Chapter II - Review of Wildlife EIS Process 



Revisions to EIS Approach 



During the first three years, there were refinements in the EIS approach. 

 However, the approach still cdled for compiling massive amounts of 

 information. Several people we interviewed were concerned with the 

 large volumes of information this approach would have generated and 

 how the project was bogged down in the early stages working on the 

 approach. Members of the Steering Committee also had concerns with 

 the feasibiUty of this approach. 



At one point, the department's "Proposed Action" called for managing 

 wildlife using an ecosystem management approach which called for 

 management of all wildlife rather than those species traditionally 

 managed by the department for hunting and trapping. There was a lack 

 of consensus among the EIS Team, the Steering Committee, and others 

 in the department about how to proceed with the project and about the 

 expected outcomes of the project. This was communicated to the 

 director in February of 1994 and resulted in a meeting on March 25, 

 1994. The result of this meeting was a major revision in the EIS 

 approach which now had an emphasis of developing alternatives to the 

 department's wildlife management practices. An Alternatives 

 Development Committee was estabUshed which held several meetings in 

 April and May. The committee pubhshed a Ust of eight alternatives. 

 However, when these alternatives were presented to the regional 

 managers and the department management team during meetings in July 

 of 1994, the alternatives were determined to not be acceptable. This 

 resulted in the second major revision in the EIS approach and the use of 

 the "Scenario Plaiming" process. 



Scenario Planning 



The Scenario Planning process was discussed in-house during 1994. 

 The director instructed the team to proceed with the approach in 

 September of 1994. This resulted in several meetings to determine how 

 to proceed and eventually resulted in the department hiring a consultant 

 to direct the effort. 



In March of 1995, 25 department stafTparticipated in a Scenario 

 Planning process with the help of a consultant. Scenario Planning is a 

 way of conducting strategic planning using alternative scenarios rather 

 than a single-point forecast. The scenarios are alternative environments 

 in which decisions may be played out. One of the main outcomes from 



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