editing staff. Regional staff at the workshop noted that their offices could support project management by offering resources in the form of both personnel and information. Regional offices should track the progress of individual national forests periodically; regular status calls with forests help accomplish this.

#### 4.1.2 Innovations

Tools that can be beneficial to project management are the electronic management National Environmental Policy Act (eMNEPA) suite of tools, which includes:

- • Appeals, Litigation System (PALS). This tool tracks all Forest Service NEPA • Appeals, Litigation System (PALS). This tool tracks all Forest Service NEPA project progress and documentation and is the main way to make projects available on public web pages.
- • List Management System (MLMS). This tool allows staff to automate mailing • List Management System (MLMS). This tool allows staff to automate mailing lists. The public can self-subscribe to a project and this tool will send updates on projects or upcoming public engagement meetings.
- • Analysis and Response Application (CARA). This is an automated database that • Analysis and Response Application (CARA). This is an automated database that collects public comments and finds key words and themes.
- • Record Management Tool (PRM). This automates collection for litigation, • Record Management Tool (PRM). This automates collection for litigation, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and administrative recordkeeping. It automates conversion of Microsoft Word and Excel files to PDF and automatically numbers documents for litigation or FOIA requests.

More information about these tools can be found at the NEPA Services Group (NSG) SharePoint site and forest service web page: http://fsweb.wo.fs.fed.us/em/emnepa\_mp/.

### 4.2 Species of Conservation Concern

The workshops included an hour of panel presentations and discussion on species of conservation concern (SCCs), defined as “a species, other than federally recognized threated, endangered, proposed, or candidate species, that is known to occur in the plan area and for which the regional forester has determined that the best available scientific information indicates substantial concern about the species’ capability to persist over the long-term in the plan area” (§219.9). At the time of the workshop, the Washington Office was assessing how forests identified SCCs and was developing additional guidance. Participants noted that the SCC approach sets a higher standard than the sensitive species approach used previously. Workshop participants noted challenges in addressing SCCs, including confusion on what “known to occur” means; participants said that evidence of the species on the forest is needed. An additional question that arose was the following: How do you determine “substantial concern”? Different individuals understand risk differently, and, as such, it may be difficult to establish SCCs consistently without further guidance. As a result, forests may define a small number or large number of species depending on the characteristics of that forest. Identifying these species requires consideration of scientific information that addresses the level of confidence in the data, the distribution of the species, its dispersion, habitat requirements and vulnerability, population trend, life history, and demographics. A lesson learned for early adopters was the extensive amount of work associated with identification of SCCs; accordingly, participants agreed that national forests should begin the endeavor early in the planning process. Finally, workshop attendees highlighted challenges related to transitioning from Regional Forester Sensitive