| Introduction:
Our Purpose and Mission
Assessments
- Sensitive to forest ecosystems that must be considered
at various scales, or area sizes, multiforest planning
is often conducted across individual forest boundaries
and in cooperation with adjacent landholders. The planning
unit coordinates the assessment of conditions and trends
across forest boundaries and reporting of those factors
that will affect planning, such as those in the Southern
Appalachian Assessment (SAA),
Ozark/Ouachita Highland Assessment (OOHA),
and the Southern Resource Assessment (SRA).
Common concerns and issues are then identified to guide
the planning on each Forest in the area and Forest Planning
is coordinated.
Forest
Planning - Forest Plans undergo significant
amendments or major revisions in compliance with the
National Forest Management Act of 1976 at least every
10 years. The Forest Planning Schedule
for Southern Forests displays where your national forest
is in this process. Plans can also be amended or revised
(using a public NEPA process) at any time to respond
to changed resource conditions, social issues and values,
or economic climates; or if monitoring reveals that
the Plans are no longer appropriate in some way.
Environmental
Analysis - All forest plans
and projects affecting the environment are the subject
of both public and agency analysis. The National
Environmental Policy Act of 1969 governs how we administer
that process. The Planning Unit in the Regional
Office oversees that process.
Legal
and Regulatory Requirements - The planning
unit oversees Region 8 compliance with:
- the
National Forest Management Act (NFMA)
and NFMA implementation regulations (36 CFR 219);
-
the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
and the NEPA implementation regulations (Council on
Environmental Quality (CEQ)
Regulations);
- and
the Forest Service Appeal
Regulations.
Monitoring
- To keep the plans current and adaptable to change
over time, projects and management activities designed
to implement these plans are monitored and evaluated
to determine how well the plans are working. The best
place to view the most recent Monitoring and Evaluation
Reports is on the Forests' own web sites. Some
of the Annual monitoring
and evaluation reports are found here.
Appeals
- Administrative
Appeals procedures, established by the Forest Service,
help us assure that the public has a voice in national
forest management, even to the point in time where direct
actions are taken on the ground. Individuals can express
their concerns about planned actions by appealing decisions
to take those actions. Current
appeals can be viewed on this site.
Current
Topics and Releases
Plan
revisions, announcements, and related documents can
be found on this page.
Library
A
growing list of documents, other than the Forest Plans
(which can be found above), are requested by the public.
We will try to make the more common ones available here
on this site. If you would like to see certain
documents here please send an email to the address below.
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