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8 

 The Forest Service has been involved in a major undertaking with 

 the NMFS to comply with the consultation provisions of the 

 Endangered Species Act for the listed Snake River salmon 

 stocks. Pursuant to a procedure jointly developed by the NMFS 

 and the Forest Service in May 1992, an evaluation and 

 description of all ongoing activities have been completed on 

 4,900 projects and submitted to the National Marine Fisheries 

 Service for consultation. From that experience, the two 

 Agencies developed and agreed to an outline in December 1992 for 

 expanding the information provided to complete consultation. In 

 January 1993, an interagency protocol was established to 

 expedite the consultation process. Following these guidelines, 

 the Forest Service will be asking for formal consultation on 

 ongoing and proposed projects that "may affect" listed stocks. 

 The NMFS has agreed to conclude consultations expeditiously to 

 ensure that ongoing and proposed actions on National Forests 

 will not be unduly delayed by processing bottlenecks. 



THE FOREST SERVICE IS DEVELOPING A NEW STRATEGY- -A PROACTIVE 

 APPROACH TO ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT OF WATERSHEDS AND ANADROMOUS 

 FISH HABITAT ON NATIONAL FORESTS 



Only nine of the stocks identified by the AFS report have 

 received formal protection under the Endangered Species Act. 

 However, the Forest Service recognizes that aggressive 

 preventive actions need to be taken to preclude the need for 

 future listing of some of these "at risk" stocks. 



