time and space, including but not limited to ecological processes, biological diversity, and the productive capacity of ecological systems.
processes. Such information includes the types and distribution of animal and plant species and the frequency and intensity of fires, pest infestations, and other natural disturbances-at multiple geographic and time scales, including historic and current conditions. Likewise, the draft regulations would require the collection and analysis of social and economic data such as industry employment and demographics-to help in understanding how social and economic sustainability is linked to ecological sustainability over space and time. Broad- scale assessments are often the only or the best source for some of this information, and the proposed regulations describe such assessments as a key element of the planning process.
The draft rules also discuss the appropriate geographic scales for assessments and identify how the assessments may be used in decisionmaking. According to the proposed regulations, assessments of ecological issues should be conducted within broad ecological boundaries on the basis of biological or geographic characteristics, such as the habitat range of a species. The draft rules also require that broad- scale assessments be more than just compilations of data. Instead, according to the rules, they should include findings and conclusions. These may be used in revising forest plans or in other planning activities, such as developing conservation strategies to protect sensitive species with wide- ranging habitats.
Proposed Regulations Could The Forest Service's proposed planning regulations do not adequately
Be Strengthened to Better reflect other lessons learned about conducting broad- scale ecosystembased
Integrate Assessments Into assessments. Hence, they could be strengthened to better integrate
Forest Planning assessments into forest planning. For example, they (1) generally leave
decisions about whether to conduct assessments to the discretion of the Forest Service's national forest supervisors, who have considerable autonomy for interpreting and applying the agency's policies; (2) do not state when in the process assessments should occur; (3) are silent on the need for clear objectives and identifiable products; and (4) do not require the regional offices and forests to identify their strategies for involving the public.
When revising their forest plans, most, if not all, of the national forests must address ecological, social, and economic issues that extend beyond their administrative boundaries (and often extend into other national forests). Most of the forests also lack the data and analyses to address these issues effectively. The draft regulations generally leave the decision about whether to conduct a broad- scale assessment to the discretion of the
forest supervisor. As evidenced in the Lake States region, the integration of broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments into forest planning, if left to the discretion of the forest supervisors, will be uneven and mixed throughout the agency, and some forests may lack the information they need to make informed decisions. In addition, because forest supervisors are typically responsible for individual forests, they may not be in the best position to decide when a broad- scale assessment should be done. While the proposed regulations would allow forest supervisors to combine their planning activities or would authorize one or more regional foresters or the Chief to take the lead in planning activities, the proposed regulations do not assign responsibility or institute a process for ensuring that such coordination will occur when warranted.
In addition, the proposed regulations state that planning must be done expeditiously and that forests should aim to complete the planning process within 3 years. However, the draft rules do not state that assessments should occur early in the revision of forest plans to provide for constructive public participation in the revision and to allow the forests to make timely, informed decisions.
Moreover, although the objectives of assessments and the methods of conveying their results will vary, the proposed regulations say nothing about the need for clear objectives and identifiable products. For example, the proposed regulations do not specify the need for a well- defined scope of work or a charter that would identify who is responsible for completing specific products in accordance with a time line and at a particular cost. Furthermore, although the proposed regulations call for future forest plans to summarize the cost of projected work, including assessments, they do not appear to recognize the need to authorize, fund, and conduct an assessment before revising a forest plan.
According to the proposed regulations, public participation and collaboration occur throughout all phases of the forest planning process, including assessments. Additionally, according to the proposed regulations, the public should be given an opportunity to participate in assessments and must be provided with the information necessary to fully engage in the planning process. However, the proposed regulations do not require regional offices and forests to identify how the public and other governmental entities will participate in assessments and in revising forest plans. By contrast, the planning regulations that the Forest Service proposed in April 1995 but never finalized would have required the national forests to develop communications strategies describing how
the public and other government entities would participate in all stages of revising a forest plan, including the prerevision process. 29 This process was described as a data collection and analysis exercise that would have served roughly the same function as a broad- scale assessment under the regulations currently being proposed. The regulations proposed in April 1995 would have required agency officials to invite the public and others to express their ideas and suggestions on a communications strategy and meet with interested representatives of other federal agencies and state, local, and tribal governments to establish and document procedures for ongoing coordination and communication throughout the plan revision process. The Forest Service would then have documented these procedures and made them available to the public.
Conclusions The Forest Service has an opportunity to improve the value of broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments in forest planning, both in the Lake States
and across the country. The Forest Service is revising the plans for the Lake States national forests and is fast approaching the legal deadline for doing so. However, the agency lacks information and analysis that would support its planning process and could be provided by the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment. Without a committed effort by the Forest Service to strengthen the execution of the assessment, the agency will be hampered in its ability to propose and choose among ecologically viable and legally sufficient management alternatives. Nationally, broad- scale assessments will be affected by the Forest Service's proposed new planning regulations. The Forest Service has the opportunity to learn from its experience in the Lake States and elsewhere and to institutionalize these lessons in its regulations and guidance. However, the proposed planning regulations do not take all of the steps necessary to maximize the value of assessments in the forest planning process.
Recommendations to To better integrate the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment into the process
the Secretary of used by the Lake States national forests to revise their plans, we
recommend that the Secretary of Agriculture direct the Chief of the Forest Agriculture
Service to develop a strategy that would allow the assessment team to gather and analyze data and reach conclusions on broad- scale planningrelated issues identified by the forests before the forests identify a range of
29 60 Fed. Reg. 18886 (Apr. 13, 1995).
ecologically viable and legally sufficient management alternatives. If time and/ or funding is not available to allow the assessment team to gather and analyze data and reach conclusions on these planning- related issues, then the region and forests will need to (1) rank the issues so that the available time and funds can be applied to the highest priorities and (2) identify the likely consequences of not addressing other issues-such as the increased likelihood of subsequent legal challenges to the plans' implementation to assist the Forest Service and the Congress in making additional funding decisions.
To institutionalize the lessons learned about the key elements of broadscale assessments, we recommend that the Secretary of Agriculture direct the Chief of the Forest Service to make further revisions to the agency's planning regulations. These revisions should make clear that broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments must be used in revising forest plans unless the region( s) and forests can justify their omission. The revisions should also provide that when a decision is made to conduct an assessment, the region( s) and forests must prepare a strategy that identifies, among other things, (1) how the assessment will be linked to the forest plan's revision, (2) how the public and other governmental entities will participate in the revision process, (3) what objectives the assessment will meet and what products it will generate, including those of the highest priority, and (4) how much the assessment will cost, how funding will be secured for it, and what is likely to happen if full funding is not available.
Agency Comments and We provided copies of a draft of this report to the Forest Service for review
Our Evaluation and comment. The agency focused its comments on our discussion of the
Great Lakes Ecological Assessment and the proposed planning regulations. According to the Forest Service, the report accurately reflects the facts surrounding the agency's planning and the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment. However, the agency disagreed with our recommendation that it develop a strategy to guide the integration of the assessment with the Lake State forests' planning process because it does not believe that the forests need to rely on the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment to complete their forest plan revisions. We believe that the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment is the most appropriate mechanism for addressing broad- scale issues and needs to be fully integrated with the planning process to ensure that these issues are properly addressed. In addition, the Forest Service concurred with the desired outcome of our recommendation on further revisions to the agency's proposed planning regulations namely, that broad- scale assessments be better integrated into forests' planning
processes but it disagreed that the proposed regulations needed to be modified to accomplish this. We believe that modifying the proposed regulations will help hold agency officials accountable for integrating assessments into the planning process.
The Forest Service agreed that the Lake State forests need additional information and analysis to identify a range of ecologically viable and legally sufficient management alternatives, but it did not agree with our recommendation that it develop a strategy for integrating the assessment into the forests' planning process. The Forest Service commented that there are sources other than the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment for this information and analysis such as the individual forests. We do not maintain that the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment must be the only source of information for the plan revision teams. However, we believe that using a centralized broad- scale assessment, rather than relying on decentralized efforts at each national forest, would (1) help to ensure that all of the individual forests have information on issues that extend beyond their boundaries; (2) reduce the costs of gathering and analyzing the data; and (3) increase the likelihood that the data would be consistently formatted and analyzed. We modified our recommendation to emphasize that the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment should be the primary vehicle for gathering data and conducting analysis to address broad- scale issues.
The Forest Service did not agree with the portion of our recommendation stating that the proposed planning regulations should require broad- scale assessments to be done unless the region( s) and forests can justify not doing so. The agency believes this would be unnecessary because the intent of the proposed regulations is to base decisions on scientific data, including broad- scale data when appropriate. On the basis of our work over the past 5 years, however, we believe that the need for an assessment will be the rule rather than the exception. Because the agency has not based its decisions on the appropriate broad- scale data in the past, we believe it would be prudent, and not burdensome, to require the agency to justify its decision not to conduct broad- scale assessments when revising forest plans. When an exception is warranted as in the instances cited in the Forest Service's comments we do not believe the agency will have difficulty explaining and justifying its decision. In addition, the agency disagreed with our recommendation that the proposed planning regulations be revised to require a strategy identifying the key elements of each assessment, including its objectives, time frames, and costs. Instead, the Forest Service believes that such guidance should be left to the agency's manuals and directives. However, given the difficulties the agency
has experienced because it has not always based its land management decisions on adequate science, especially regarding issues that extend beyond the boundaries of national forests, we believe that this requirement should be included in the planning regulations. We agree that the Forest Service should provide more specific details about how to prepare this strategy in its manuals and directives.
The Forest Service's written comments and and our detailed response to them are found in appendix IV of this report.
We conducted our work from June 1999 through January 2000 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Appendix V provides information on our scope and methodology.
As arranged with your offices, unless you publicly announce its contents earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days after the date of this letter. At that time, we will send copies of this report to Senator Bingaman, Ranking Minority Member, Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and Representative George Miller, Ranking Minority Member, House Committee on Resources. We are also sending copies of this report to the Honorable Dan Glickman, Secretary of Agriculture; the Honorable Mike Dombeck, Chief of the Forest Service; and other interested parties. We will make copies available to others on request.
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please call me at (202) 512- 3841. Key contributors to this report are listed in appendix VI.
Jim Wells Director, Energy, Resources,
and Science Issues
Appendi xes Other Uses of Data From the Great Lakes
Appendi xI
Ecological Assessment The data assembled by the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment have been used for purposes other than supporting the Lake States national forests in revising their plans. State agencies, environmental groups, and timber industry organizations have reported using the assessment's data. Some of these users consider the data to be the best available and believe that the assessment team has presented the data in a neutral, easy- to- understand format. According to the Forest Service, the assessment has produced cost savings and prevented duplication of effort by providing reliable, accessible data in a regional context.
For example, the three Lake States-Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin- own and manage millions of acres of state forestlands. Like the Forest Service, these states must develop management plans for the forestlands they manage and, in some cases, for all forestlands in their state. State departments of natural resources reported to us that their participation in the assessment supported existing collaborations with the Forest Service and helped them meet their own responsibilities. These agencies became familiar with the assessment, supported it, and were among the first to use, and benefit from, its products.
The departments of natural resources in Minnesota and Wisconsin have both relied on regionwide data from the assessment that they otherwise would not have had. For instance, both state agencies reported using the assessment's maps of regional historic and current vegetation patterns in their planning processes. In evaluating and planning for its state forests, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has requested and used maps provided by the assessment team, including maps of climate and river and stream density. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources used information from the assessment on the location of historic white pine forests and patterns of pest infestations to select locations for white pine restoration projects. Both departments also reported turning to the assessment team for its expertise in creating compatible spatial databases and in interpreting complex data sets.
Similarly, some of the environmental groups and industry organizations we spoke with reported using data from the assessment. For example, the timber producers' association in Wisconsin and Michigan has used the assessment's data on saw mill locations to help schedule the temporary closing of timber- related roads during the spring thaw. According to the director of an environmental group, he and other members of the group have used the assessment's maps to better understand and compare current and past forest conditions and to help shape their views on land
management decisions. However, representatives from the Minnesota chapters of two national environmental organizations commented to us that they were unaware of the assessment's work until mid- 1998.
Time Line for the Great Lakes Ecological
Appendi xII
Assessment 1993 November A group of 18 federal and state agencies publish a Resolution for Interagency Cooperation on Ecosystems Management and agree to share ecological information and to develop strategies and tools, such as consistent mapping systems, for the comprehensive management of the region's natural resources. The assessment subsequently builds on this collaborative effort.
1994 September Forest Service ecologists propose to assess fire- dependent ecosystems in the Lake States to improve the agency's management of them and to demonstrate the usefulness of spatial data, the National Hierarchical Framework of Ecological Units, and multiscale analyses.
1994 November National forest planners learn about this proposal and ask the ecologists to expand its scope to include a comprehensive ecological assessment for the Lake States region. The planners wish to identify any unique benefits that the national forests could provide, such as large areas of habitat, and view one broad- scale assessment as more efficient than several individual assessments at smaller scales. The assessment should also help planners look outside the boundaries of national forests to evaluate the large- scale effects of proposed actions.
1995 January- March The planners and ecologists jointly propose the assessment to the Lake States forest supervisors. The supervisors agree to the assessment and provide seed money and staff time. An assessment team comprising agency personnel and researchers begins phase I of the assessment gathering readily available social, economic, and ecological data from various sources, including the national forests and state and other federal agencies. At the same time, the Lake States forest supervisors approve a project to identify broad- scale issues that affect multiple forests.
1995 November The broad- scale issue identification project, which included members of the assessment team, is completed. The resulting report identifies 15 broad- scale issues-including the loss of species, recreational demands, and timber supply-and the data and analysis needed to better understand them. a
1996 June After depleting its seed money from the forests, the assessment team receives $265, 000 of an eventual $338, 500 from the National Partnership for Reinventing Government. With this funding, the assessment team continues phase 1 and, through cost- sharing arrangements with university researchers, adds landscape modeling and techniques to illustrate current and potential conditions under different management scenarios. Because of the funding agreement and constraints on resources, the assessment team conducts only projects related to its commitments to the National Partnership unless time and resources from other sources allow additional work.
1997 September The assessment team begins to provide some data to the Lake States forests. Also in 1997, with funding from the National Partnership for Reinventing Government, the assessment team surveys more than 150 managers, planners, and social scientists in the northern Great Lakes region and across the United States to identify and rank the types and scales of data of greatest importance to the public and private sectors for addressing questions on the relationships between people and natural resources. This survey was designed to focus the assessment team's efforts on collecting the types of socioeconomic data that would be most useful in forest planning.
1998 February- March The assessment team provides data tables to the Lake States forests that include historic and current vegetation patterns, road miles, land ownership, stream miles, and lake density in the forests' management areas.
1998 August- September By August 1998, the assessment team begins presenting maps of the data it has assembled on the Internet.
By the end of fiscal year 1998, funds from the National Partnership for Reinventing Government are essentially depleted. At that time, with the exception of some modeling work, the team meets most of its commitments under its agreement with the National Partnership to (1) collect existing social, economic, and ecological information; (2) map these data sets; and (3) make the data sets and maps available over the Internet or via other electronic means, such as compact disk.
1999 July Funds arrive from the Joint Fire Science Program to support ongoing work characterizing historic, current, and potential future disturbance patterns across the Lake States region. This allows the assessment team to continue its work on phase 1 of the assessment assembling data that are more costly and difficult to obtain-and phase 2 analyzing and reporting the data. The Joint Fire Science Program's funding cannot be used to gather and analyze social and economic data, so this type of work is eventually stopped.
1999 November The Lake States national forests request substantial additional information from the assessment team to support revisions of their forest plans. The forest supervisors and the assessment team leader meet to discuss the assessment's objectives, time frames, and costs. They expect the assessment to be funded through fiscal year 2001.
a North Woods Broad- Scale Issue Identification Project: A Working Document for the Lake States National Forests, Lake States Issue Assessment Team, Forest Service (Nov. 1995). Source: Great Lakes Ecological Assessment team leader.
Funding for the Great Lakes Ecological
Appendi xI II
Assessment Funding for the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment is expected to total more than $1.5 million from fiscal year 1995 through fiscal year 2001. Several sources both inside and outside the Forest Service have funded the assessment. (See table 1.) From fiscal year 1995 through fiscal year 2001, the Forest Service is expected to provide $897,000, or 58 percent of the assessment's total funding. The remaining $639,000, or 42 percent, will come from other sources.
Table 1: Funding for the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment for Fiscal Years 1995- 2000 and Estimated Funding for Fiscal Year 2001
Dollars in thousands
Percent of Source 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 Total total
Lake States National Forests 65 66 66 50 49 59 49 404 26
Washington Office 30 80 30 30 30 30 230 15 Region 9 59 18 43 18 138 9 North Central Research Station 15 10 50 50 125 8
Total from the Forest Service 897 58
National Partnership for Reinventing Government 70 119 145 5 339 22
Joint Fire Science Program 54 167 79 300 20
Total from other sources 639 42
Total 139 184 308 243 148 306 208 1,536 100
Note: Percentages do not sum exactly because of rounding. Source: Great Lakes Ecological Assessment team leader.
Within the Forest Service, the seven Lake States national forests provided seed money to start the assessment in fiscal year 1995 and have contributed each year to the salaries of the assessment team members. The Forest Service's Washington Office has also funded the salaries of the assessment team members since fiscal year 1996, and it paid for a pilot test of an ecosystem model in fiscal year 1997. In fiscal years 1995 through 1998, Region 9 funded studies of fire- dependent ecosystems. The Forest Service's North Central Research Station, located in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, has
helped fund the salaries of the assessment team members, the use of geographic information systems technology, and several research projects.
The assessment has also sought and received funds from sources outside the Forest Service. First, a working group of the National Partnership for Reinventing Government approved $338,500 in funding for the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment. The working group's mission was to provide seed money to innovative information technology projects that could (1) provide more efficient and effective services to the public, such as increased or improved information dissemination, and (2) benefit multiple federal, state, and local agencies through, for example, lower operating costs. The assessment team sought to meet this mission through the use of innovative technologies namely, geographic information systems and the Internet-to effectively disseminate information on natural resource conditions to government agencies and the public.
The assessment has also received $299,750 from the Joint Fire Science Program, beginning in fiscal year 1999. The program supports projects that inventory wildland fuels or evaluate the impact of treatments, such as prescribed burns, on fuel conditions. The funds were provided specifically to support the assessment's efforts to bring multiple agencies together and to better understand fire- dependent ecosystems in the Lake States region.
The assessment team has leveraged the funds from the Forest Service and other sources through collaborative projects with other federal and state agencies and partnering arrangements with universities. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service have contributed data and expertise. The Department of the Interior's Geological Survey has provided data, such as digital elevations, and has made its data server available to present the assessment's data on the Internet. State natural resource agencies provided such data as land type classifications and inventories of rare plants and animals, as well as expertise in interpreting these data. Universities in the region continued to pay part of the salaries of university researchers working on the assessment. Because the participants have derived mutual benefits from the assessment, they have not quantified their contributions to it.
Appendi xI V
Comments From the Forest Service Note: GAO comments supplementing those in the report text appear at the end of this appendix
See comment 1. See comment 2.
See comment 3. See comment 4.
See comment 5.
See comment 6. See comment 7.
See comment 6.
See comment 7.
The following are GAO's comments on the attachment to the Forest Service's letter dated February 7, 2000.
GAO Comments 1. GAO and the Forest Service are largely in agreement on this point. We both agree that the primary objective of our recommendation is to ensure
that the Forest Service has gathered the data and conducted the analysis needed to identify the range of ecologically viable and legally sufficient management alternatives. Although the data may be derived from sources other than the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment, we believe that efforts to collect and analyze data for broad- scale issues can be carried out most efficiently and effectively under the auspices of a single project, which can ensure appropriate coordination and prioritization. We revised the language of our recommendation to make this point clearer.
2. We agree that the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment was not precipitated by the forest plan revision process. However, we believe that it is now appropriate to view the assessment as a broad scale effort supporting revisions to forest plans in the Great Lakes region. Our work over the past 5 years has shown that in revising their plans, most, if not all, of the national forests must address ecological, social, and economic issues that extend beyond their boundaries. Doing so is necessary to enable them to comply with laws such as the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. Because broad- scale assessments have proved useful in identifying and addressing these types of issues, we believe it is appropriate to view the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment in this role. We also believe that in 1995 as the assessment got under way the Forest Service knew enough about the value of assessments and the elements that are key to their success to have linked it more formally to the forests' planning processes.
3. We agree with the Forest Service that the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment team has been responsive to forest managers and has provided useful information to support the revision process. However, we believe that if the Forest Service had (1) assigned a higher priority to the assessment, (2) established clear objectives for the assessment to support the revision process, and (3) better integrated the assessment into the revision process, the results would have been more responsive to the needs of forest planners and would have provided more information to support the revision process.
4. Our data show that a significant percentage of the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment team's funding came from sources other than the Forest Service and that these sources imposed restrictions on the types of data gathering and analysis their funds could be used for. Nevertheless, we continue to believe that collaboration with other research organizations is an important and necessary part of the assessment process. However, heavy reliance on sources other than the Forest Service to fund assessments can mean that funds are not available to gather data and complete analyses needed to revise forest plans..
5. We agree with the Forest Service that forest planners have used and are using products of the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment in the revision process. However, we believe that the assessment could be better integrated with or linked to the revision process. For example, it was not until November 1999 that the forest supervisors and the assessment team leader met to discuss the objectives, time frames, and costs of obtaining specific types of data and analysis that the forests would need to finish revising their plans.
6. On the basis of our work over the past 5 years, we believe that the need for an assessment will be the rule rather than the exception. Because of the agency's historical failure to base decisions on the appropriate broad- scale data, we believe it would be prudent, and not burdensome, to require the agency to justify its decision not to conduct broad- scale assessments when revising forest plans. When an exception is warranted as in the instances cited in the Forest Service's comments we do not believe the agency will have difficulty explaining and justifying its decision.
7. In general, the Forest Service agrees with the desired outcome of the portion of our recommendation that concerns a strategy for conducting assessments, but it believes that the guidance should appear in agency directives rather than in the planning regulations themselves. We believe that even if our recommendation is adopted and the provisions are added to the proposed planning regulations, most of the details needed by agency officials to implement the provisions would still need to be included in Forest Service directives. Including general requirements in the Forest Service's planning regulations would help to assure the Congress and the American people that assessments will be conducted when needed and will be done well. However, because the operational details will still be found in Forest Service directives, the Forest Service will have the flexibility to finetune the provisions or adapt them to changing circumstances.
Appendi xV
Scope and Methodology To determine the key elements of broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments, including lessons learned about why and how they should be done, we examined documents prepared by the Forest Service, the Department of the Interior, and other agencies. We also relied on previous GAO reports that identified deficiencies in the Forest Service's planning process and reviewed broad- scale assessments done by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management in the Pacific Northwest.
To determine the extent to which Great Lakes Ecological Assessment contained the key elements of an assessment and was integrated into the national forest planning process, we conducted a thorough review of the assessment. We did our work both in the Great Lakes region and in Washington, D. C. To learn about the assessment's objectives, time lines, outputs, and costs, we met and talked extensively with the project's team leader. We also spoke with his supervisors in the Forest Service's Ecosystem Management Coordination Office and Eastern Regional Office. To learn more about the preparation of the assessment, we spoke with Forest Service employees assigned to the assessment and representatives of collaborating agencies and organizations. The collaborators included other federal agencies (the U. S. Geological Survey, the Natural Resource Conservation Service, and the Environmental Protection Agency), state departments of natural resources, and university researchers. We also reviewed the outputs that the assessment team posted on its Internet Web site. To learn more about the original objectives of the assessment and its uses in relation to the process for revising forest plans, we also spoke with forest supervisors or their staff from six of the seven Great Lakes forests: the Chippewa, Superior, Nicolet, Chequamegon, Huron- Manistee, and Ottawa national forests. Several of the Forest Service staff were retired when we spoke with them but had been involved with the assessment before retiring. To characterize the benefits of the assessment outside the Forest Service, we also spoke with representatives of state and county agencies, Native American tribes, forest industry associations, and environmental groups.
To determine the extent to which the Forest Service would integrate broadscale assessments into the forest planning process, we reviewed its October 5, 1999, proposed planning regulations. Our review was limited to the sections that address the role of broad- scale assessments in the planning process. We conducted a qualitative evaluation of the proposed regulations in light of our findings in the Lake States region, as well as in the context of the lessons we and others have learned about assessments and their role in planning.
Appendi xVI
GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments GAO Contact Charles S. Cotton (202) 512- 3841 Acknowledgments In addition, Ross Campbell, Charles T. Egan, Elizabeth R. Eisenstadt,
Doreen Stolzenberg Feldman, and Dena M. Owens made key contributions to this report.
(141294) Lett er
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Table 1: Funding for the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment for Fiscal Years 1995- 2000 and Estimated Funding for Fiscal Year 2001 40
Figure 1: The Boundaries of the Lake States National Forests and the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment 19
GAO United States General Accounting Office
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Appendix I
Appendix I Other Uses of Data From the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment
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Appendix II
Appendix II Time Line for the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment
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Appendix III Funding for the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment
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Appendix IV Comments From the Forest Service
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Appendix VI GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments
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rc00056 A Report to Congressional Requesters February 2000 FOREST
SERVICE PLANNING Better Integration of Broad- Scale Assessments
Into Forest Plans Is Needed   GAO/RCED-00-56  Letter 3 Appendixes
Appendix I: Other Uses of Data From the Great Lakes Ecological
Assessment 36 Appendix II: Time Line for the Great Lakes
Ecological Assessment 38 Appendix III: Funding for the Great Lakes
Ecological Assessment 40 Appendix IV: Comments From the Forest
Service 42 Appendix V: Scope and Methodology 51 Appendix VI: GAO
Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments 52 Tables Table 1: Funding for
the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment for Fiscal Years 1995- 2000
and Estimated Funding for Fiscal Year 2001 40 Figures Figure 1:
The Boundaries of the Lake States National Forests and the Great
Lakes Ecological Assessment 19 Resources, Community, and Economic
Development Division Lett er B-284394 February 15, 2000 The
Honorable Frank Murkowski Chairman, Committee on Energy and
Natural Resources United States Senate The Honorable Don Young
Chairman, Committee on Resources House of Representatives The U.
S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service manages about 192
million acres of land, including about 20 percent of the nation's
forestlands. Since 1976, the agency has been required by law to
develop a land and resource management plan commonly called a
forest plan for each national forest or for groups of forests and
to revise each plan at least once every 15 years. A forest plan
spells out how the agency intends to (1) meet its responsibilities
to protect the lands and resources that it manages and (2) provide
products and services to the public. The first round of forest
planning began in 1979, when the Forest Service approved the first
of 125 plans that cover the 155 forests in the National Forest
System. This round concluded with the Forest Service's approval of
the last plan in 1995. In the second round of planning, over half
of the plans must be revised during fiscal years 2000 through
2002. In a 1997 report on the Forest Service's planning process,
we found that the first round of forest planning was costly and
time- consuming and the Forest Service often failed to achieve its
planned objectives. 1 These difficulties occurred, in part,
because the Forest Service lacked the data and technology to
adequately address broad- scale ecological and socioeconomic
issues that extend beyond the forests' administrative boundaries
and the agency's jurisdiction. Without sound information to
address these issues, the Forest Service has faced environmental
and other challenges to the legality of its plans and projects,
and courts have required the agency to delay, amend, or withdraw
them. Moreover, as we reported in 1 Forest Service Decision-
Making: A Framework for Improving Performance( GAO/ RCED- 9771,
Apr. 29, 1997) and Tongass National Forest: Lack of Accountability
for Time and Costs Has Delayed Forest Plan Revision( GAO/T-RCED-
97-153, Apr. 29, 1997). 1998, inefficiency and waste within the
planning process have cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of
dollars. 2 To avoid such challenges and reduce inefficiency and
waste during the second round of forest planning, most, if not
all, of the national forests must improve how they address broad-
scale conditions and issues. Since the early 1990s, a consensus
has grown among scientists and federal land managers that
ecosystem- based assessments 3 could be useful in addressing
broad- scale ecological and socioeconomic issues. The Forest
Service has begun to use such assessments in revising its original
forest plans during the second round of forest planning. For
instance, in January 1995, the agency started the Great Lakes
Ecological Assessment to gather and analyze information on
ecological, social, and economic conditions- such as vegetation,
fire patterns, climatic conditions, land ownership, and seasonal
home ownership-to support resource planning and management for the
seven national forests in the Lake States region of Michigan,
Minnesota, and Wisconsin. 4 Moreover, on October 5, 1999, the
Forest Service proposed new planning regulations that would
encourage all of the national forests to use broad- scale
assessments in revising their forest plans. 5 Concerned about the
potential costs, timeliness, and effectiveness of the Forest
Service's planning process in general and of broad- scale
ecosystembased assessments in particular, you asked us to examine
several planning efforts, including the Great Lakes Ecological
Assessment. In this report, we discuss (1) the views of the Forest
Service, other federal agencies, and GAO on the key elements that
broad- scale ecosystem based assessments should contain to
maximize their value to the forest planning process; (2) the
extent to which the Forest Service has incorporated these elements
into the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment and whether it has
integrated 2 See Forest Service: Lack of Financial and Performance
Accountability Has Resulted in Inefficiency and Waste( GAO/ T-
RCED/ AIMD- 98- 135, Mar. 26, 1998). 3 An ecosystem is an
interconnected community of plants and animals, including humans,
and the physical environment within which they interact. 4 The
seven Lake States national forests are the Chippewa and Superior
in Minnesota; the Ottawa, Hiawatha, and Huron- Manistee in
Michigan; and the Chequamegon and Nicolet in Wisconsin. The
Chequamegon and Nicolet forests are managed as one administrative
unit. The seven forests are located in the Forest Service's
Eastern Region (Region 9). 5 64 Fed. Reg. 54074 (Oct. 5, 1999).
the assessment into the forest planning process; and (3) the
extent to which the Forest Service's proposed planning regulations
ensure that future broad- scale assessments contain these elements
and are integrated into the forest planning process. Results in
Brief In recent years, the Forest Service, others, and we have
concluded that assessments should have certain key elements or
characteristics to maximize their value in addressing issues that
extend beyond the boundaries of national forests. For example,
assessments must occur early in the process of revising forest
plans and must be open and accessible to all interested federal
and nonfederal parties. Forest Service officials in charge of
assessments should make clear to the Congress, the public, and
their staff what the objectives of the assessment are and what its
products will be, as well as who will be responsible for
delivering the products, at what time, and at what cost. If the
agency does not conduct assessments at all or does not ensure that
they contain these and other elements, it increases the risk that
the planning process will continue to be costly, timeconsuming,
and less than fully effective. In conducting the Great Lakes
Ecological Assessment, the Forest Service has adopted some of
these key elements and characteristics. However, regional and
forest officials have not viewed the assessment as a priority and
have thus not provided the leadership, guidance, and funding
necessary to successfully complete it in a timely manner. In our
opinion, the Forest Service has not effectively integrated the
assessment into its process for revising forest plans in the Lake
States. As a result, we believe that the agency risks repeating
the inefficiency and waste of resources that occurred during the
first round of forest planning, when it did not adequately address
broad- scale issues and/ or individual national forests
independently attempted to gather and analyze data. Moreover,
without the benefit of the assessment's analysis and conclusions
on the range of ecologically viable and legally sufficient
alternatives, the agency is more likely to find that the public
will (1) challenge the revised forest plans, causing the agency to
delay, amend, or withdraw them, and (2) become frustrated with the
planning process if the management alternatives it helped develop
do not prove to be ecologically viable and/ or legally sufficient.
Accordingly, we are recommending that the Secretary of Agriculture
direct the Chief of the Forest Service to develop a strategy for
funding and completing the assessment in time to support the
revision of the Lake States forest plans. The Forest Service's
proposed planning regulations also incorporate some of the key
elements that are important to broad- scale ecosystem- based
assessments, but they could be strengthened to ensure that future
assessments have these elements and are better integrated into the
forest planning process. For instance, the regulations state that
(1) forest plans must be based on the best available scientific
information and analyses, including information from a variety of
geographic areas, some of which may best be obtained from broad-
scale assessments and (2) assessments should be conducted for
geographic areas that extend beyond the boundaries of national
forests and should reach conclusions. However, the proposed
regulations are deficient in important areas. For example, they
(1) generally leave the decision on whether to conduct an
assessment to the discretion of the Forest Service's national
forest supervisors, although it may be more appropriate for
higher- level officials to make that decision; (2) do not state
when in the planning process an assessment should occur; (3) are
silent on the need for clear objectives and identifiable products;
and (4) do not require the forests to identify their strategies
for involving the public. In light of these deficiencies, we are
recommending that the Secretary of Agriculture direct the Chief of
the Forest Service to make further revisions to the proposed
planning regulations that would maximize the value of broad- scale
assessments and better integrate them into the forest planning
process. Background The Forest Service, created in 1905, is
required by law to manage its lands to provide high levels of six
renewable surface uses-outdoor recreation, rangeland, timber,
watersheds and waterflows, wilderness, and wildlife and fish-to
current users while sustaining undiminished the lands' ability to
produce these uses for future generations. In addition, the agency
is required by its guidance and regulations to consider the
production of nonrenewable subsurface resources, such as oil, gas,
and hardrock minerals, 6 in its planning. The field structure of
the Forest Service's National Forest System consists of 9 regional
offices, 115 forest offices, and 588 district offices that manage
lands in 44 states, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. The
Eastern Regional Office (Region 9) oversees the national forests
in 13 states in the Northeast and Midwest, including the Great
Lakes states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and 6 Hardrock minerals
include gold, silver, lead, iron, and copper. Minnesota. 7 The
agency is a hierarchical organization whose management is highly
decentralized and whose regional foresters and forest supervisors
have considerable autonomy and discretion in interpreting and
applying the agency's policies and directions. Legislation
Established the In carrying out its mission, the Forest Service
follows a planning process Forest Service's Current that is
largely based on laws enacted during the 1970s. This process
Planning Process includes (1) developing a forest plan for
managing each forest that blends national and regional priorities
with the local forest's capabilities and needs and (2) reaching
project- level decisions for implementing the plan. 8 The plan
articulates what the Forest Service expects to do to meet its
obligations to manage the national forest for multiple uses in a
sustainable manner. The National Forest Management Act of 1976 and
its implementing regulations require that the agency, in revising
a forest plan, go through a series of steps, including issuing a
notice of its intent to the public, presenting a range of
management alternatives along with an analysis of their likely
effects, soliciting and considering public comments on those
alternatives, developing a final alternative, and making a final
decision. In analyzing the potential effects of management
alternatives, the Forest Service must comply with the requirements
of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. This act and its
implementing regulations specify procedures for considering the
environmental consequences of proposed federal actions and
incorporating these considerations and public input into an
agency's planning process. The act requires that a federal agency
prepare a detailed environmental impact statement for every major
federal action that may significantly affect the quality of the
human environment. As part of this process, a federal agency must
assess the effects of the proposed action in combination with the
direct, indirect, and cumulative 7 See our report Land Management:
The Forest Service's and BLM's Organizational Structures and
Responsibilities( GAO/RCED-99-227, July 29, 1999) for more
information on the organizational structure of the Forest Service.
8 Projects are on- the- ground activities, such as harvesting
timber, restoring species' habitats, and constructing campsites.
impact 9 of activities occurring on other federal and nonfederal
lands. The environmental impact statement is designed to ensure
that important effects on the environment will not be overlooked
or understated before the government makes a commitment to a
proposed action. The Forest Service must also comply with the
requirements of other environmental statutes, including the
Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act,
the Wilderness Act, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, as well as
of other laws, such as the National Historic Preservation Act. The
Forest Service approved the first forest plans for the national
forests in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan in 1986 and must
complete their revisions by no later than October 2001. The Forest
Service has not yet formally begun revising the plans for the
Michigan national forests because of provisions in the agency's
appropriations acts for fiscal years 1998 and 1999. These
provisions prohibited the Forest Service from expending funds on
forest plan revisions until it issued new planning regulations.
However, forests were exempted from the moratorium if the Forest
Service had notified the public before October 1, 1997, of its
intent to revise their plans. In 1996, the Forest Service issued a
notice of intent to revise the plans for Wisconsin's national
forests, and in 1997 it did the same for Minnesota's national
forests. Thus, these forests were exempted from the moratorium. As
of January 2000, the agency was in the process of developing
management alternatives for these forests, which it plans to
present to the public for comment in late 2000 or early 2001. The
Forest Service Has During the past decade, the Forest Service has
taken several steps to Taken Several Steps to improve its planning
process. For example, to better accommodate the Improve Its
Planning requirements of the Endangered Species Act, the National
Environmental Process Policy Act, and other environmental laws,
the Forest Service has turned to a science- based, ecological
approach for managing its lands and resources. This approach,
called ecosystem management, integrates ecological capabilities
with social values and economic relationships to produce, 9
Regulations issued in 1978 by the Council on Environmental Quality
to implement the provisions of the National Environmental Policy
Act require federal agencies to assess the effects of a proposed
action on such resources as water, wildlife, and soils in
combination with those of other past, present, and reasonably
foreseeable future actions occurring on both federal and
nonfederal lands. restore, or sustain ecosystems' integrity 10 and
desired conditions, uses, products, values, and services over the
long term. Ecosystem management takes an integrated, holistic
approach to natural resource issues and is therefore suitable for
examining ecological and socioeconomic conditions beyond the
boundaries of national forests. 11 The agency has positioned
itself to better implement ecosystem management by using satellite
imagery, geographic information systems, 12 and desktop computer
technology. These technologies provide for gathering,
interpreting, and manipulating detailed data on a wide variety of
ecological and socioeconomic variables covering millions of acres.
To further its ecosystem management approach, the Forest Service
has used these technological tools to support broad- scale
ecosystem- based assessments. One of the earliest broad- scale
ecosystem- based assessments was performed in the Pacific
Northwest as part of an effort to develop a regional plan for
managing federal lands within the range of the threatened northern
spotted owl. 13 When this regional plan, known as the Northwest
Forest Plan, was approved in 1994, the courts lifted the
injunctions that had barred the Forest Service from selling timber
in northern spotted owl habitat. Such assessments have also been
done for the interior Columbia River basin, including portions of
Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, and Utah; the
Sierra Nevada Mountains in California; the southern portion of the
Appalachian Mountains stretching from northern Virginia and
eastern West Virginia to northwestern South 10 The Forest Service
defines ecosystem integrity as the completeness of an ecosystem
that, at multiple geographic and temporal scales, maintains its
characteristic diversity of biological and physical components,
spatial patterns, structure, and functional processes within its
approximate historical range of variability. 11 For a more
complete description of ecosystem management, see Ecosystem
Management: Additional Actions Needed to Adequately Test a
Promising Approach( GAO/RCED-94-111, Aug. 16, 1994). 12 Geographic
information systems technology is the computer hardware and
software that allow for the assembly, storage, manipulation, and
display of geographic reference data (i. e., data that are
associated with specific places on earth, such as the location of
a watershed or an old- growth forest). 13 See Ecosystem Planning:
Northwest Forest and Interior Columbia River Basin Plans
Demonstrate Improvements in Land- Use Planning( GAO/RCED-99-64,
May 26, 1999). Carolina, northern Georgia, and northern Alabama,
14 and the OzarkOuachita Highlands in Arkansas and Missouri.
Broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments can involve other
federal land management agencies, such as the Department of the
Interior's Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service,
and the Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as other federal
agencies, including the Department of Commerce's National Marine
Fisheries Service and the Environmental Protection Agency. For
instance, the assessment team for the Northwest Forest Plan
included scientists from all of these federal land management and
regulatory agencies, while the assessment team for the Interior
Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project included scientists
from these agencies, other federal agencies, and universities. Key
Elements In recent years, the Forest Service and other federal
agencies have learned Maximize the Value of lessons about
conducting broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments to improve
land management decisions on federal lands, including national
Broad- Scale forests. 15 Broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments
have proved useful in Ecosystem- Based (1) identifying and
addressing ecological, social, and economic issues that
Assessments to Forest extend beyond the boundaries of national
forests and (2) defining ranges of ecologically viable and legally
sufficient management alternatives and their Planning
consequences. Our work over the past 5 years has shown that in
revising their forest plans, most, if not all, of the national
forests must address these types of issues. 16 Doing so is
necessary to enable them to comply with laws such as the
Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
Experience has also shown that certain key elements maximize the
value of broad- scale assessments to forest planners. For example,
an 14 The Southern Appalachian Assessment: Summary Report,
prepared by federal and state agencies and coordinated through the
Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere Cooperative (July
1996). 15 See Lessons Learned Workshop: Policy, Process, and
Purpose for Conducting Ecoregion Assessments, USDA Forest Service,
Albuquerque, New Mexico (July 30 to Aug. 1, 1996), and The
Ecosystem Approach: Healthy Ecosystems and Sustainable Economies,
Report of the Interagency Ecosystem Management Task Force (June
1995). 16 Ecosystem Management: Additional Actions Needed to
Adequately Test a Promising Approach( GAO/RCED-94-111, Aug. 16,
1994), Forest Service Decision- Making: A Framework for Improving
Performance( GAO/RCED-97-71, Apr. 29, 1997), and Ecosystem
Planning: Northwest Forest and Interior Columbia River Basin Plans
Demonstrate Improvements in Land- Use Planning( GAO/RCED-99-64,
May 26, 1999). assessment is more effective if it occurs early in
the process of revising a forest plan and is open and accessible
to all interested federal and nonfederal parties. Similarly, an
assessment is improved when Forest Service officials make clear to
the Congress, the public, and agency personnel what its objectives
are and what its products will be, as well as who will be
responsible for delivering the products, at what time, and at what
cost. Assessments Should Occur To be useful to decisionmakers in
developing ecologically viable and legally Early in the Forest
Plan sufficient management alternatives, an assessment should
occur early in Revision Process the process of revising a forest
plan. For instance, during the development of the Northwest Forest
Plan, the assessment and the decision- making were conducted
sequentially. The assessment, which took about 3 months, was
completed first, and the plan was approved about 9 months later.
Conversely, during the development of the interior Columbia River
basin plan, when the assessment and the decision- making were
conducted concurrently, false starts and delays plagued the
planning process. Officials responsible for developing the
assessment and planning revisions concluded that running parallel
assessment and decision- making processes does not work well.
According to them, an assessment should be completed before
planners identify and propose a range of management alternatives.
The Assessment Process Land managers with relevant experience from
the Forest Service and the Should Be Open to All Department of the
Interior agree that the value of broad- scale ecosystemInterested
Parties based assessments is increased if the assessment process
is open, and the results of the assessment are available, to all
interested federal and nonfederal parties. These parties include
not only federal, state, local, and tribal government agencies but
also individual citizens and private landowners, as well as
representatives of academia, industry, and interest groups. Other
federal and nonfederal parties can (1) help define the issues that
need to be addressed at a broad geographic scale, (2) help
identify all pertinent information relating to the issues and
often provide information on nonfederal lands and resources more
quickly and at less cost than if the Forest Service attempted to
develop the data itself, and (3) provide valuable analytical
capabilities. In return, assessments can allow the public to
participate more meaningfully in the Forest Service's decision-
making. Assessments-especially those that make use of geographic
information systems technology and are accessible on the Internet-
can (1) provide the public with information on the current
condition of federal lands and resources, as well as on the legal
requirements and ecological conditions that help define the range
of viable management alternatives and their consequences, and (2)
allow interested parties to better analyze how various management
alternatives might affect the ecological, social, and economic
conditions of the region. For example, the data gathered for the
Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project are stored in
geographic information systems and can be retrieved not only by
the Forest Service but also by the public. Data gathered for the
Southern Appalachian Assessment are also available on the
Internet. As a result, pertinent information which is not
restricted to the administrative boundaries of the national
forests can be used for decision- making by many levels of
government. Although Forest Service land managers agree on the
value of public participation in broad- scale ecosystem- based
assessments, they also caution that a one- size- fits- all,
standardized approach to involvement by interested federal and
nonfederal parties is not desirable. Circumstances such as the
contentiousness of the issues and the level of public interest and
concern, and therefore the most appropriate public participation
process, can vary greatly by forest and region. Assessments Should
Have While most, if not all, national forests will need to include
broad- scale Clear Objectives and ecosystem- based assessments in
the process for revising their forest plans, Identifiable Products
the objectives of the assessments will vary. Some assessments will
address ecological, social, and/ or economic issues already
identified by forest planners. Other assessments will be tasked
with identifying issues to be addressed during the revision
process. Still other assessments will be asked to do both.
Assessments may also provide basic social, economic, and
ecological data for a region when it is practical and efficient
for them to do so. Therefore, the Forest Service will need to make
clear the objectives of a given assessment and the products that
will be prepared to support those objectives. For example, in the
Pacific Northwest, the issue at hand was the loss of oldgrowth
forests and the associated social and economic effects of trying
to restore and preserve the forests. Thus, the assessment focused
on developing and analyzing management options to provide the
greatest economic and social returns that could be sustained over
time without violating laws protecting the northern spotted owl
and other old- growth- dependent species. In the southern
Appalachian Mountains, the assessment was tasked with gathering
data on conditions in the region in order to identify potentially
serious problems before they threatened the well- being of the
region's natural resources. In the interior Columbia River basin,
the assessment was designed to provide data on conditions in the
basin that were directly relevant to a known problem (the
conservation of fish habitat), as well as to identify emerging
issues related to ecosystem management. In addition, all of these
assessments provided basic data on ecological and socioeconomic
conditions and made estimates about the probable outcomes of the
federal agency's current management practices and trends. Once the
agency has settled on the objectives of an assessment, the
likelihood of its achieving them will increase, we believe, if it
prepares a thorough scope of work. Such a scope of work would
identify what types of products and what level of detail are
expected from the assessment team, as well as who is responsible
for producing the products and when they are to be delivered. A
scope of work is useful for holding agency personnel accountable
and for communicating the design of the assessment to the
Congress, the public, and other interested parties. Assessments
Should Be There is a general consensus that for an assessment to
be effective, it Conducted for Appropriate should be conducted
within a geographic area that coincides with the Geographic Areas
and nature of the issues to be addressed or has common ecological
or Should Include Both socioeconomic conditions. For example, to
address the habitat needs of the northern spotted owl, the
assessment conducted for the Northwest Federal and Nonfederal
Forest Plan gathered and analyzed information on the availability
and Lands condition of habitat for the species within its natural
range. Other issues, such as providing high- quality water and
restoring aquatic systems, are being addressed at smaller, more
appropriate geographic scales. Moreover, the plan can be tailored
to the ecological conditions of particular geographic areas (e.
g., old- growth rain forests in western Washington and drier
forests in northern California). The boundaries of other
assessments have been determined by a combination of ecological
and socioeconomic conditions rather than a single, or several,
core issues. For example, the boundary of the Sierra Nevada
Ecosystem Management Project study area was a consensus boundary
based on a wide variety of ecological and social issues, most of
which did not correspond to one another geographically. There is
also a general consensus that for assessments to be effective,
they should include both federal and nonfederal lands. This is
especially true in areas such as the southern Appalachian
Mountains, where the majority of the land is in nonfederal
ownership and the Forest Service must work with other landowners
to adequately address broad- scale ecological and socioeconomic
issues. The Southern Appalachian Assessment covered some 37.4
million acres of land, of which almost 84 percent is in private
ownership. Assessments Should Include Although their objectives
will vary, all assessments should include three Data Gathering,
Analyses, basic steps gathering data; analyzing data; and drawing
conclusions about and Conclusions but Not past, current, and
likely future ecological, social, and/ or economic trends Make
Decisions and conditions. Assessments do not, however, result in
decisions. By using past conditions (historic range of
variability) as a baseline and comparing them to current and
projected future conditions, an assessment team should draw
conclusions about which ecosystems are functioning well and which
are degraded or on the way toward degradation and thus are in need
of restoration or protection. Assessment teams tasked with
identifying issues will do so on the basis of these conclusions.
For assessments designed to address known issues, these
conclusions help identify the location for implementing possible
solutions and the range of ecologically viable alternatives. For
example, the science assessment team involved in developing a
management plan for federal lands in the interior Columbia River
basin gathered and analyzed ecological, social, and economic data
and then made predictions about potential future ecological and
economic conditions under three different management scenarios-the
status quo (which would combine commodity production and
conservation), aggressive restoration, and a system of reserves in
which human activity would be limited. These predictions helped
the project's planning team explore a range of management
alternatives that could sustain the ecosystem while meeting the
public's needs for products and services. Similarly, the Southern
Appalachian Assessment supported the revision of individual forest
plans by gathering and analyzing large quantities of data to
understand, among other things, how lands, resources, economies,
and people are related within the larger context of the
surrounding lands and how national forest management affects their
relationships. While broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments
should reach conclusions, they should not result in decisions. As
noted in the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project,
the mix of products and services provided on federal lands is as
much a social decision as it is a scientific one and trade- offs
among legally sufficient and ecologically viable management
alternatives are ultimately made by society. Similarly, the
Southern Appalachian Assessment stated that the assessment does
not attempt to provide solutions for the problems identified. The
assessment avoided prescriptions because prescribing is a
political process in which all Americans must have a part.
Instead, the assessment team tried to provide the information that
people need for a productive discussion of the issues. In the
past, the Forest Service has used broad- scale assessments to
support its decision- making process in two different ways. One
approach has been to use an assessment as the basis for agency
decisions that apply simultaneously to multiple forests (the
President's Northwest Forest Plan). The second approach has been
to use an assessment as the basis for decisions made separately by
individual forest supervisors (the Southern Appalachian
Assessment). The agency has not chosen a preferred approach, and
both may be valid, depending on regional circumstances. Regardless
of which approach the Forest Service chooses, it is important for
the agency to maintain the data, maps, and other products of
assessments for future use and update the data over time. Under
law, forest plans must be revised periodically and can be amended
when circumstances warrant. Therefore, information on broad- scale
issues will continue to be relevant to the agency's decision-
making. Several approaches could be used to keep broad- scale data
useful, depending on the type of data. For example, some landscape
conditions covered by assessments such as soil types or the
location of water bodies-will not change appreciably over time.
Data on these conditions do not need to be updated but must be
maintained in a usable form. Other conditions-such as the human
population or forest cover-will change appreciably over time
across the assessment area as a result of the actions of many
landowners, not just the Forest Service. Such data could
periodically be updated for the assessment area; the frequency of
the updates might depend on the rate of change relative to the
cost of the update. A third category of conditions includes the
results of the Forest Service's own actions, such as timber
harvesting, road construction, or stream restoration on its own
land. Currently, the Forest Service monitors the site- specific
effects of these types of activities, but such monitoring does not
fully capture changes in broad- scale conditions. In 1997, we
reported that the Forest Service had not made monitoring a high
priority and that a lack of thorough monitoring data had hampered
its decision- making ability. 17 Assessments' Costs Should
Although broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments cost money to
Be Identified and Funding perform, they can save both time and
money if they eliminate duplicative Should Be Secured data
gathering and analysis by individual national forests. Performing
assessments also increases the likelihood that the Forest Service
will avoid or prevail against challenges to its compliance with
environmental and other laws. However, federal funding and
resources may not be sufficient to cover all of the issues that
could be addressed or to gather all of the potentially limitless
ecological, economic, and social data that could be collected.
Therefore, realistic objectives and estimates of resource needs-
and of what can be expected from an assessment given different
funding levels-need to be identified before an assessment is
begun. Additionally, the Forest Service needs to allocate funds to
accomplish the objectives in a timely manner. The costs and time
to do assessments can vary widely. For example, the assessment for
the Northwest Forest Plan was completed in about 3 months and cost
less than $3.5 million. The assessment for the Interior Columbia
Basin Ecosystem Management Project took several years and cost
about $22.7 million. The Northwest Forest Plan assessment focused
primarily on the northern spotted owl and other old- growth-
dependent species and left other issues, such as providing high-
quality water, to be addressed at smaller, more appropriate,
geographic scales. The assessment for the Interior Columbia Basin
Ecosystem Management Project addressed not just old-
growthdependent species but also other endangered and threatened
species-such as anadromous fish (including salmon) and the grizzly
bear-with different and/ or more extensive habitat requirements.
The assessment also addressed issues such as costly outbreaks of
wildfires, insects, and diseases; invasions of exotic weeds;
declines in soil fertility and water and air quality; wilderness
preservation; mounting legal challenges; and unpredictable flows
of commodities such as timber and livestock forage. The assessment
team for the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project
assembled over 170 data layers or maps of particular 17 Forest
Service Decision- Making: A Framework for Improving Performance(
GAO/ RCED97- 71, Apr. 29, 1997). variables, such as vegetation
types, grizzly bear range, employment, and income. The Great Lakes
Regional and forest officials conducting the Great Lakes
Ecological Ecological Assessment Assessment have implemented some
of the lessons learned about the key elements of assessments but
have not viewed it as a priority and thus have Includes Some Key
not provided the leadership, guidance, and funding necessary to
Elements but Has Not successfully complete it in a timely manner.
As a result, the assessment has Been Well Integrated not been well
integrated into the process being used to revise forest plans in
the Lake States region. If these problems are not corrected, the
agency Into Forest Planning risks (1) repeating the inefficiency
and waste that occurred during the first round of forest planning,
(2) spending even more money to defend against subsequent
challenges to the forest plans' ecological viability and legality,
and (3) frustrating members of the public who were encouraged to
offer alternatives but were not given the information needed to
develop them. The Forest Service Has The Forest Service has
implemented some of the lessons learned about the Implemented Some
of the key elements of broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments
to support the Lessons Learned about Key Lake States national
forests in revising their plans. For instance, the agency Elements
is conducting the assessment at a geographic scale that will allow
it to address ecological and socioeconomic issues that extend
beyond the forests' administrative boundaries. In addition, it is
gathering data extensively and making the data available to the
national forests, as well as to other interested federal and
nonfederal parties. The Assessment Is Being The Great Lakes
Ecological Assessment is being conducted at a geographic Conducted
at Appropriate scale that will allow the Forest Service to address
ecological and Geographic Scales and Includes socioeconomic issues
that extend beyond the forests' administrative Both Federal and
Nonfederal boundaries. The geographic area covered by the
assessment is based on (1) Lands the Forest Service's National
Hierarchical Framework of Ecological Units, which identifies areas
with common ecological features, conditions, and issues, 18 and
(2) the location of major cities linked to the forests' 18 In Nov.
1993, the Forest Service adopted the National Hierarchical
Framework of Ecological Units as a classification and mapping
system for use in forest planning. This hierarchy divides the
earth into ecological units that have similar biological and
physical potential. In other words, combinations of similar
factors, such as climate, soil type, vegetation and water
availability, are often indicative of certain types of ecosystems
that can be classified and mapped. management. The area of
ecological interest within the assessment area encompasses
approximately 62. 7 million acres (98,000 square miles) in
northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, including about 6. 5
million acres of national forestland (see fig. I). The area is
characterized by conifer (e. g., spruce; fir; and white, red, and
jack pine) and deciduous (e. g., maple, oak, aspen, birch, beech)
tree species across relatively flat terrain shaped in the past by
glaciers and now dotted with thousands of freshwater lakes. The
climate is temperate and is affected by the presence of the Great
Lakes. The socioeconomic area covered by the assessment extends
farther south to encompass such cities as Detroit, Chicago,
Milwaukee, and Minneapolis- St. Paul. Figure 1: The Boundaries of
the Lake States National Forests and the Great Lakes Ecological
Assessment Superior N.F. Chippewa N.F. Ottawa N.F. Hiawatha N.F.
MINNESOTA Chequamegon N.F. St. Paul Nicolet N.F. Huron N.F.
Minneapolis WISCONSIN Manistee N.F. Milwaukee MICHIGAN Detroit
IOWA Chicago OHIO ILLINOIS INDIANA Socioeconomic analysis area
National forest Ecological analysis area Source: Forest Service.
Using the National Hierarchical Framework of Ecological Units, the
assessment team has divided the geographic area bounded by the
assessment into ecological units at four nested geographic scales
ranging from hundreds of acres to millions of square miles. While
the largest unit is defined solely by geomorphology 19 and
climate, the smaller units are refined to include specific soil
and plant characteristics. This classification system provides
land managers with information for making informed decisions for
different ecological areas. For example, an outbreak of a forest
pest may be influenced by management decisions across a large
ecological unit, while the viability of a particular plant species
may be linked to management decisions that affect a very small
ecological unit. An Extensive Amount of Data Since it was
organized in 1995, the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment Has Been
Gathered and Made team has gathered an extensive amount of
ecological and socioeconomic Available to Interested Parties data.
These data have been made available to the Lake States national
forests, as well as to other interested federal and nonfederal
parties. Originally, the assessment was to have two phases. During
the first phase, the assessment team would gather data on
ecological and socioeconomic issues. During the second phase, the
team would analyze the data and draw conclusions, which it would
report to the national forests and others. The assessment team has
assembled over 150 sets of environmental, ecological, biological,
social, and economic data and has produced maps of many of these
data sets across the assessment area. 20 All of the maps produced
by the assessment team are integrated into geographic information
systems that allow them to be overlaid to provide more information
about possible relationships among ecological, social, and
economic conditions. The assessment team has facilitated the
consistent classification and mapping of similar ecological units
across the Lake States an outcome of particular importance to land
managers. 21 This information is useful in developing forest plans
because it identifies areas at different geographic 19
Geomorphology refers to features of the earth's surface, such as
mountains and valleys. 20 The data are both tabular and spatial.
The two kinds of data sets can be illustrated as follows: Tabular
data can show, for example, the percentages of the Lake States
national forests that are covered with jack pine, aspen/ birch,
and oak ecosystems. Spatial data can show where these different
ecosystems are located on a map. 21 This work builds on efforts
initiated in the early 1990s by the Michigan, Minnesota, and
Wisconsin departments of natural resources and federal agencies,
including the Forest Service, to map similar ecological units
consistently across the three states. scales that have relatively
uniform ecological conditions, such as similar forest types or
comparable susceptibility to wildfire. In combination with
information on factors such as climate and soil type, this
information can be used to identify an area's ecological
potential. The information can also be used in reaching project-
level decisions such as restoring an endangered species' habitat,
harvesting timber, or building roads because areas with relatively
uniform ecological conditions tend to respond similarly to
specific management activities. Most of the data assembled by the
assessment team had already been gathered but were being
maintained by a variety of federal, state, and academic
organizations, including the Lake State forests, and thus were not
always compatible from place to place. The assessment team has
made the data more compatible by using consistent definitions,
computer systems, and scales of mapping. For example, the team
stitched together three independently developed state- specific
maps of historical forest types into one map that allows
comparisons of forest types across the states and between past and
current conditions. To facilitate data gathering during the first
few years, the assessment team worked closely with many parties,
including natural resource scientists and specialists in federal,
state, and local governments; academia; and nongovernmental
organizations. To share the data gathered, the assessment team has
made its data sets and maps available not only to the national
forests but also to the public and other government agencies,
either directly or on the Internet. In the opinion of some of the
state officials with whom we spoke, the assessment has been a
model in terms of sharing information and expertise between
federal and state agencies. The officials attributed savings in
both time and resources to the data and expertise provided by or
gleaned from the assessment. (For more detail, see app. I.) On the
other hand, the representatives of some nongovernmental
organizations told us either they were largely unaware of the
assessment's work until mid- 1998 or they thought public
participation was very limited. Other Lessons About Key Other
lessons learned about how to conduct broad- scale ecosystem- based
Elements of Assessments assessments have not been applied in the
Lake States. The Forest Service Have Not Been Applied has not
given the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment clear objectives that
would support forest planning and has not integrated the
assessment's products and timing into the agency's schedules for
revising the national forest plans. In fact, the assessment team
recently concluded that formal linkages between the [assessment]
and national forest planning do not exist. The Assessment Does Not
Have In the 5 years since the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment
began, the Clear Objectives Linked to the Forest Service has never
clearly identified its objectives with respect to Forest Planning
Process forest planning. (See app. II for a time line of the
assessment.) In addition, the assessment has relied on funding
from a variety of sources at various times for a variety of
purposes. (See app. III for a description of the assessment's
funding for fiscal years 1995 through 2001.) As a result, the
assessment's objectives have, at one time or another, been
expanded to include activities that do not directly support the
Lake States national forests in revising their plans and
contracted to exclude other activities that would assist them in
reaching more informed decisions. As originally proposed by Forest
Service ecologists in September 1994, the assessment was not
intended to directly support the Lake States forests in revising
their plans. Rather, it was intended to (1) study fire- dependent
ecosystems 22 in the Lake States to improve the agency's
management of them and (2) further refine and demonstrate the
usefulness of geographic information system technology and the
Forest Service's National Hierarchical Framework of Ecological
Units. The assessment team has continued to receive funding from
the Forest Service as well as from other sources to address these
objectives. However, the assessment team leader and the Forest
Service expected that the assessment, though not directly
supporting the plans' revisions, would indirectly support the
forests in their planning and management activities because of the
general nature of the data being collected. 22 Forests,
grasslands, and other ecosystems historically composed of plant
species that evolved with and are maintained by periodic fire. In
November 1994, planners with the Lake States national forests
requested that the proposal be expanded to include a comprehensive
ecological assessment of the Lake States. Their hope was that the
assessment would identify the unique benefits that the forests
could provide in the region and would assist the planners in
assessing the large- scale effects of proposed actions. In January
1995, the supervisors for the Lake States national forests agreed
to provide seed money for the assessment. They also agreed that
the assessment should include social and economic issues. At the
same time, the supervisors, together with the Eastern Regional
Office, initiated a project to identify (1) issues affecting the
Lake States region that transcend the boundaries of individual
national forests and (2) the data and analysis that would be
needed to address these issues in revising the forest plans. That
project was completed in November 1995 and identified 15 broad-
scale issues such as loss of species' diversity, recreational
demands, and timber supply and recommended that data be gathered
and analyzed to address the issues. 23 The assessment team has
gathered some readily available data on these and other issues.
Although the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment has received
funding from the Lake States forests, it has also relied on
funding from sources other than the Forest Service to operate. In
fiscal years 1996 through 1998, the assessment received 45 percent
of its funding from the National Partnership for Reinventing
Government. 24 According to the assessment team leader and others,
this infusion of money allowed the team to significantly increase
its data gathering and, without it, the team would likely have
been able to gather data only on fire- dependent systems, as
originally proposed. However, restrictions on the use of funds
from other sources have limited the team's ability to respond to
the immediate needs of the forest planning teams. For example,
under the funding agreement, the assessment team devoted resources
to data visualization and decision support systems (ecosystem
modeling) that the forests did not ask for and have not used. In
addition, according to some forest officials, the assessment team
was unable to respond to requests for data from the forests
because it was engaged in meeting obligations under its funding 23
North Woods Broad- Scale Issue Identification Project: A Working
Document for the Lake States National Forests, Lake States Issue
Assessment Team, Forest Service (Nov. 1995). 24 The National
Partnership for Reinventing Government (formerly known as the
National Performance Review) was initiated by the administration
in 1993 to improve the efficiency and quality of individual
agencies' operations, as well as of governmentwide systems, such
as those for procurement and budgeting. agreement. Similarly, in
July 1999, the assessment team received funding from the Joint
Fire Science Program. 25 While this money allowed the assessment
team to gather data on and analyze natural disturbance patterns,
the funds cannot be used to address social and economic issues.
The Assessment's Products and To provide for constructive public
participation in the process of revising Timing Have Not Been
Integrated the plans for the Lake States national forests and to
allow the forests to Into the Forest Service's make timely,
informed decisions, the assessment team should have Schedules for
Revising National completed its analysis of the broad- scale
issues identified in November Forest Plans 1995 and reached
conclusions early in the process. The team and the national
forests have analyzed some of the data gathered to date, but other
data have not been gathered, and conclusions have not been reached
on many of the issues identified in November 1995. In addition, in
November 1999-4 years after the first broad- scale issues were
identified and about a year before the Minnesota and Wisconsin
national forests are scheduled to issue draft alternatives-the
Lake States national forests requested substantial additional
information and analysis to support revisions to their forest
plans. Only then did the forest supervisors and the assessment
team meet to discuss products, schedules, and costs. The
assessment team has done, or is currently doing, some analysis of
the data it has gathered, including (1) comparing past and current
vegetation and disturbance patterns and (2) assessing the best
locations for white pine ecosystem restoration projects. In
addition, the individual Lake States national forests are using
the assessment's data and maps to help them address broad- scale
issues and develop management alternatives. For example, officials
at the Chequamegon and Nicolet national forests in Wisconsin have
used the assessment's data sets, maps, and geographic information
systems to help assess (1) resource conditions and trends on the
national forests and other lands, (2) the existing management
direction of the national forests, and (3) the forests' unique
role in northern Wisconsin. The forests concluded that they have
greater potential than other lands in the region to provide large,
continuous areas of northern hardwoods (maple, oak, and beech)
important habitat for many species such as migratory birds.
Officials on the Chippewa and Superior national 25 The Joint Fire
Science Program is funded and administered by the Forest Service
and the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs,
Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Fish and
Wildlife Service, and Geological Survey. The program is intended
to provide federal land managers with information and tools for
managing wildland fuels (trees, shrubs, grasses) so as to prevent
the catastrophic wildfires that degrade the health of ecosystems
and place people and infrastructure at risk. forests in Minnesota
told us they were using the assessment's data to provide (1) the
public with quantitative descriptions of the forests' ecological
units for use in developing management alternatives and (2) input
for a model that analyzes the social and economic consequences of
management alternatives. According to a resource specialist
working for the Huron and Manistee national forests in Michigan,
she used the assessment's maps of ecological units to update the
regional list of sensitive species by identifying habitats in the
Lake States similar to those on the forests and looking for
occurrences of the species in those areas. However, in November
1999, the Lake States national forests requested substantial
additional data and analysis to support revisions of their forest
plans, including assistance in identifying the historic range of
variability to help define a range of ecologically viable and
legally sufficient management alternatives. 26 The forests also
needed more data on and analysis of (1) rare conditions such as
old- growth forest, (2) habitat fragmentation, and (3) timber
supply, especially regarding the role of the national forests in
sustaining timber production. In addition, the forests requested
that the assessment team provide more narrative discussion to help
them understand the data and analyses. Some of the data that the
forest supervisors requested in November 1999-including
information on the historic range of variability and habitat
fragmentation-were identified as needed for forest planning in
November 1995 by the North Woods BroadScale Issue Identification
Project. Meanwhile, the Wisconsin and Minnesota national forests
should be well along in the process of revising their forest
plans. The Chequamegon and Nicolet national forests notified the
public of their intent to revise their plan in 1996, and the
Chippewa and Superior national forests notified the public of
their intent to revise their plans in 1997. These forests are
scheduled to issue their draft proposals late in 2000 or early in
2001. To be useful to the national forests in developing
ecologically viable and legally sufficient management
alternatives, the assessment should have already completed its
data gathering and analysis and reached conclusions. However, the
forest supervisors' request for data in November 1999 26 The
historic range of variability is defined as the limits of change
in the composition, structure, and processes of the biological and
physical components of an ecosystem resulting from natural
variations in the frequency, magnitude, and patterns of natural
disturbances and ecological processes characteristic of an area
before European settlement. indicates that much is yet to be done.
The assessment team leader told us that the team would not be able
to provide all of the data and analysis by the time they are
needed under current funding and staffing levels. As we observed
in the first round of forest planning, such gaps in data and
analysis could further delay the forests' plan revision schedules.
Alternatively, the plans could be revised before broad- scale
ecological and socioeconomic issues are adequately addressed.
Moreover, without the benefit of the assessment's analyses and
conclusions, the Forest Service cannot adequately identify the
range of ecologically viable and legally sufficient alternatives
and their ecological and socioeconomic consequences. As a result,
the revised forest plans are more likely to be challenged, and the
agency is more likely to delay, amend, or withdraw the plans.
Under either scenario, residents of the Lake States who are
economically dependent on the forests, communities and elected
officials, and regional businesses and organizations live in
uncertainty of the forests' future. In addition, individual
forests risk increasing public frustration with the planning
process if the management alternatives developed with public
participation prove not to be ecologically viable and/ or legally
sufficient. For example, the Chippewa and Superior national
forests solicited and received proposals for management
alternatives from several public interest groups. Those groups
invested time and resources working on proposals without the
benefit of thorough information on the historic range of
variability, even though the forests stated the requirement that
alternatives lead to conditions that fall within that range.
Integration Into Forest Despite the recognized benefits of broad-
scale ecosystem- based Planning Has Not Occurred assessments in
revising forest plans, the Forest Service's regional and Because
the Assessment forest officials have not viewed the assessment as
a priority. Thus, they Has Not Been a High have been unwilling to
provide the leadership, guidance, and funding necessary to
complete the assessment in a timely manner. As we reported
Priority in 1999, issues that the Forest Service treats as
priorities (1) benefit from a sense of urgency and strong
leadership by top- level management, (2) are addressed through a
strategy that provides the agency's managers with adequate
direction and sets standards for holding them accountable, and (3)
receive the resources necessary to implement the strategy. 27 The
Great Lakes Ecological Assessment meets none of these criteria. 27
Western National Forests: Status of Forest Service's Efforts to
Reduce Catastrophic Wildfire Threats (GAO/T-RCED-99-241, June 29,
1999). Although the issues being addressed by the assessment
extend beyond the administrative boundaries of the individual Lake
States national forests, neither the Forest Service's Eastern
Regional Office nor the forest supervisors have provided the
needed leadership. Rather, the assessment team has assumed
leadership by default. Moreover, neither the region nor the
forests felt an urgent need to complete the assessment in a timely
manner. According to the assessment team leader, he first learned
of the schedules for revising the Wisconsin and Minnesota national
forest plans when the Forest Service notified the public of its
intent to revise the plans in 1996 and 1997, respectively.
Additionally, the forest supervisors and the team leader did not
meet until November 1999 to discuss objectives, time frames, or
costs for obtaining specific types of data and analyses the
forests would need to finish revising their plans-4 years after
the forests identified the broad- scale issues they would need to
analyze in revising their plans. In addition, Forest Service
headquarters did not provide the region with any written guidance
or directives on when to conduct the assessment or how to use its
products, nor did it set standards for holding the region
accountable. The region, in turn, took a hands- off approach and
gave the forest supervisors the discretion to use or not use the
assessment as they saw fit. An Eastern Region official told us the
region did not believe that guidance was needed because the forest
supervisors had originally supported the assessment and thus did
not need to be told to use it. Our discussions with current and
former staff on the forests and the assessment team revealed,
however, that some forest supervisors and some regional officials
were reluctant to support the assessment. The final, and probably
the most telling, indication that the assessment is not a high
priority is the lack of attention given to its funding needs. The
region and forests never asked the assessment team to identify
what could be expected from the assessment given different funding
levels, nor did they rank the issues identified in 1995 and 1999
so that available funds would be allocated to the agency's highest
priorities. According to one of the forest supervisors who agreed
to fund the assessment in 1995, the supervisors provided only
modest seed money to begin the assessment because they did not
expect the assessment to succeed in supporting revisions to forest
plans. Another forest supervisor, who agreed to fund the
assessment in 1995, told us that the supervisors as a group wanted
to limit the scope of the assessment and tried to do so by
limiting its funding. Furthermore, unlike the Northwest Forest
Plan and the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project,
the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment has not been identified as a
special project for funding in the Forest Service's fiscal year
budget justifications, and the region has not withheld money from
the forests' annual budgets to fund the assessment. Without
adequate funding from the Forest Service, the assessment team has
had to seek funding from other sources and has had to complete
some activities that have not directly served the most immediate
needs of forest planners. Proposed Planning For broad- scale
ecosystem- based assessments to be of value, the Forest
Regulations Need to Service will need to integrate them into its
planning process. Toward this end, on October 5, 1999, the agency
proposed regulations that would revise Better Integrate its
process for developing forest plans. The draft regulations address
some Assessments Into the of the lessons learned to date about the
key elements of broad- scale Planning Process ecosystem based
assessments and their role in forest planning. However, the
regulations could be strengthened to ensure that they contain
those key elements and are better integrated into the forest
planning process. Proposed Regulations The Forest Service's
proposed planning regulations address some of the Address Some
Lessons lessons learned about the key elements of broad- scale
ecosystem- based Learned About Key assessments. For instance, they
state that (1) forest plans must be based on Elements the best
available scientific information and analyses, including
information from a variety of geographic areas, some of which can
only be obtained, or can best be obtained, from broad- scale
assessments, and (2) assessments should be conducted at
appropriate geographic scales and reach conclusions. The draft
regulations establish ecological, social, and economic
sustainability as the overall goal for managing the national
forests and state that ecological sustainability-on which social
and economic sustainability depends is the agency's first
priority. 28 To maintain and restore ecological sustainability,
the proposed regulations would require the collection and analysis
of information on ecosystems' composition, structure, and 28
Ecological sustainability is defined as the maintenance or
restoration of an ecological system's composition, structure, and
function, which are characteristic of a plan area over time and
space, including but not limited to ecological processes,
biological diversity, and the productive capacity of ecological
systems. processes. Such information includes the types and
distribution of animal and plant species and the frequency and
intensity of fires, pest infestations, and other natural
disturbances-at multiple geographic and time scales, including
historic and current conditions. Likewise, the draft regulations
would require the collection and analysis of social and economic
data such as industry employment and demographics-to help in
understanding how social and economic sustainability is linked to
ecological sustainability over space and time. Broad- scale
assessments are often the only or the best source for some of this
information, and the proposed regulations describe such
assessments as a key element of the planning process. The draft
rules also discuss the appropriate geographic scales for
assessments and identify how the assessments may be used in
decisionmaking. According to the proposed regulations, assessments
of ecological issues should be conducted within broad ecological
boundaries on the basis of biological or geographic
characteristics, such as the habitat range of a species. The draft
rules also require that broad- scale assessments be more than just
compilations of data. Instead, according to the rules, they should
include findings and conclusions. These may be used in revising
forest plans or in other planning activities, such as developing
conservation strategies to protect sensitive species with wide-
ranging habitats. Proposed Regulations Could The Forest Service's
proposed planning regulations do not adequately Be Strengthened to
Better reflect other lessons learned about conducting broad- scale
ecosystembased Integrate Assessments Into assessments. Hence, they
could be strengthened to better integrate Forest Planning
assessments into forest planning. For example, they (1) generally
leave decisions about whether to conduct assessments to the
discretion of the Forest Service's national forest supervisors,
who have considerable autonomy for interpreting and applying the
agency's policies; (2) do not state when in the process
assessments should occur; (3) are silent on the need for clear
objectives and identifiable products; and (4) do not require the
regional offices and forests to identify their strategies for
involving the public. When revising their forest plans, most, if
not all, of the national forests must address ecological, social,
and economic issues that extend beyond their administrative
boundaries (and often extend into other national forests). Most of
the forests also lack the data and analyses to address these
issues effectively. The draft regulations generally leave the
decision about whether to conduct a broad- scale assessment to the
discretion of the forest supervisor. As evidenced in the Lake
States region, the integration of broad- scale ecosystem- based
assessments into forest planning, if left to the discretion of the
forest supervisors, will be uneven and mixed throughout the
agency, and some forests may lack the information they need to
make informed decisions. In addition, because forest supervisors
are typically responsible for individual forests, they may not be
in the best position to decide when a broad- scale assessment
should be done. While the proposed regulations would allow forest
supervisors to combine their planning activities or would
authorize one or more regional foresters or the Chief to take the
lead in planning activities, the proposed regulations do not
assign responsibility or institute a process for ensuring that
such coordination will occur when warranted. In addition, the
proposed regulations state that planning must be done
expeditiously and that forests should aim to complete the planning
process within 3 years. However, the draft rules do not state that
assessments should occur early in the revision of forest plans to
provide for constructive public participation in the revision and
to allow the forests to make timely, informed decisions. Moreover,
although the objectives of assessments and the methods of
conveying their results will vary, the proposed regulations say
nothing about the need for clear objectives and identifiable
products. For example, the proposed regulations do not specify the
need for a well- defined scope of work or a charter that would
identify who is responsible for completing specific products in
accordance with a time line and at a particular cost. Furthermore,
although the proposed regulations call for future forest plans to
summarize the cost of projected work, including assessments, they
do not appear to recognize the need to authorize, fund, and
conduct an assessment before revising a forest plan. According to
the proposed regulations, public participation and collaboration
occur throughout all phases of the forest planning process,
including assessments. Additionally, according to the proposed
regulations, the public should be given an opportunity to
participate in assessments and must be provided with the
information necessary to fully engage in the planning process.
However, the proposed regulations do not require regional offices
and forests to identify how the public and other governmental
entities will participate in assessments and in revising forest
plans. By contrast, the planning regulations that the Forest
Service proposed in April 1995 but never finalized would have
required the national forests to develop communications strategies
describing how the public and other government entities would
participate in all stages of revising a forest plan, including the
prerevision process. 29 This process was described as a data
collection and analysis exercise that would have served roughly
the same function as a broad- scale assessment under the
regulations currently being proposed. The regulations proposed in
April 1995 would have required agency officials to invite the
public and others to express their ideas and suggestions on a
communications strategy and meet with interested representatives
of other federal agencies and state, local, and tribal governments
to establish and document procedures for ongoing coordination and
communication throughout the plan revision process. The Forest
Service would then have documented these procedures and made them
available to the public. Conclusions The Forest Service has an
opportunity to improve the value of broad- scale ecosystem- based
assessments in forest planning, both in the Lake States and across
the country. The Forest Service is revising the plans for the Lake
States national forests and is fast approaching the legal deadline
for doing so. However, the agency lacks information and analysis
that would support its planning process and could be provided by
the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment. Without a committed effort
by the Forest Service to strengthen the execution of the
assessment, the agency will be hampered in its ability to propose
and choose among ecologically viable and legally sufficient
management alternatives. Nationally, broad- scale assessments will
be affected by the Forest Service's proposed new planning
regulations. The Forest Service has the opportunity to learn from
its experience in the Lake States and elsewhere and to
institutionalize these lessons in its regulations and guidance.
However, the proposed planning regulations do not take all of the
steps necessary to maximize the value of assessments in the forest
planning process. Recommendations to To better integrate the Great
Lakes Ecological Assessment into the process the Secretary of used
by the Lake States national forests to revise their plans, we
recommend that the Secretary of Agriculture direct the Chief of
the Forest Agriculture Service to develop a strategy that would
allow the assessment team to gather and analyze data and reach
conclusions on broad- scale planningrelated issues identified by
the forests before the forests identify a range of 29 60 Fed. Reg.
18886 (Apr. 13, 1995). ecologically viable and legally sufficient
management alternatives. If time and/ or funding is not available
to allow the assessment team to gather and analyze data and reach
conclusions on these planning- related issues, then the region and
forests will need to (1) rank the issues so that the available
time and funds can be applied to the highest priorities and (2)
identify the likely consequences of not addressing other issues-
such as the increased likelihood of subsequent legal challenges to
the plans' implementation to assist the Forest Service and the
Congress in making additional funding decisions. To
institutionalize the lessons learned about the key elements of
broadscale assessments, we recommend that the Secretary of
Agriculture direct the Chief of the Forest Service to make further
revisions to the agency's planning regulations. These revisions
should make clear that broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments
must be used in revising forest plans unless the region( s) and
forests can justify their omission. The revisions should also
provide that when a decision is made to conduct an assessment, the
region( s) and forests must prepare a strategy that identifies,
among other things, (1) how the assessment will be linked to the
forest plan's revision, (2) how the public and other governmental
entities will participate in the revision process, (3) what
objectives the assessment will meet and what products it will
generate, including those of the highest priority, and (4) how
much the assessment will cost, how funding will be secured for it,
and what is likely to happen if full funding is not available.
Agency Comments and We provided copies of a draft of this report
to the Forest Service for review Our Evaluation and comment. The
agency focused its comments on our discussion of the Great Lakes
Ecological Assessment and the proposed planning regulations.
According to the Forest Service, the report accurately reflects
the facts surrounding the agency's planning and the Great Lakes
Ecological Assessment. However, the agency disagreed with our
recommendation that it develop a strategy to guide the integration
of the assessment with the Lake State forests' planning process
because it does not believe that the forests need to rely on the
Great Lakes Ecological Assessment to complete their forest plan
revisions. We believe that the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment
is the most appropriate mechanism for addressing broad- scale
issues and needs to be fully integrated with the planning process
to ensure that these issues are properly addressed. In addition,
the Forest Service concurred with the desired outcome of our
recommendation on further revisions to the agency's proposed
planning regulations namely, that broad- scale assessments be
better integrated into forests' planning processes but it
disagreed that the proposed regulations needed to be modified to
accomplish this. We believe that modifying the proposed
regulations will help hold agency officials accountable for
integrating assessments into the planning process. The Forest
Service agreed that the Lake State forests need additional
information and analysis to identify a range of ecologically
viable and legally sufficient management alternatives, but it did
not agree with our recommendation that it develop a strategy for
integrating the assessment into the forests' planning process. The
Forest Service commented that there are sources other than the
Great Lakes Ecological Assessment for this information and
analysis such as the individual forests. We do not maintain that
the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment must be the only source of
information for the plan revision teams. However, we believe that
using a centralized broad- scale assessment, rather than relying
on decentralized efforts at each national forest, would (1) help
to ensure that all of the individual forests have information on
issues that extend beyond their boundaries; (2) reduce the costs
of gathering and analyzing the data; and (3) increase the
likelihood that the data would be consistently formatted and
analyzed. We modified our recommendation to emphasize that the
Great Lakes Ecological Assessment should be the primary vehicle
for gathering data and conducting analysis to address broad- scale
issues. The Forest Service did not agree with the portion of our
recommendation stating that the proposed planning regulations
should require broad- scale assessments to be done unless the
region( s) and forests can justify not doing so. The agency
believes this would be unnecessary because the intent of the
proposed regulations is to base decisions on scientific data,
including broad- scale data when appropriate. On the basis of our
work over the past 5 years, however, we believe that the need for
an assessment will be the rule rather than the exception. Because
the agency has not based its decisions on the appropriate broad-
scale data in the past, we believe it would be prudent, and not
burdensome, to require the agency to justify its decision not to
conduct broad- scale assessments when revising forest plans. When
an exception is warranted as in the instances cited in the Forest
Service's comments we do not believe the agency will have
difficulty explaining and justifying its decision. In addition,
the agency disagreed with our recommendation that the proposed
planning regulations be revised to require a strategy identifying
the key elements of each assessment, including its objectives,
time frames, and costs. Instead, the Forest Service believes that
such guidance should be left to the agency's manuals and
directives. However, given the difficulties the agency has
experienced because it has not always based its land management
decisions on adequate science, especially regarding issues that
extend beyond the boundaries of national forests, we believe that
this requirement should be included in the planning regulations.
We agree that the Forest Service should provide more specific
details about how to prepare this strategy in its manuals and
directives. The Forest Service's written comments and and our
detailed response to them are found in appendix IV of this report.
We conducted our work from June 1999 through January 2000 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
Appendix V provides information on our scope and methodology. As
arranged with your offices, unless you publicly announce its
contents earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report
until 30 days after the date of this letter. At that time, we will
send copies of this report to Senator Bingaman, Ranking Minority
Member, Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and
Representative George Miller, Ranking Minority Member, House
Committee on Resources. We are also sending copies of this report
to the Honorable Dan Glickman, Secretary of Agriculture; the
Honorable Mike Dombeck, Chief of the Forest Service; and other
interested parties. We will make copies available to others on
request. If you or your staff have any questions about this
report, please call me at (202) 512- 3841. Key contributors to
this report are listed in appendix VI. Jim Wells Director, Energy,
Resources, and Science Issues Appendi xes Other Uses of Data From
the Great Lakes Appendi xI Ecological Assessment The data
assembled by the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment have been used
for purposes other than supporting the Lake States national
forests in revising their plans. State agencies, environmental
groups, and timber industry organizations have reported using the
assessment's data. Some of these users consider the data to be the
best available and believe that the assessment team has presented
the data in a neutral, easy- to- understand format. According to
the Forest Service, the assessment has produced cost savings and
prevented duplication of effort by providing reliable, accessible
data in a regional context. For example, the three Lake States-
Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin- own and manage millions of
acres of state forestlands. Like the Forest Service, these states
must develop management plans for the forestlands they manage and,
in some cases, for all forestlands in their state. State
departments of natural resources reported to us that their
participation in the assessment supported existing collaborations
with the Forest Service and helped them meet their own
responsibilities. These agencies became familiar with the
assessment, supported it, and were among the first to use, and
benefit from, its products. The departments of natural resources
in Minnesota and Wisconsin have both relied on regionwide data
from the assessment that they otherwise would not have had. For
instance, both state agencies reported using the assessment's maps
of regional historic and current vegetation patterns in their
planning processes. In evaluating and planning for its state
forests, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has
requested and used maps provided by the assessment team, including
maps of climate and river and stream density. The Minnesota
Department of Natural Resources used information from the
assessment on the location of historic white pine forests and
patterns of pest infestations to select locations for white pine
restoration projects. Both departments also reported turning to
the assessment team for its expertise in creating compatible
spatial databases and in interpreting complex data sets.
Similarly, some of the environmental groups and industry
organizations we spoke with reported using data from the
assessment. For example, the timber producers' association in
Wisconsin and Michigan has used the assessment's data on saw mill
locations to help schedule the temporary closing of timber-
related roads during the spring thaw. According to the director of
an environmental group, he and other members of the group have
used the assessment's maps to better understand and compare
current and past forest conditions and to help shape their views
on land management decisions. However, representatives from the
Minnesota chapters of two national environmental organizations
commented to us that they were unaware of the assessment's work
until mid- 1998. Time Line for the Great Lakes Ecological Appendi
xII Assessment 1993 November A group of 18 federal and state
agencies publish a Resolution for Interagency Cooperation on
Ecosystems Management and agree to share ecological information
and to develop strategies and tools, such as consistent mapping
systems, for the comprehensive management of the region's natural
resources. The assessment subsequently builds on this
collaborative effort. 1994 September Forest Service ecologists
propose to assess fire- dependent ecosystems in the Lake States to
improve the agency's management of them and to demonstrate the
usefulness of spatial data, the National Hierarchical Framework of
Ecological Units, and multiscale analyses. 1994 November National
forest planners learn about this proposal and ask the ecologists
to expand its scope to include a comprehensive ecological
assessment for the Lake States region. The planners wish to
identify any unique benefits that the national forests could
provide, such as large areas of habitat, and view one broad- scale
assessment as more efficient than several individual assessments
at smaller scales. The assessment should also help planners look
outside the boundaries of national forests to evaluate the large-
scale effects of proposed actions. 1995 January- March The
planners and ecologists jointly propose the assessment to the Lake
States forest supervisors. The supervisors agree to the assessment
and provide seed money and staff time. An assessment team
comprising agency personnel and researchers begins phase I of the
assessment gathering readily available social, economic, and
ecological data from various sources, including the national
forests and state and other federal agencies. At the same time,
the Lake States forest supervisors approve a project to identify
broad- scale issues that affect multiple forests. 1995 November
The broad- scale issue identification project, which included
members of the assessment team, is completed. The resulting report
identifies 15 broad- scale issues-including the loss of species,
recreational demands, and timber supply-and the data and analysis
needed to better understand them. a 1996 June After depleting its
seed money from the forests, the assessment team receives $265,
000 of an eventual $338, 500 from the National Partnership for
Reinventing Government. With this funding, the assessment team
continues phase 1 and, through cost- sharing arrangements with
university researchers, adds landscape modeling and techniques to
illustrate current and potential conditions under different
management scenarios. Because of the funding agreement and
constraints on resources, the assessment team conducts only
projects related to its commitments to the National Partnership
unless time and resources from other sources allow additional
work. 1997 September The assessment team begins to provide some
data to the Lake States forests. Also in 1997, with funding from
the National Partnership for Reinventing Government, the
assessment team surveys more than 150 managers, planners, and
social scientists in the northern Great Lakes region and across
the United States to identify and rank the types and scales of
data of greatest importance to the public and private sectors for
addressing questions on the relationships between people and
natural resources. This survey was designed to focus the
assessment team's efforts on collecting the types of socioeconomic
data that would be most useful in forest planning. 1998 February-
March The assessment team provides data tables to the Lake States
forests that include historic and current vegetation patterns,
road miles, land ownership, stream miles, and lake density in the
forests' management areas. 1998 August- September By August 1998,
the assessment team begins presenting maps of the data it has
assembled on the Internet. By the end of fiscal year 1998, funds
from the National Partnership for Reinventing Government are
essentially depleted. At that time, with the exception of some
modeling work, the team meets most of its commitments under its
agreement with the National Partnership to (1) collect existing
social, economic, and ecological information; (2) map these data
sets; and (3) make the data sets and maps available over the
Internet or via other electronic means, such as compact disk. 1999
July Funds arrive from the Joint Fire Science Program to support
ongoing work characterizing historic, current, and potential
future disturbance patterns across the Lake States region. This
allows the assessment team to continue its work on phase 1 of the
assessment assembling data that are more costly and difficult to
obtain-and phase 2 analyzing and reporting the data. The Joint
Fire Science Program's funding cannot be used to gather and
analyze social and economic data, so this type of work is
eventually stopped. 1999 November The Lake States national forests
request substantial additional information from the assessment
team to support revisions of their forest plans. The forest
supervisors and the assessment team leader meet to discuss the
assessment's objectives, time frames, and costs. They expect the
assessment to be funded through fiscal year 2001. a North Woods
Broad- Scale Issue Identification Project: A Working Document for
the Lake States National Forests, Lake States Issue Assessment
Team, Forest Service (Nov. 1995). Source: Great Lakes Ecological
Assessment team leader. Funding for the Great Lakes Ecological
Appendi xI II Assessment Funding for the Great Lakes Ecological
Assessment is expected to total more than $1.5 million from fiscal
year 1995 through fiscal year 2001. Several sources both inside
and outside the Forest Service have funded the assessment. (See
table 1.) From fiscal year 1995 through fiscal year 2001, the
Forest Service is expected to provide $897,000, or 58 percent of
the assessment's total funding. The remaining $639,000, or 42
percent, will come from other sources. Table 1: Funding for the
Great Lakes Ecological Assessment for Fiscal Years 1995- 2000 and
Estimated Funding for Fiscal Year 2001 Dollars in thousands
Percent of Source 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 Total total
Lake States National Forests 65 66 66 50 49 59 49 404 26
Washington Office 30 80 30 30 30 30 230 15 Region 9 59 18 43 18
138 9 North Central Research Station 15 10 50 50 125 8 Total from
the Forest Service 897 58 National Partnership for Reinventing
Government 70 119 145 5 339 22 Joint Fire Science Program 54 167
79 300 20 Total from other sources 639 42 Total 139 184 308 243
148 306 208 1,536 100 Note: Percentages do not sum exactly because
of rounding. Source: Great Lakes Ecological Assessment team
leader. Within the Forest Service, the seven Lake States national
forests provided seed money to start the assessment in fiscal year
1995 and have contributed each year to the salaries of the
assessment team members. The Forest Service's Washington Office
has also funded the salaries of the assessment team members since
fiscal year 1996, and it paid for a pilot test of an ecosystem
model in fiscal year 1997. In fiscal years 1995 through 1998,
Region 9 funded studies of fire- dependent ecosystems. The Forest
Service's North Central Research Station, located in Rhinelander,
Wisconsin, has helped fund the salaries of the assessment team
members, the use of geographic information systems technology, and
several research projects. The assessment has also sought and
received funds from sources outside the Forest Service. First, a
working group of the National Partnership for Reinventing
Government approved $338,500 in funding for the Great Lakes
Ecological Assessment. The working group's mission was to provide
seed money to innovative information technology projects that
could (1) provide more efficient and effective services to the
public, such as increased or improved information dissemination,
and (2) benefit multiple federal, state, and local agencies
through, for example, lower operating costs. The assessment team
sought to meet this mission through the use of innovative
technologies namely, geographic information systems and the
Internet-to effectively disseminate information on natural
resource conditions to government agencies and the public. The
assessment has also received $299,750 from the Joint Fire Science
Program, beginning in fiscal year 1999. The program supports
projects that inventory wildland fuels or evaluate the impact of
treatments, such as prescribed burns, on fuel conditions. The
funds were provided specifically to support the assessment's
efforts to bring multiple agencies together and to better
understand fire- dependent ecosystems in the Lake States region.
The assessment team has leveraged the funds from the Forest
Service and other sources through collaborative projects with
other federal and state agencies and partnering arrangements with
universities. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency and
the Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation
Service have contributed data and expertise. The Department of the
Interior's Geological Survey has provided data, such as digital
elevations, and has made its data server available to present the
assessment's data on the Internet. State natural resource agencies
provided such data as land type classifications and inventories of
rare plants and animals, as well as expertise in interpreting
these data. Universities in the region continued to pay part of
the salaries of university researchers working on the assessment.
Because the participants have derived mutual benefits from the
assessment, they have not quantified their contributions to it.
Appendi xI V Comments From the Forest Service Note: GAO comments
supplementing those in the report text appear at the end of this
appendix See comment 1. See comment 2. See comment 3. See comment
4. See comment 5. See comment 6. See comment 7. See comment 6. See
comment 7. The following are GAO's comments on the attachment to
the Forest Service's letter dated February 7, 2000. GAO Comments
1. GAO and the Forest Service are largely in agreement on this
point. We both agree that the primary objective of our
recommendation is to ensure that the Forest Service has gathered
the data and conducted the analysis needed to identify the range
of ecologically viable and legally sufficient management
alternatives. Although the data may be derived from sources other
than the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment, we believe that
efforts to collect and analyze data for broad- scale issues can be
carried out most efficiently and effectively under the auspices of
a single project, which can ensure appropriate coordination and
prioritization. We revised the language of our recommendation to
make this point clearer. 2. We agree that the Great Lakes
Ecological Assessment was not precipitated by the forest plan
revision process. However, we believe that it is now appropriate
to view the assessment as a broad scale effort supporting
revisions to forest plans in the Great Lakes region. Our work over
the past 5 years has shown that in revising their plans, most, if
not all, of the national forests must address ecological, social,
and economic issues that extend beyond their boundaries. Doing so
is necessary to enable them to comply with laws such as the
Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
Because broad- scale assessments have proved useful in identifying
and addressing these types of issues, we believe it is appropriate
to view the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment in this role. We
also believe that in 1995 as the assessment got under way the
Forest Service knew enough about the value of assessments and the
elements that are key to their success to have linked it more
formally to the forests' planning processes. 3. We agree with the
Forest Service that the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment team has
been responsive to forest managers and has provided useful
information to support the revision process. However, we believe
that if the Forest Service had (1) assigned a higher priority to
the assessment, (2) established clear objectives for the
assessment to support the revision process, and (3) better
integrated the assessment into the revision process, the results
would have been more responsive to the needs of forest planners
and would have provided more information to support the revision
process. 4. Our data show that a significant percentage of the
Great Lakes Ecological Assessment team's funding came from sources
other than the Forest Service and that these sources imposed
restrictions on the types of data gathering and analysis their
funds could be used for. Nevertheless, we continue to believe that
collaboration with other research organizations is an important
and necessary part of the assessment process. However, heavy
reliance on sources other than the Forest Service to fund
assessments can mean that funds are not available to gather data
and complete analyses needed to revise forest plans.. 5. We agree
with the Forest Service that forest planners have used and are
using products of the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment in the
revision process. However, we believe that the assessment could be
better integrated with or linked to the revision process. For
example, it was not until November 1999 that the forest
supervisors and the assessment team leader met to discuss the
objectives, time frames, and costs of obtaining specific types of
data and analysis that the forests would need to finish revising
their plans. 6. On the basis of our work over the past 5 years, we
believe that the need for an assessment will be the rule rather
than the exception. Because of the agency's historical failure to
base decisions on the appropriate broad- scale data, we believe it
would be prudent, and not burdensome, to require the agency to
justify its decision not to conduct broad- scale assessments when
revising forest plans. When an exception is warranted as in the
instances cited in the Forest Service's comments we do not believe
the agency will have difficulty explaining and justifying its
decision. 7. In general, the Forest Service agrees with the
desired outcome of the portion of our recommendation that concerns
a strategy for conducting assessments, but it believes that the
guidance should appear in agency directives rather than in the
planning regulations themselves. We believe that even if our
recommendation is adopted and the provisions are added to the
proposed planning regulations, most of the details needed by
agency officials to implement the provisions would still need to
be included in Forest Service directives. Including general
requirements in the Forest Service's planning regulations would
help to assure the Congress and the American people that
assessments will be conducted when needed and will be done well.
However, because the operational details will still be found in
Forest Service directives, the Forest Service will have the
flexibility to finetune the provisions or adapt them to changing
circumstances. Appendi xV Scope and Methodology To determine the
key elements of broad- scale ecosystem- based assessments,
including lessons learned about why and how they should be done,
we examined documents prepared by the Forest Service, the
Department of the Interior, and other agencies. We also relied on
previous GAO reports that identified deficiencies in the Forest
Service's planning process and reviewed broad- scale assessments
done by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management in
the Pacific Northwest. To determine the extent to which Great
Lakes Ecological Assessment contained the key elements of an
assessment and was integrated into the national forest planning
process, we conducted a thorough review of the assessment. We did
our work both in the Great Lakes region and in Washington, D. C.
To learn about the assessment's objectives, time lines, outputs,
and costs, we met and talked extensively with the project's team
leader. We also spoke with his supervisors in the Forest Service's
Ecosystem Management Coordination Office and Eastern Regional
Office. To learn more about the preparation of the assessment, we
spoke with Forest Service employees assigned to the assessment and
representatives of collaborating agencies and organizations. The
collaborators included other federal agencies (the U. S.
Geological Survey, the Natural Resource Conservation Service, and
the Environmental Protection Agency), state departments of natural
resources, and university researchers. We also reviewed the
outputs that the assessment team posted on its Internet Web site.
To learn more about the original objectives of the assessment and
its uses in relation to the process for revising forest plans, we
also spoke with forest supervisors or their staff from six of the
seven Great Lakes forests: the Chippewa, Superior, Nicolet,
Chequamegon, Huron- Manistee, and Ottawa national forests. Several
of the Forest Service staff were retired when we spoke with them
but had been involved with the assessment before retiring. To
characterize the benefits of the assessment outside the Forest
Service, we also spoke with representatives of state and county
agencies, Native American tribes, forest industry associations,
and environmental groups. To determine the extent to which the
Forest Service would integrate broadscale assessments into the
forest planning process, we reviewed its October 5, 1999, proposed
planning regulations. Our review was limited to the sections that
address the role of broad- scale assessments in the planning
process. We conducted a qualitative evaluation of the proposed
regulations in light of our findings in the Lake States region, as
well as in the context of the lessons we and others have learned
about assessments and their role in planning. Appendi xVI GAO
Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments GAO Contact Charles S. Cotton
(202) 512- 3841 Acknowledgments In addition, Ross Campbell,
Charles T. Egan, Elizabeth R. Eisenstadt, Doreen Stolzenberg
Feldman, and Dena M. Owens made key contributions to this report.
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GAO's World Wide Web Home Page at: http:// www. gao. gov Table 1:
Funding for the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment for Fiscal Years
1995- 2000 and Estimated Funding for Fiscal Year 2001 40 Figure 1:
The Boundaries of the Lake States National Forests and the Great
Lakes Ecological Assessment 19 GAO United States General
Accounting Office Page 1 GAO/RCED-00-56 Ecosystem Planning
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Appendix I Appendix I Other Uses of Data From the Great Lakes
Ecological Assessment Page 37 GAO/RCED-00-56 Ecosystem Planning
Page 38 GAO/RCED-00-56 Ecosystem Planning Appendix II Appendix II
Time Line for the Great Lakes Ecological Assessment Page 39
GAO/RCED-00-56 Ecosystem Planning Page 40 GAO/RCED-00-56 Ecosystem
Planning Appendix III Appendix III Funding for the Great Lakes
Ecological Assessment Page 41 GAO/RCED-00-56 Ecosystem Planning
Page 42 GAO/RCED-00-56 Ecosystem Planning Appendix IV Appendix IV
Comments From the Forest Service Page 43 GAO/RCED-00-56 Ecosystem
Planning Appendix IV Comments From the Forest Service Page 44
GAO/RCED-00-56 Ecosystem Planning Appendix IV Comments From the
Forest Service Page 45 GAO/RCED-00-56 Ecosystem Planning Appendix
IV Comments From the Forest Service Page 46 GAO/RCED-00-56
Ecosystem Planning Appendix IV Comments From the Forest Service
Page 47 GAO/RCED-00-56 Ecosystem Planning Appendix IV Comments
From the Forest Service Page 48 GAO/RCED-00-56 Ecosystem Planning
Appendix IV Comments From the Forest Service Page 49 GAO/RCED-00-
56 Ecosystem Planning Appendix IV Comments From the Forest Service
Page 50 GAO/RCED-00-56 Ecosystem Planning Page 51 GAO/RCED-00-56
Ecosystem Planning Appendix V Page 52 GAO/RCED-00-56 Ecosystem
Planning Appendix VI Appendix VI GAO Contacts and Staff
Acknowledgments Page 54 GAO/RCED-00-56 Ecosystem Planning United
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