Opinion ID: 153019
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Independent Review and Approval by Outside Agencies

Text: The NWFP requires the Regional Ecosystem Office (REO) [4] to review Forest Service projects to ensure consistency with the NWFP. Here, the REO concluded that Alternative C was consistent with the NWFP, stating that the proposed treatment in the LSR meets the objectives for managing LSRs, especially because [t]reatments are placed on the landscape to alter fuel profiles in strategic locations such that it minimizes the likelihood of loss of valuable late- and old-structure habitat. The REO also found that the proposed treatments will result in a balanced mix of multi-story stands that are more ... conducive to late-successional species, with single story stands that are more resilient and less susceptible to loss, and that [t]reatments will focus on retaining the late and old structure components that are both desirable for late-successional species and adapted to the local fire regimes. Although not required to do so, out of an abundance of caution, the Forest Service also requested formal review of the Project by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). The FWS conducted an extensive empirical analysis and published an eighteen-page opinion stating that the[Project] is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the spotted owl because the NWFP provides a well distributed set of reserves which protect suitable habitat across the range of the spotted owl, and because no suitable habitat will be removed within spotted owl home ranges or core areas. It concluded that spotted owl home ranges will be maintained through fire risk reduction and stand density treatments and that the short-term loss of some spotted owl habitat was justified by the long-term benefits to owl habitat across the landscape by reducing fuel loads, strategic placement of treatments that reduce the risk of [fires], and reducing tree stocking densities to promote development of large trees in the future.