1: Forests and Grasslands
Restore, Sustain, and Enhance the Nation’s Forests and Grasslands Other Information:
Outcome: Forests and grasslands with the capacity to maintain their health, productivity, diversity, and resistance to unnaturally
severe disturbance. Overview: The national forests and grasslands were established to protect the land, secure favorable waterflows,
and provide a sustainable supply of goods and services. Even before the creation of the Forest Service, the USDA was responsible
for providing land management assistance to the States and private forest landowners. Over the past century, the Forest Service
has achieved a balance between providing land stewardship services and meeting public demands for various uses of the NFS.
Despite past successes, challenges persist. In recent years, people have become more aware of forest disturbance. The increasing
extent and frequency of uncharacteristically severe wildland fires and insect and disease outbreaks have been of particular
concern to the public, the Administration, Congress, and land management agencies. To achieve this goal and restore the resiliency
of our forest and grassland ecosystems, the Forest Service will focus its efforts on the following objectives. Means and Strategies
for Accomplishing Goal 1: • Develop and apply detection, prediction, prevention, mitigation, treatment, and restoration methods,
technologies, and strategies for addressing disturbances (e.g., wildfire, pests, extreme events).• Provide technical and financial
assistance to communities to reduce their risk from wildfire through neighborhood preparation, prevention, education, increased
fire suppression self-sufficiency, and community wildfire protection plans.• Assess the ecological and socioeconomic impacts
of global environmental change to the Nation’s forests and grasslands.• Improve firefighting training programs for the safe,
efficient, and effective initial attack and suppression of wildfire.• Use best management practices and scientific results
when implementing ground-disturbing or management activities.• Maintain resilient land and water conditions at the watershed
level and restore deteriorated lands and waters (e.g., abandoned mine lands).• Develop and implement conservation strategies
to conserve endangered, threatened, and other at-risk species. • Monitor the status of congressionally designated areas and
manage them to protect and enhance the values for which they were designated.• Improve the efficiency of land management treatments
that provide for the use of woody biomass.• Establish and implement environmental management systems on national forests,
grasslands, and prairies.
Objective(s):
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