Regional Ecosystem Office (REO) - Northwest Forest Plan

At the NW Forest Plan's initiation in 1994, it was unknown whether the reserve network and other standards and guidelines would offer a reasonable assurance of persistence for many rare and little known species thought to be associated with late-successional and old growth forests (including mosses, liverworts, fungi, lichens, vascular plants, slugs, snails, salamanders, and red tree voles). Therefore, a set of management standards and guidelines, known as "Survey and Manage," were added to the Plan requiring surveys before intitiating management actions and limitations on actions if found.

Three basic criteria must be met for species to be included in the standards and guidelines:

1. The species must occur within the Plan area, or occur close to the NFP area and have potentially suitable habitat within the Plan area.
2. The species must be closely associated with late-successional or old-growth forest.
3. The reserve system and other standards and guidelines of the Northwest Forest Plan do not appear to provide for a reasonable assurance of species persistence.

The agencies amended Survey and Manage in 2001 to add clarity, remove duplication, and increase or decrease levels of management for specific species based on new information affecting the level of concern for their persistence. The amendment also established an adaptive management process for making changes to management for individual species, called the Annual Species Review. Subsequent proposals to modify the survey and manage program have not been successful due to legal challenges, resulting in this current status:

• Follow the 2001 ROD and Standards and Guidelines
• Apply the "Pechman exemptions"
• Implement the 2001, 2002, and 2003 Annual Species Review modifications to the species list, except for the changes made for the red tree vole

The "Pechman exemptions":

1. Thinning in forest stands younger than 80 years of age
2. Culvert replacement/removal
3. Riparian and stream improvement projects
4. Hazardous fuels treatments which apply prescribed fire

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