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APPROVED BY THE MEMBERSHIP, 8 JUNE 1997
- WHEREAS, the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) are in the process of developing and adopting a "scientifically sound, ecosystem-based" strategy for management of 76 million acres of Forest Service and BLM-administered lands east of the Cascade crest and within portions of the Klamath and Great Basins of the United States (hereafter referred to as Interior Columbia Basin); and
- WHEREAS, biodiversity and ecological integrity have dramatically diminished on federal lands in the Interior Columbia Basin over the last century, as evidenced by currently degraded soils and water quality, loss of native fisheries and old-growth forests, altered disturbance regimes, and a growing list of species at risk of extinction; and
- WHEREAS, a scientific assessment of ecosystem conditions in the Interior Columbia Basin revealed that ecological integrity remains highest in areas that have experienced the least human-caused disturbance; and
- WHEREAS, the primary causes of ecosystem decline in the Interior Columbia Basin are clearcut and high-grade logging, poorly managed livestock grazing, road construction, fire suppression, introduction of exotic species and other human-caused disturbances to which native species and ecosystems are not well adapted; and
- WHEREAS, maintenance and restoration of ecological integrity in the Interior Columbia Basin will require protecting from additional human-caused degradation those areas known to have high value for conserving biological diversity; and
- WHEREAS, there is considerable scientific uncertainty on whether salvage logging, thinning and other intensive management techniques can be used successfully as a tool to restore ecological integrity at the landscape scale without adversely impacting soils, water quality, fisheries, wildlife and other essential ecological elements and processes;
- THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Society for Conservation Biology supports an approach for management of federal lands in the Interior Columbia Basin that:
- 1) includes a system of reserves that safeguards areas representative of regional biodiversity, and that is actively managed using the least intrusive methods possible to achieve the primary objective of biodiversity conservation;
- 2) encourages application of goal-oriented experimental restoration techniques and monitoring activities to those areas degraded by past management activities, and
- 3) implements clear and appropriate, scientifically-based standards for manipulative treatments and extractive activities on non-reserved lands that ensure long-term restoration and maintenance of at least minimal levels of important ecosystem structures, elements, and processes.
- WHEREAS healthy, diverse forest ecosystems require viable, well-distributed populations of native species; and
- WHEREAS public forest lands in the United States are vital refuges for species whose habitat has been degraded or destroyed elsewhere; and
- WHEREAS the loss of individual stocks and subpopulations from national forests can reduce the likelihood of species' persistence and overall functioning of the ecosystem; and
- WHEREAS the failure to provide viable populations on national forests makes ecological recovery efforts more expensive, more crisis-driven, more complicated, and ultimately more difficult to achieve; and
- WHEREAS habitat, ecosystem, and species-specific management approaches are not interchangeable, but complementary conservation tools; and
- WHEREAS loss of available tools and mechanisms for species conservation substantially and irreversibly contribute to an already alarming pattern of species extinction and extirpation,
- THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Society for Conservation Biology urges that the species viability regulation, 36 C.F.R. 219.19, adopted in 1982 to implement the National Forest Management Act and to protect the full range of species diversity and its associated habitat, be fully retained and supported, and not weakened or repealed.
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