170 



United States 

 Department of 

 Agriculture 



Forest 

 Service 



JAN 2 2 1990 



(2) 



Washington _ 12th & Independence SW 

 Office P.O. Box 96090 



Washington. DC 20090-6090 



Reply To: 1920 



Date: August 1. 1989 



Subject: Revisionism 



To: Regional Forester. R-10 



During our recent visit on the status of Tongass National Forest Land and 

 Resource Management planning, we agreed to clarify the differences between 

 development of a Forest plan and revision of the plan 



The Initial development of Forest plans addressed the question of how the land 

 should be managed. In the revision of a plan, it is not in the public interest 

 to assume that all current commitments and investments are void. The key 

 question during revision of Forest plans is determining the need to change 

 management direction (36 CFR 219.12 (e)(4)). Keeping this perspective in mind, 

 the following clarification should help in applying existing rules and 

 regulations . 



The Forest plans established direction guiding how the Forests were to be man- 

 aged. A critical step during revision of Forest Plans is "a determination of 

 the need to establish or change management direction" (36 CFR 219.12 (e)(5)) 

 The focus of this effort should be determining changes needed to the Forest 

 plan so that it will offer the vision needed for the next 10-year period. T,he 

 Analysis of the Management Situation (AMS) focuses on this determination. 



There are five components of the determination to establish or change 

 direction. They are: 



1. Results of monitoring and evaluation (36 CFR 219 12 (k)) 



2. Current direction (36 CFR 219.12 (e)(2)) 



3. Resource potential (36 CFR 219.12 (e)(1)) 



U. Projections of demand (36 CFR 219.12 (e)(3)) 



5. Potential to resolve Issues and concerns (36 CFR 219.12(e)(4)) 



The AMS provides "a determination of the ability of the planning area covered 

 by the forest plan to supply goods and services in response to society's 

 demands" (36 CFR 219.12 (e)). It leads to "a determination of the need to 

 establish or change management direction' as explained above. It is further 

 stated that the "primary purpose of this analysis is to provide a basis for 

 formulating a broad range of reasonable alternatives' (36 CFR 219.12 (e)). 

 Therefore, it is logical chat the determination to establish or change 

 direction is to be used as the basis for alternative formulation. 



The initial forest planning process was "issue-driven." This was entirely 

 appropriate since current direction was not as clearly defined or visible to 

 the public as it is now. Plan revisions, in contrast, should be driven by the 

 "need to change " The Issues and concerns are a major component of the 



