[Draft Version 15]
The Colville National Forest has, in many areas, an unnatural forest structure that adversely affects the ForestÕs ecosystems. There is a need to enhance ecological integrity and ecosystem function in these areas by restoring natural processes and resiliency, which will protect watersheds, habitat, and ecosystems. To effectively accomplish this goal—taking into consideration various forest types, ranging from warm dry forests to cold wet forests—restoration must integrate a variety of restoration treatments, including treatments to the transportation system (road maintenance and removal), wildlife habitat and watershed restoration, invasive species control, and fuel and fire treatments.
In
doing so, NEWFC will adhere to the guidelines outlined below.
In addition to specific forest-type objectives included later in this document, principles generic to restoration of all forest types include the following:
1. Preliminary Assessments: The level, range, and scope
of assessments required will be determined by existing law, regulations and
official agency guidance in place at the time the assessments are conducted. Short-term adverse impacts to biological legacies, soils, water
quality, wildlife and botanical resources, weeds, and impacts from roads that are determined in a risk assessment to be
unavoidable in accomplishing the overall restoration objective shall be
mimimzed to the extent practical. Impacts determined in a risk assessment to be
avoidable shall be mitigated. Under conditions where adverse impacts
outweigh the potential benefits of active restoration activities, such
activities will not take place.
[Note: NEWFC needs to develop a risk-assessment protocol]
2. Monitoring: The assessment and corresponding actions are then followed by improved programmatic and effectiveness monitoring that measures progress towards restoring a degraded system. Effectiveness monitoring will provide a means to assess progress and make a determination regarding the need for subsequent/additional treatments in order to continue progress toward the desired future condition.
3. Adaptive management: Adaptive management is key to successfully managing biological systems. Adaptive management, based on monitoring results, will serve as a reality-check for the above assessments and will enhance the ability to achieve the goal stated above.
4. Priorities: In the interest of getting necessary work done, restoration effort should be focused initially on already roaded, grazed, and/or logged portions of the landscape.
5. Economics: If materials generated from implementation of site-specific restoration prescriptions are not to be left on site, they may be made available to the forest products industry. In planning restoration projects where there will be a significant number of units in which implementation costs exceed the value of such by-products, project planners should strive to include enough units in which the value of by-products will exceed implementation costs that the project will, at minimum, break even economically. However, in doing so, the restoration objective of the project must not be compromised.
6. Variation in Prescriptions: Prescriptions to accomplish restoration objectives will vary, depending upon site-specific conditions, including but not limited to, plant association groups and historic fire regime. (Note: the inclusion of Òplant association groupÓ shall not be construed to imply that we are managing for a seral climax condition across the entire forest.)
7. Water Quality and Quantity: Restoration includes restoring streams and riparian habitat, fish passage, stream temperature, sediment load, addressing erosion problems at road stream crossings, and restoring the landÕs capacity to absorb, store, and filter water, including restoration of water table levels.
8. Weeds: Minimize noxious weeds by conducting integrated weed management.
9. Grazing: [committee members all agreed that development of language should be postponed until weÕve consulted with grazing interests.]
10. Soils: Restore soils, in accordance with site-specific prescriptions.
11. Wildlife Habitat: [committee members all agreed
that language for this item will be developed in tandem with language for the
same item in the restoration principles, allowing us to assess (with assistance
from independent
biologist) the extent to which Restoration and Wilderness zones allow for habitat protection.]
12. Roads: [Language regarding roads will be tiered to a NEWFC
board-approved roads policy. This policy is currently under development by
NEWFC Project Committee.]
13. Species and Structure: Restoration of structure, ecosystem function, and species diversity are key objectives of all restoration projects, and restoration projects should make use of the least intrusive treatments in implementing site-specific prescriptions.