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Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition Answers to Southern Appalachian Assessment 

 Questionnaire 



1 . If another group were about to begin an integrated assessment like the SAA, what 

 advice would you give them about; 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROCESS 



A. Question: How do you feel about the development of the SAA Charter? Please 

 suggest steps in the development process that you think would have helped to form a 

 stronger, more effective charter for the project. 



Answer: There was no SAA Charter! There was a Charter developed by the 

 Forest Service for the SAA, but that should not be confused with a charter agreed to by all 

 agencies which worked on the SAA The "SAMABizing" of the Assessment was an 

 important and significant enlargement of the Assessment, but since the other agencies 

 never had to buy into the project officially through signature to a charter, there was little 

 leverage that could be exerted on agencies that chose to not cooperate at some stage of 

 the assessment On the other hand, it is doubtfiil that many of the other agencies would 

 have participated had they been asked to make a full, equal partnership commitment at the 

 outset One of the strengths of the SAA was a commitment (at least by the Forest 

 Service) to an adaptive management process. That was far more important than a chjirter. 



Organization 



B. Question: How well does the Policy Team/Team Leader/Team Member 

 organization serve to accomplish the objectives of the assessment? Do you think the 

 organizational structure of the Assessment should have been different? If so, how? 



Answer: Generally, the Policy Team did not provide policy oversight to the 

 Assessment The Policy Team did not function effectively because there was no official, 

 formal commitment from the agencies to a Charter. A majority of the agencies which 

 signed the SAA did not attend most Policy Team meetings. Policy oversight was 

 exercised by skillfijl leadership and negotiations by a handful of representatives of agencies 

 which provided the bulk of the money and personnel. 



The team leader structure worked well for the atmospheric team. Co-team leader 

 structure did not function effectively for the aquatic team. The team leader/subteam 

 leader organization structure for the other two "teams" was a failure. 



The organizational structure for any future assessment must be based on the specific aims 

 of the assessment rather than copying the structure fi"om the SAA or elsewhere. 



