SNEP Update: June 1994

An Introduction

The Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project (SNEP) is an assessment of the Sierra Nevada ecoregion which was requested by Congress in 1992. Along with a scientific review of late-successional forests, key watersheds, and significant natural areas on federal lands of the Sierra Nevada ecoregion, SNEP also broadly evaluates an entire set of Sierra Nevada ecosystems, including their social, economic, and ecological components. The overall goal of the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project was to provide an accurate, multidimensional ecosystem assessment such that key structural components and functional processes could be identified and adequately described to enable the management of these systems at sustainable levels into the future. SNEP provides Congress and society with an ecosystem assessment that objectively determined the linkages among as many important components of the system as was possible, so that a fuller understanding of the consequences of policy decisions might be attained. SNEP further provides tools, models and approaches for evaluating the potential outcomes of future management policies as they evolve over the years to come. The SNEP final report was submitted to Congress in 1996 and is fully presented in this website. Information is provided for purchasing either the individual volumes of the final report or a CD-ROM of the entire report.