management and stewardship plans. In the Forest Service, Nat- 

 ional Forest System field units are responsible for establishing 

 resource management objectives for the lands they administer. 

 National Enxaronmental Policy Act and National Forest Manage- 

 ment Act requirements will be met as appropriate at the level 

 where resource decisions are made. Private landowners and 

 State land management agencies each develop their own policies 

 and objectives, set their own management objectives, and deter- 

 mine the management and protection actions they will take to 

 meet their objectives. 



Many of the actions in this plan will benefit the States and pri- 

 vate landowners. States, local governments, individuals, and 

 forest industiT own 519 million acres or 71 percent of the 731 

 million acres of forest in the United States. The Forest Service 

 provides assistance to the States for forest fire control, forest 

 management, and forest health protection. This plan will help 

 strengthen Forest Service cooperative programs and provide 

 for better coordination and assistance on forest health problems. 

 States or private landowners will not be required to implement 

 actions in this plan. 



This plan continues the emphasis in the 1988 plan on strength- 

 ening integrated pest management and providing environment- 

 ally acceptable, biologically sound, and economically efficient 

 pest management systems. Actions taken under this plan will, for 

 example, improve understanding of the positive and negative 

 effects of pests in forests, assess possible negative impacts of man- 

 agement actions on organisms other than pests, and lead to new 

 alternative pest management methods. 



Forest Health and 

 Ecosystem Management 



For this plan, a desired state of forest health is a condition where 

 biotic and abiotic influences on the forest (for example, pests, 

 atmospheric deposition, silvicultural treatments, and harvesting 

 practices) do not threaten resource management objectives 

 now or in the future. This description links forest health to the 

 formal land management planning process for the National 

 Forest System. Likewise, this description of forest health would 

 also reflect a private landowner's resource management objec- 

 tives. Furthermore, this description of forest health recognizes 

 that human influence on forests is, to some degree, inevitable. 

 Resource management objectives do not necessarily mean 



Inlroduclion 



