SCOPE AND BACKGROUND OVERVIEW OF SIERRA NEVADA ECOSYSTEMS AND ASSESSMENT STATUS MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR ECOSYSTEM SUSTAINABILITY INSTITUTIONAL INTEGRATION OF ASSESSMENTS AND SOLUTIONS THE FUTURE CURRENT PAGE: 7 of 15 rev. Jun. 10, 1996

SNEP Core Area The core area boundary for the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project was the area (20,663,930 acres) containing the headwaters of twenty-four major river basins and extending through the foothill zone on the west-side and the base of the escarpment on the east-side (figure 1). No single boundary adequately defined all the ecological and social components, but watersheds were in many ways the most discernible and most meaningful units in the Sierra and were therefore used by SNEP. At the request of Congress, a larger study area for the project included portions north of the physiographic Sierra Nevada and extensions beyond the core area to the south and east. Appropriate adjustments to these boundaries were considered in SNEP analyses pertinent to the needs of each issue. FIGURE 1 (ACTUAL VIEW 56K) Thirty-six percent of the core Sierra Nevada is privately owned. About two-thirds of the land area in the Sierra Nevada is publicly owned (figure 2); most of that is national forest managed by the U.S. Forest Service, the remainder is largely shared by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. The state of California and local jurisdictions administer only small pieces within the SNEP study area. Most of the land at high elevations throughout the Sierra is public, as are large proportions of the eastern Sierra. Below about 3,000 feet in the western Sierra, private lands predominate. FIGURE 2 (ACTUAL VIEW 12K)