of wetlands and associated habitats. Estimated 1992 accomplishments include 60,000 acres restored, 140,000 acres enhanced, and 210,000 acres protected. Partners for Wildlife The Fish and Wildlife Service provides technical and financial assistance to private landowners, through a Partners for Wildlife program. To date, the agency, working with private partners, has helped restore 177,000 acres through voluntary agreements with 9,000 landowners. In 1992 alone FWS helped restore 37,400 acres through voluntary agreements with 2,000 landown ers. Managing Riparian Areas Given their relatively small acreages, riparian values and benefits are considerable. In the arid western United States, riparian areas are among the most productive ecosystems on public lands, but, over the years, many of these areas have deteriorated. Since riparian benefits cannot be fully realized under degraded conditions, public concern is growing over the condition of these areas, particularly in the western states. Forest Service. The National Forest System contains 5.6 million acres of riparian ecosystems along 359,000 miles of streams, rivers, and shorelines. In 1990 only 42 percent of these riparian areas met standards set by forest plans. Based on inventories of over 400,000 acres of riparian ecosystems, the Forest Service developed a number of restoration plans for the future. The goal of the agency's Riparian Strategy is to complete forest-wide inventories of riparian conditions and ecological health by the year 1995. In 1991 the Forest Service issued the report, Riparian Management, A Leadership Challenge, with guidelines for restoring riparian areas and wetlands throughout the National Forest System and for assuring that healthy riparian areas are not degraded by human activities. The goal is to meet standards set by national forest plans on 75 percent of unsatisfactory riparian areas by the year 2000. Over the past three years, the Forest Service has restored 22,000 acres of riparian areas on the Lassen, Plumas, Six Rivers, Cleveland, and Mendocino forests in the Southwest. Restoration techniques include meadow rehabilitation, channel and bank stabilization, road obliteration, mine rehabilitation, and gully restoration. The following groups have assisted with these efforts: California Department of Fish and Game, California Department of Forestry, California Conservation Corps, Youth Conservation Corps, Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation Department, local landowners, and national forest permit holders. Bureau of Land Management. Riparian areas constitute 23.7 million acres or 8.8 percent of the 270 million acres of BLM lands. In an effort to restore, enhance, and protect these areas, BLM has undertaken a RiparianWetlands Initiative for the 1990s. With a goal of restoring 75 percent of BLM riparian areas by 1997, BLM has implemented 680 new on-site projects. Among these are new fence construction to improve grazing management, tree planting, and the use of prescribed fire. A total of 530 maintenance projects are upgrading deteriorated fences, water developments, and habitatimprovement structures. The bureau is conducting inventories on thousands of miles of riparian streams to determine their condition and potential for recovery. Examples of cooperative efforts follow. • Marys River. Ranchers, local residents, and conservation groups are working together to improve riparian management on the Marys River in Nevada. As a part of this effort, 54 miles of stream critical to the threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout were acquired through a land exchange between BLM and private owners. ⚫ Trout Creek. The Trout Creek area of Southeast Oregon is a 190,000-acre watershed with about 175 miles of stream. Due to poor livestock management practices, much of the watershed was in degraded condition. BLM, local ranchers, Oregon Trout, the Oregon Environmental Council, the Izaac Walton League of America, and others developed a rotational grazing system to give the degraded areas periodic rest from the grazing of 2,000 head of cattle. • Cedar Creek. Cedar Creek in Northern California is an 8 1/2 mile stream on private land surrounded by a 60,000-acre watershed managed primarily by BLM. BLM, landowners and ranchers, the Alturas Riparian Steering Committee, The Nature Conservancy, and others are cooperating to protect and enhance upland and riparian-wetlands areas. Techniques include improved grazing management, prescribed burning to control sagebrush and juniper, and planting of willows, cottonwoods, aspen, and sedges. Coastal America Saltmarsh The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) allows federal-aid highway funds to be used for wetlands mitigation and conservation. In July 1992 the interagency Coastal America partnership, as one of its projects, signed agreements to restore ecologically valuable saltmarshes along the Connecticut coastline. These marshes have been cut off from tidal flow since rail and road corridors were developed along the coastline in the early twentieth century. The Coastal America partnership involves the Connecticut departments of Transportation and Environmental Protection, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Army Corps of Engineers, and departments of Transportation and Commerce. The agencies agreed to identify appropriate candidate sites and cooperate on restoration activities. For more information on Coastal America, see the Coasts and Oceans section. Aquatic Ecosystems Restoration A committee of the National Research Council (NRC) recommended in 1992 that a national aquatic ecosystems restoration strategy be developed for the nation, to accomplish, over the next 20 years, restoration of the following: • 2 million acres of lakes, • 400,000 miles of river-riparian systems, and 10 million acres of wetlands, largely through reconverting crop and pastureland and modifying or removing water-control structures. The committee recommended this as a net gain—that is, 10 million acres over and above losses of wetlands from other activities. Coastal Wetlands Conservation The Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection, and Restoration Act of 1990 created a National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grants Program for state coastal conservation efforts. In 1992 a total of 13 projects received $5.7 million in federal funding under this grants program. The President's Wetlands Plan In August 1991 President Bush delivered a comprehensive policy statement on wetlands, which included the following major elements: • Develop a new federal wetlands • Strengthen nonregulatory pro- • Strengthen and streamline the An update on efforts by federal agencies to implement the President's wetlands policy follows. Wetlands Delineation Manual. In 1992 EPA and the departments of the Interior, Agriculture, and Army continued work on revising the 1989 Federal Manual for Identifying and Delineating Jurisdictional Wetlands. Prior to 1989 federal agencies had no common delineation method; some used different techniques in different areas of the country. For example, the 1987 Wetlands Delineation Manual of the Army Corps of Engineers (COE) was not binding upon COE staff conducting delineations, and thus its use was inconsistent. An interagency manual prepared in 1989 became the subject of intense controversy and led, in August 1991, to a proposed revision. In response to that proposal, federal agencies received over 76,000 comments from the public. In 1992 deliberations continued on these comments and on options for proceeding. In the meantime, the Congress directed the Army Corps of Engineers to resume using its 1987 manual for implementation of the section 404 Clean Water Act regulatory program. The Department of Agriculture continued to rely on the National Food Security Act Manual to implement Swampbuster and other wetlands provisions of the 1985 and 1990 farm bills. Nonregulatory Programs. The President's policy statement included elements to strengthen acquisition and other nonregulatory programs that protect wetlands, in many cases through better coordination of existing programs. • National Restoration Program. - Restoration on 1.3 million acres by Source: Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States, (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1992-1993). - Initial focus on wetlands restoration - A limited-term federal-state-private • Inventory. Because many federal programs collect information on wetlands, the objectives of the following programs ensure efficient and comparable inventory data. - A long-term effort is underway to assess the feasibility of coordinating and integrating the National Wetlands Inventory, conducted by the Fish and Wildlife Service, with the USDA National Resources Inventory, which includes resources in addition to wetlands, uses different methods, and covers only rural, nonfederal lands. - In 1992 the interagency Federal Geographic Data Committee recom |