Our partnerships must recognize that rural communities depend on forest benefits for many aspects of their quality of lives and livelihoods. Our partnerships must build support for our programs across all constituencies and serve the demands of urban populations and remote rural families in a balanced way. Finally, we must maintain and re-enforce our commitment to monitoring. This is critical to our ability to know whether we are doing our job well or not. You know from experience in the field that monitoring does not get the attention it deserves, and I want to work with you to get this effort up to a level that meets our needs.
Forest Roads Let's turn for a minute now to forest roads.
Forest roads are an essential part of the transportation system in many rural parts of the country. The benefits of forest roads are many. But they also often cause serious ecological impacts. There are few more irreparable marks we can leave on the land than to build a road. Building a new road requires a short-term outlay of cash.