AMA Organization
Who is responsible for AMA management?
Decision space
AMA Operations
Coordination between Forest Service, BLM, and PNW
Coordination with Indian Tribes
Coordination with other Agencies
Community interaction
Project development guidelines
Watershed analysis
Key Watersheds
Timber harvest projections
Funding AMA programs
Late-Successional Reserve in the AMA
Why was LSR designated within the AMA?
How does the LSR classification affect AMA activities?

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AMA Organization
 
The Northwest Forest Plan includes lands administered by both the Bureau of Land Management, Salem District, Tillamook and Marys Peak Resource Areas; and the Siuslaw National Forest, Hebo Ranger District; as part of the Northern Coast Range Adaptive Management Area. The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management are expected to collaborate fully in management of the area. The AMA is almost evenly divided between national forest and BLM management units, as shown in Fig. 4.
 
 

Who is responsible for AMA management?

Following are the key BLM and Forest Service positions:

• The line officers of the three management units are ultimately responsible for all decisions regarding management actions in their respective administrative units. These officers are the Hebo District Ranger, the Tillamook Area Manager, and the Marys Peak Area Manager.
• An AMA Coordinator (which could be an employee of either the Forest Service or the BLM) is assigned to act as an interagency liaison and to coordinate work across the various management units and with other federal, state, and local agencies, Indian tribes, and the public. The Coordinator's principal office is located with the employing unit, but he/she will spend at least 20 percent of his/her time working in the offices of the other management units, on a regular basis, in order to improve coordination between agencies.
• A Lead Scientist from the Pacific Northwest Research Station, USFS, is assigned to assist the AMA staff in areas such as reviewing past and ongoing research in the AMA and north coast area, recommending priority research needs, assisting in development of sound scientific project design where needed, aiding in development of effective research and monitoring techniques, and providing liaison with other scientists.
• The management units provide key contact persons in each management unit to assist with coordination of AMA activities between agencies and with other groups and the public.
• The management units also provide the AMA team with the assistance, as needed, of a Public Affairs Officer, a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) specialist and a Community Development Specialist.

Decision space

The Northwest Forest Plan is clear on its mandate that, in the Adaptive Management Areas, the agencies are to pursue:

...localized, idiosyncratic approaches that may achieve the conservation objectives of these standards and guidelines..... These approaches rely on the experience and ingenuity of resource managers and communities rather than traditionally derived and tightly prescriptive approaches that are generally applied in management of forests (Northwest Forest Plan 1994).
 

The three AMA managers need to regularly make decisions to implement site-specific actions, under the umbrella of the land-use allocations and standards contained in the plans. Local agency managers still have considerable discretion regarding:

• Management actions designed to test the Standards and Guides of the Northwest Forest Plan
• Priorities for accomplishment of various goals
• Specific types of projects to implement and size of area to include
• Specific locations for particular types of projects
• Specific techniques and methods to be applied
• Rates of activity and timelines for individual actions
• Extent of collaboration and consultation with others on specific actions

AMA Operations
 

Coordination between Forest Service, BLM, and PNW

• AMA Management Team: The Team, consisting of the AMA coordinator, the line officers from each management unit, and the Lead Scientist, meets at least monthly to coordinate activities and budget requirements, including review of ongoing projects, proposals for new projects, research needs, and incorporation of monitoring feedback. Ideas and suggestions received from AMA partners are also discussed. The suggestions may propose new management studies, research proposals, recreational facilities, or habitat improvement; or ideas for increased sharing of resources (e.g., staff expertise, equipment, funds), educational outreach, or coordination of management.
• Scientist/Manager Coalition: The AMA Team meets with other agency staff and interested scientists several times each year. The purpose of the Coalition is to look at overall AMA direction and progress in working toward long-term goals, and to discuss current needs for interagency and intergovernmental cooperation, research support and proposals for additional studies, education, outreach, and public participation.
• Interagency Teams: Since this AMA was initiated in 1994, interagency teams have worked together on public outreach efforts, various assessments, including watershed analysis and Late-Successional Reserve Assessment, and the preparation of this Guide. We expect to continue to employ interagency teams for planning, implementing, and monitoring of many future actions.

Coordination with Indian Tribes

• Members of the AMA Team meet periodically with representatives of the Grand Ronde and Siletz tribal councils to discuss matters of mutual concern and opportunities for collaboration.

Coordination with other agencies 

• Local Government: Members of the AMA Team make periodic presentations to county commissioners, local city councils and chambers of commerce, and to their natural resource committees.
• State Agencies: Meetings are scheduled from time to time with the regional supervisors of the State of Oregon Natural Resource agencies to discuss issues of mutual concern and opportunities for collaboration.
• Coast Range Province Advisory Committee: The AMA Team works closely with this group, which includes representatives of many agencies and organizations and tribal governments, reviews ongoing management issues, including those in the AMA, and provides valuable feedback, insight, and recommendations.
• Local Watershed Councils: Members of the AMA Team participate in the activities of several watershed councils within the AMA, and provide technical, financial, and logistical support to council programs, as needed. The councils serve as a vehicle to help local citizens get involved in watershed-based ecosystem management.
• Soil and Water Conservation Districts: These organizations provide an educational and advisory outreach to private landowners, and can help to connect the interests of the federal agencies and other landowners through the adaptive management process.

Community interaction

Interaction between the federal land management agencies and local AMA communities can take many forms, but the most important avenues are as follows:

• Public meetings and workshops are scheduled from time to time in different towns in the AMA to share information about AMA activities, gather public opinions and input, and invite participation in upcoming events.
• Field tours are also scheduled several times each year, to view progress on various AMA projects and give participants additional opportunities to give feedback directly to the agencies.
• Federal agency open houses are scheduled periodically, to update interested persons and groups on AMA activities and needs.
• Agency staff members take part in the quarterly meetings of the Coast Range Province Advisory Committee (PAC), and in monthly meetings of the PAC's AMA Subcommittee.
• Agency staff members participate in and support activities of local watershed councils.
• Agency staff coordinate activities with the natural resource staff of the Grand Ronde and Siletz Confederated Tribes.
• The Agency Staff periodically works with local school teachers and community college instructors in developing and presenting lessons relating to natural resources and public forest management issues.
• The Agency Staff communicates regularly with clubs and organizations which have entered into cooperative agreements for various kinds of resource use and management.
• Personal visits, letters, and phone calls to the agency offices by individuals and representatives of interest groups are always welcomed.
• The AMA Coordinator will initiate a periodic newsletter to keep interested organizations and individuals informed of AMA activities.

Project development guidelines

The importance of designing, implementing, and monitoring activities in order to learn as much as we can from them is central to AMA objectives. We can't structure every AMA activity as a research project; however, to assist in the learning process for projects carried out in the AMA, the following guidelines are recommended:

Frame objectives: The learning objectives for each adaptive management project should be clearly stated in all NEPA documents, and the project implementation plans should describe strategies for accomplishing the learning objectives. The Lead Scientist or others may assist in this step. For some actions in which proven techniques are used to accomplish specific habitat goals, the learning objectives may be simply to confirm the results of previous treatments.

Use controls for comparison: So that they can be effectively evaluated, most projects should have a control with which the effects of management actions can be compared. Controls should be clearly delineated on maps, documented in project files, and protected from manipulation for as long as they are useful to the comparison (for example, at least the first 20 years for a thinning project). Ideally, treatment areas should be delineated in a project area first and controls randomly selected from among them.

Keep treatments simple: It is important to keep the number of different types of activities within a project limited to a few treatments. Otherwise, each unit treated can become a unique case study (without replication), and documentation and delineation of what was done where on the ground can be more difficult. Simplicity in terms of the number of things to be compared within a project will not only make learning easier, but should make project design and implementation much easier. Different types of activities can always be tried on different projects.

Document projects: Documentation should consist of a description of each activity and why, how, and where it was implemented. Similar documentation methods should be developed for all agencies and a central repository designated for all records, ideally in a readily retrievable electronic format with hard copy backup.

Monitor: Define a monitoring plan for each project, detailing what will be measured, and when (what might be measured if resources are available could also be included). Monitoring should include, at a minimum, a pre-project characterization, a post-project characterization, and some schedule of future measurements. For some objectives, remote sensing (aerial photography or satellite imagery) may be adequate. If monitoring includes field measurements, permanently-marked sample points are highly recommended. Taking photographs at such points may be a useful way to show results to others.

Table 4 illustrates a proposed outline for the flow of work on learning projects in the AMA. The purpose of the chart is to help identify the sequence of actions and the kind of participants needed to ensure that each project will meet both its learning objectives and its management objectives. Not every project will require every step of this process--some actions, in fact, may not be defined as learning projects, though every action presents at least some opportunity for learning. This process itself will continue to be revised as we learn which approaches work better than others.
 
 

Table 4. Development Process for Learning Projects

 

Action	Persons Responsible	Additional Information
Identify information needs	FS/BLM/PNW employees; other agencies; Sub-Pac, Tribes, other groups; public	Lead Scientist maintains files of information needs, forwards questions to agencies
Determine if the information has already been generated	Scientists and Agency Specialists   (Forest Service, BLM, PNW)	Assigned specialists prepare feedback for originator
Prioritize needs; recommend projects	PAC; AMA Sub-Committee, other public	Provide recommendations to agency managers
Select projects and assign to administrative units	Agency managers	Determine where projects fit in agency work plans
Design study & monitoring plans	PNW scientist(s) with agency resource specialist(s)	Decide appropriate level or rigor of experimental design or management study
Find general locations	Unit managers and specialists	Return project file to AMA Coordinator if a suitable location cannot be found
Include studies in development of specific projects	ID teams with scientists	Provide public input through scoping
Implement projects	Unit managers and specialists	Keep scientists informed of progress
Monitor projects	Unit managers & staff, with scientists if expertise needed	Include public and volunteers where feasible
Analyze and interpret data generated	Scientists and/or resource specialists	Determine what we have learned
Prepare information papers	Scientists and/or resource specialists	Write to share with other agency offices, other AMAs, and public
Input information to central data base	AMA Coordinator	Determine if new questions have been generated

 
 
 

Watershed analysis

The Northwest Forest Plan states that, "Ultimately, watershed analysis should be conducted in all watersheds on federal lands as a basis for ecosystem planning and management". Watershed analysis is a process designed to analyze and document the major ecological structure, functions, processes, and interactions occurring within a watershed. The area to be included in each analysis usually contains between 20 and 200 square miles.

Within the AMA are 24 identified watersheds, as shown on map 5. Some of the watershed units displayed on the map may be combined for analysis. The map also identifies the four watesheds for which the analysis has been completed and others for which analysis is in progress. The information collected through watershed analysis will be important in the design and implementation of all activities conducted in the AMA.
 
 

Key Watersheds

The Northwest Forest Plan designated certain drainages as key watersheds. Some of these key watersheds were designated to protect current "high quality habitat", while others were applied to watersheds in which currently degraded habitat rates a high priority for restoration. Within key watersheds, an analysis is required prior to management activities, except for minor activities such as those categorically excluded under National Environmental Policy Act regulations. Timber cannot be harvested from key watersheds before watershed analysis is completed. The proposed schedule for analysis of the remaining watersheds within the Adaptive Management Area is shown in table 5.
 
At this time, we are not aware of current plans to prepare watershed analyses for the Wilson River, Trask River, Tillamook River, and Middle Siletz.
 
 
 

Table 5. Schedule for watershed analysis in the Northern Coast Range AMA
 
 
 

	Project Calendar Year of Analysis
Watershed	1994	1996	1997	1998	1999+	Key  Watershed	Lead Office
Nestucca River	Done					Yes
North Yamhill		Done				No
Schooner / Drift Creek		Done				Yes	Hebo RD
Upper Siletz River		Done				Yes	Marys Peak RA
Little Nestucca River			X			No	Hebo RD
Luckiamute River			X			No	Marys Peak RA
Sand Lake (part of Coastal Frontal)			X			No	Posible contract-Hebo RD
Willamina / Deer / Panther Creeks			X			No	Tillamook RA
Kilchis River			X			Yes	TBNEP1
Neskowin Creek				X		No	Hebo RD
S. Yamhill / Lower Mill / Rickreall			X			No	Marys Peak RA
Rock Creek					X	No	Marys Peak RA
Salmon River					X	No	Hebo RD
Lower Siletz River					X	No	Hebo RD
Scoggings Creek / Upper Tualatin River					X	No	Tillamook RA

  ¹ Tillamook Bay National Estuary Project
 
 
 

Timber harvest projections

The Northwest Forest Plan states that AMA plans should contain a short-term timber sale plan and long-term yield projections. For the long term, preliminary estimates indicate that a reasonable range of activity could result in a wide range of acres treated and volume harvested in any given year. The low end of the range reflects what can probably be accomplished with the limited staff and funding available at this time. The high end reflects the estimated potential harvest after additional watershed analysis and specific project planning. Table 6 shows our preliminary estimates of annual acreage to be treated and volume that would be harvested.
 
 

Table 6. Estimated range of harvest acres and harvest volume for the AMA
 
 

Management Unit	Acres	Volume Range, MMBF1
Hebo Ranger District	380 - 590	6.1 - 8.1
Marys Peak Resource Area	85 - 244	0.8 - 2.2
Tillamook Resource Area	310 - 780	3.5 - 9.3
Totals	775 - 1614	10.4 - 19.6

 
¹ Millions of board feet
 
 

Projected short-term (3 - 5 years) harvest plans for the AMA, including acres and associated volumes for specific planned projects, are shown in Appendix B, Timber Sale Plans. The information is based on current knowledge and assumptions, which will be refined and modified as additional watershed analyses and various AMA treatment trials are completed.
 
 

Funding AMA programs

As efforts to reduce the size and cost of the government proceed, the level of future appropriated funds for AMA programs appears uncertain. Success of the AMA, therefore, will most likely depend on the development of alternatives to traditional funding. As stated in the Northwest Forest Plan, page D-2, the AMA should provide:

...demonstration of...new approaches to land management that integrate economic and ecological objectives based on credible development programs....Innovation is expected in developing adequate and stable funding sources for monitoring, research, retraining, restoration, and other activities.

Grants: One type of opportunity would be to seek grants from private corporations and companies, through agreements in which nonFederal parties provide money, equipment, property, or products to assist with ecosystem management activities, for mutual benefit.

Funding from AMA receipts: When commodities are removed from federal lands in the AMA, whether timber, special forest products, or other materials, fees are generally charged. The AMA Team proposes to seek authority for new mechanisms for distribution of receipts. If a portion of the funds generated from federal lands within the AMA could be applied to AMA programs, the need to compete for limited federal dollars would be substantially reduced. A proposal requesting legislative action to provide this authority--at least on a trial basis--would need to be developed and submitted to the Washington offices of the Forest Service and BLM. Such authority could permit the Northern Coast Range AMA to eventually become self-supporting, with most costs borne primarily by those who use and benefit from the resources on public lands in the AMA.

Under such a funding system, incomes derived from activities within the AMA would be divided between the counties (under existing formulas), the local agencies, and the U.S. Treasury. Funds credited to the agency AMA accounts in the first year would be applied to AMA programs in the next fiscal year, with a fixed percentage dedicated to monitoring programs. Capital investment funding would continue to be received through appropriations for the first five years. Money not spent in one year could be carried over to the next. Money collected from past timber purchasers that is dedicated to reforestation activities would continue to be used until all approved projects stemming from those sales are completed. Cooperative account funds would be transferred to the AMA budget, and those agreements would be fulfilled.

Pilot program--recreation receipts: Many federal land management agencies have large backlogs of deferred maintenance for recreation sites. Facilities must sometimes be closed for health and safety reasons. With federal budgets expected to decline 15 to 25 percent over the next seven to ten years and recreation use increasing, federal agencies need to look for alternative funding sources for recreation. One opportunity is a pilot cost recovery fee program designed to maintain facilities on our public lands. This concept allows at least 80 percent of fees generated from the recreation facilities to remain at the management unit, and allows the money to be used for operation and maintenance. This pilot program will be implemented on National Forest System lands in 1997.

Road maintenance funding: Road maintenance fees are a good example of the costs of a program being paid by primarily by those who benefit most. Fees are collected for commercial haul of timber products or rock over federally owned and maintained roads. Fee rates are based on thousands of board feet for timber hauled or cubic yards for minerals hauled. Funds are deposited in an account and then distributed to the various road maintenance units.

Communication sites fees: The BLM and Forest Service developed a new fee policy and schedule for communication sites in the fall of 1995. The two agencies have adopted identical fee schedules and policies so that consistent rental fees will be charged for communication uses on public land. The new policy provides for the collection of fair market value for uses such as microwave dishes and communication towers and facilities.
 
 

Late-Successional Reserve in the AMA

Approximately 68 percent of the AMA is also classified by the Northwest Forest Plan as Late-Successional Reserve (LSR). This designation has some important implications regarding AMA management:
 
 

Why was LSR designated within the AMA?

The region-wide system of Late-Successional Reserves was designed to provide a "functional, interactive, late-successional and old-growth forest ecosystem" (Plan 1994, p. 6). Under all ten alternatives analyzed by the Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment Team (FEMAT 1993), LSR was designated for the north coast area, in which very little older forest habitat remains. One of the major reasons for this designation is to help ensure that nesting habitat for the marbled murrelet would be protected and increased. Nesting habitat for the murrelet, a small sea bird that nests in large, old trees, is very limited in the AMA at present. This is because most of the old-growth forest was eliminated by wildfires or logging during the last 100 years. The Plan explains the situation as follows:

Because most late-successional forests have already been harvested, requirements for marbled murrelet include: ...retaining LS/OG1s, LS/OG2s, and owl additions (from the Scientific Panel on Late-Successional Forest Ecosystems, 1991) as Late-Successional Reserves within the Adaptive Management Areas. These reserves should be managed as stipulated for such reserves under these standards and guidelines (ROD 1994, p. D-15).

How does the LSR classification affect AMA activities?

The primary management goal for this AMA is essentially the same goal as for Late-Successional Reserves: to maintain and develop late-successional forest habitat. Some significant differences exist, however, between the two allocations. The standards and guidelines for LSR are more specific than those for AMA:

No programmed timber harvest is allowed inside the reserves. However, thinning or other silvicultural treatments inside these reserves may occur in stands up to 80 years of age [110 years in the Northern Coast Range AMA] if the treatments are beneficial to the creation and maintenance of late-successional forest conditions (PLAN, page 8).

"One reason for locating Adaptive Management Areas adjacent to communities experiencing adverse economic impacts is to provide opportunity for social and economic benefits to these areas. Adaptive Management Areas are expected to produce timber as part of their program of activities..." (ROD 1994, page D-8).

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