The Planning, Appeals and Litigation Unit coordinates the national forest land and resource management planning process on the 14 national forests in the Southern Region.
Public involvement is the key to successful national forest planning and management.
Sensitive to forest ecosystems that must be considered at various scales, or area sizes, multiforest planning is often conducted across individual forest boundaries and in cooperation with adjacent landholders. Information for planning comes from many sources, including Forest Service inventories, maps and research, as well as through databases and literature of many cooperating agencies, universities and non-governmental organizations. To keep the plans current and adaptable to change over time, projects and management activities designed to implement these plans are monitored and evaluated to determine how well the plans are working. Annual monitoring and evaluation reports document monitoring findings. Administrative Appeals procedures, established by the Forest Service, help us assure that the public has a voice in national forest management, even to the point in time where direct actions are taken on the ground.