CHAPTER 1 PURPOSE AND NEED PROPOSED ACTION The purpose of this proposed action is to revise the Sumter Land and Resource Management Plan (LMP). The revised LMP guides all natural resource management activities on the Sumter National Forest (SNF) to meet the objective of Federal law, regulations, and policy. The proposed action would also affect a wide range of socioeconomic factors as they relate to natural resources. The existing LMP for the SNF was approved August 1985. As of November 1, 2002, there are 14 amendments to the existing LMP. Revision of the LMP is now needed to satisfy regulation requirements and to address new information about the forest and its uses. The regulations implementing the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) instruct the Regional Forester to make periodic revisions to LMP and to provide the basis for any revision. The instructions to revise forest plans, the basis for revision, are found in Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 36 CFR 219.10(g). The Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) describes the analysis of several alternatives for revising the LMP of the SNF and discloses the environmental effects of the alternatives. The FEIS is guided by the implementing regulations of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) found in the Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ) Regulations, Title 40, CFR, Part 1500. The companion document to this FEIS is the Revised Land and Resource Management Plan (RLMP)—a detailed presentation of the preferred alternative. FOREST PLAN DECISIONS National Forest System resource allocation and management decisions are made in two stages. The first stage is the LMP level decisions, which allocates lands and resources to various uses or conditions by establishing management areas and management prescriptions for the land and resources within the plan area. The second stage is approval of project level decisions. |