 SCOPE AND BACKGROUND OVERVIEW OF SIERRA NEVADA ECOSYSTEMS AND ASSESSMENT STATUS MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR ECOSYSTEM SUSTAINABILITY INSTITUTIONAL INTEGRATION OF ASSESSMENTS AND SOLUTIONS
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rev. Jun. 17, 1996 © 1996 Regents of the University of California |
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Management Strategies for Ecosystem SustainabilitySNEP developed a number of strategies to address problems found in the assessments. These focus on specific individual ecosystem components of the Sierra Nevada and on combinations of elements. The latter examples illustrate how in practice actual solutions must integrate multiple overlapping components and adapt to local needs and constraints. The strategies are briefly summarized here. Population and Settlement The Sierra Nevada is likely to undergo significant land conversion because of population growth over the next half-century. The amount of land converted will depend on the rate of population growth, the spatial pattern of settlement, and the average density of homes. Four alternative futures of settlement over this time period were estimated from models of settlement, existing density options from county General Plans, and population projections from the state Department of Finance. If current population growth and settlement patterns continue, then half the private land in the Sierra would be settled. If a more compact form of settlement were followed, then the land area occupied would still double from the present amount. If low population growth and compact development were chosen, then little additional land (8% more) would be required, assuming that infill and carefully targeted density transfers are used. Under any future scenario, however, significant changes in land-use and infrastructure policies will be needed to achieve lower impact on critical habitats, especially in the foothill zone, where many unique vegetation types are at risk. Community Well-Being Greater reinvestment in ecosystem management and restoration activities may provide an opportunity to improve well-being in some Sierran communities. Such activities are likely to have the most impact on improving well-being in communities that already have a moderate level of community capacitythat is, where the residents have sufficient knowledge and other attributes necessary to take advantage of new job opportunities (almost half of the communities in the Sierra). If greater reinvestment occurs, then the range of ecosystem management activities could be quite large (e.g., monitoring, maintenance and restoration of forest roads, erosion control, mining reclamation, fuels reduction, stand density management). All activities would require a change in reinvestment patterns for natural resource management. Many activities would require significant training (e.g., scientific training for monitoring) or local economic development (e.g., access to capital and vocational training for watershed rehabilitation) to effectively improve socioeconomic status and hence improve well-being. Other ways of improving well-being include making the link between forest commodity use and local communities. This approach would make products available locally for processing and secondary manufacturing development and provide capital and price incentives for such activities. Institutions Strategies are suggested to (1) improve return from beneficiaries of the Sierra to those who will maintain and enhance the ecosystem qualities from which benefits flow, (2) strengthen cooperation among federal, state, and local governments and agencies whose authorities and resources overlap in the ecosystem and strengthen cooperation between the public and private sectors, (3) increase community involvement in the protection and management of Sierran ecosystems, (4) provide legal, regulatory, and financial support to advance such reforms beyond current levels of ad hoc spontaneity, (5) take advantage of characteristic aspects of Sierra Nevada regions to leverage progress on issues of regional and rangewide scale. Fire and Fuels Reduction SNEP strategies recognize fire as a major ecological process in the Sierra Nevada that exerts profound influences on the evolution of Sierran ecosystems. Today the wildland-urban intermix of homes and flammable fuels, other widespread forest fuel hazards, and the potential for intolerable forest resource damage from major forest conflagrations require overall strategic planning by federal, state, and local agencies and the affected public with attention to cost and benefits of proposed actions. Such planning would seek to (1) avoid further community development in flammable wildlands without mitigating fuel hazards, (2) establish defensible space/fuel reduction zones buffering communities and certain wildlands, (3) identify other resource-threatening intolerable fuel hazards and prescribe mitigation treatment, (4) support a return of managed fire and prescribed wildfire, where practicable, to specific forest areas to provide the natural ecological functions believed necessary for ecosystem health and sustainability, and (5) advocate strong prevention and suppression capability. Biodiversity Management Areas The biodiversity management area (BMA) strategy is a forward-looking, scientific conservation approach to efficiently reducing the vulnerability of Sierran biodiversity and conflicting land uses. BMAs are specially designated public or private lands with an active ecosystem management plan whose purpose is to contribute to regional maintenance of native genetic, species, and community levels of biodiversity. The strategy uses mapped information about land ownership, land use, potential impacts to biodiversity, and biological communities to identify biological types (e.g., vegetation types and their associated animal species) most in need of protection and to calculate the most efficient or least-cost solution to providing protection for some predetermined proportion of each such type identified. Applications of BMA alternatives indicate that satisfactory solutions to represent all plant community types of the Sierra cannot be found that use public lands alone for BMAs, that the contribution of matrix lands (i.e., lands outside the BMAs) is essential to achieving rangewide goals, that a modest degree of overlap with other SNEP biodiversity strategies can be achieved, and that some areas appear especially well suited to serve as BMAs. Certain regions (e.g., the northern Sierra) would require more lands in BMAs to achieve targeted levels of biodiversity protection than others (e.g., regions containing the national parks). BMA Case Study in El Dorado County An application of the BMA approach was developed for watersheds in El Dorado County. This case study emphasizes the cooperative, multisector, multijurisdictional nature of effective biodiversity conservation in the Sierra Nevada. In El Dorado County, all adequate BMA solutions required the inclusion of significant private lands, because many important biological communities are almost entirely unrepresented on the public lands. On the other hand, the BMA strategy shows how several of these communities can be included in one watershed to improve the efficiency of the solution. Areas of Late Successional Emphasis SNEP analyzed six strategies to counter the major declines in high-quality late successional forests and to enhance forest late successional conditions throughout middle-elevation conifer forests of the Sierra. Each strategy assumes that existing high-quality late successional forests must be retained and expanded to support the full range of organisms and functions into the future, that distribution of late successional conditions across the landscape involves a combination of focus areas and management of matrix land, and that fire is reintroduced into the forest. The areas of late successional emphasis (ALSE) strategy was developed in detail by SNEP with new simulation models, multiple alternatives, and explicit landscape solutions. The strategy was developed primarily for west-slope forests, specifically mixed conifer and red fir/white fir types on public lands. The strategy stratifies forestland into two landscape categories. ALSEs are large areas (20,00060,000 acres) with a management emphasis on maintaining forests in late successional conditions. Active management would occur in ALSEsprimarily use of prescribed fire, although some mechanical fuel treatment could be allowed. Fire protection of ALSEs would receive high priority. Matrix lands, those forested areas exclusive of ALSEs, would typically have management objectives other than to attain late successional representation. Restoration of late successional structures in these lands to minimum standards is an essential part of this strategy. Distributed Forest Conditions An alternative strategy was developed that distributes rather than concentrates areas of late successional emphasis widely over the landscape. Targeted for east-side middle-elevation conifer forests (but applicable elsewhere), this strategy divides the planning landscape into watershed units of about 5,000 acres. As in the ALSE strategy, the watersheds would be divided into cores and matrix areas. On about 30% of each watershed (about 1,500 acres, but not necessarily contiguous) the main management objective would be to maintain late successional conditions. Additional biodiversity values would be given high priority in core areas, including restoration and maintenance of native plant diversity and genetic diversity. Emphasis would be on minimal disturbance, although mechanical treatments would be permitted to attain goals. The remaining matrix areas in each watershed would be available, as appropriate, for more intensive uses. Matrix management would include maintenance of late successional structure and function to the degree possible. 
 
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