BACKGROUND
Approach
Assessments
Strategies
The SNEP Reports
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Background
In a few lines contained in the Conference Report for Interior and Related Agencies
1993 Appropriation Act (HR 5503), Congress authorized funds for a scientific review
of the remaining old growth in the national forests of the Sierra
Nevada in California, and for a study of the entire Sierra Nevada ecosystem by an
independent panel of scientists, with expertise in diverse areas related to this
issue.
This act created the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project (SNEP). The primary emphasis
of the project was to assemble and assess the comprehensive data necessary to assist
Congress and others in making important policy decisions for the future management
of the Sierra Nevada. The other emphasis was to examine alternative management strategies
that could help meet the broad goal for which the study was undertaken. That goal
was to maintain the health and sustainability of the Sierra Nevada ecosystem while
providing resources to meet human needs. Concern over conservation and use of the Sierra
Nevada is not new. Some of the more recent issues connect to general concern over
forest conditions in the Pacific Northwest and to specific concerns raised by a series
of articles in the Sacramento Bee
(The Sierra in Peril) and subsequent conferences (Sierra Summit, Sierra Now).
More congressional direction on the scope of the SNEP study and the structure of the
independent team was provided by a second bill. It was not passed before adjournment
but was later read into the Congressional Record
as a guide to the study. Letters from various members of the House of Representatives
to the Chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, gave additional
explanation of the intended legislation. The Forest Service supplemented the $150,000 provided in HR 5503 to conduct the study by committing $6.5 million over the three
years of project work.
The first step in the study was formation of a Steering Committee (appendix 4) composed
of a representative each from Forest Service Research, Washington Office; Forest
Service Research, Pacific Southwest Station; U.S. Department of the Interior, National
Park Service; University of California; and California Academy of Sciences, plus a
scientist of eminent standing and member of the National Academy of Sciences. The
Steering Committee selected a Science Team leader, worked with the team leader to
select the team, developed the charge for the team in keeping with congressional intent, and
provided overall guidance and advice throughout the study. The charge to the team
and the congressional bills and letters were included in the SNEP Progress Report,
May 1994.
Team leader Don C. Erman (right) discussing SNEP with Ken Roby of the U.S. Forest
Service, Donna Lindquist of Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and other participants at the
public meeting to report progress. (photo by Neil Michaels.)
The Science Team, eventually composed of eighteen members, was augmented by nineteen
special consultants (both groups are listed after the table of contents). In addition,
many other scientists worked closely with team members (one hundred seven as authors or coauthors of chapters and reports), some throughout the project; their contributions
appear in volume II or III or are acknowledged elsewhere (appendix 4). Overall management
of the project was the responsibility of the University of California Centers for Water and Wildland Resources, through a research agreement with the Forest Service,
Pacific Southwest Research Station.
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