RECORD OF DECISION for Amendments to the Survey and Manage, Protection Buffer, and other Mitigation Measures Standards and Guidelines in Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management Planning January 2001 Lead Agencies: Forest Service - U.S. Department of Agriculture Cooperating Agency: Fish & Wildlife Service - U.S. Department of Interior Table of Contents Prophysaon coeruleum (Blue-Grey Tail-Dropper) Non-late-Successional Forest Species Being Considered for Other Application to Contracts, Permits and Special Use Authorizations Application of this Decision to Management Activities in the Planning Phase or with Signed NEPA Decisions or Decision Documents as of the Effective 4. Other Alternatives Considered in Detail, and Reasons They Were Not Selected . . ... 30 The No-Action Alternative Alternative 2 - Remove or Reassign Uncommon Species Within 5 Years 5. Reasons for the Decision Response to the Four Issues Identified in the Final SEIS 3333 30 32 .. 33 36 36 Rationale for Managing Blue-gray Tail-dropper as One Species 41 6. Findings Response to Court Decision and Settlement Agreement National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) National Forest Management Act (NFMA) Diversity and Viability Provision of Fish and Wildlife Resource Regulation Protection of Tribal Treaty Rights and Trust Resources Review by the Regional Interagency Executive Committee (RIEC) 7. Identification of the Environmentally Preferable Alternative 8. Administrative Review or Appeal 9. Authority to Amend or Modify this Decision 10. Effective Date 11. Contact Person 12. Signatures and Dates Attachment 1: Standards and Guidelines RECORD OF DECISION for Amendments to the Survey and Manage, Protection Buffer, 1. Introduction Summary In this Record of Decision we are amending a portion of the Northwest Forest Plan by adopting new standards and guidelines for Survey and Manage, Protection Buffers, and other mitigating measures. Our Decision selects, with additional mitigation and minor modifications, Alternative 1 in the November 2000 Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for Survey and Manage, Protection Buffers, and other Mitigation Measures in the Northwest Forest Plan (Final SEIS). This Decision makes it possible for the Agencies to more efficiently provide the level of species protection intended in the Northwest Forest Plan. Our Decision retains the major elements of Survey and Manage, restructuring them for clarity, describing criteria and processes for changing species assignments in the future, and removing 72 species in all or part of their range because new information indicates they are secure or otherwise do not meet the basic criteria for Survey and Manage. This Decision applies to administrative units of the USDA Forest Service and USDI Bureau of Land Management (BLM) (generally referred to as "the Agencies") within the range of the northern spotted owl. Background/Purpose and Need In 1994, the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service adopted standards and guidelines for the management of habitat for late-successional and old-growth forest related species within the range of the northern spotted owl, commonly known as the Northwest Forest Plan. The key elements of the Northwest Forest Plan are the system of reserves, the Aquatic Conservation Strategy, and various standards and guidelines affecting each of seven different land allocations. Also, mitigation measures were included for management of known sites, site-specific pre-habitat disturbing surveys, and/or landscape scale surveys for about 400 rare and/or isolated species. These are species that, either because of genuine rarity or because of a lack of information about them, the Agencies did not know whether they would adequately be protected by other elements of the Northwest Forest Plan. The standards and guidelines for these mitigation measures are known as Survey and Manage, Protection Buffers, and Protect Sites From Grazing. This decision |