The U.S. Forest Service is proposing some changes to the Land Management Plan for the San Bernardino National Forest and requesting the public’s input on these changes. The FS considers these administrative changes to improve its forest monitoring during 2016.

The changes modify questions about activities on the forest. The answers require data collection for the long-term monitoring of the forest’s condition.

“Monitoring and evaluation processes begin by identifying key questions Forest Service managers need to answer about forest plan implementation,” states the paper explaining the new questions and their application.

For example, the FS collects information about forest vegetation, native and non-native. For the SBNF, one of the new questions, or issues, will be, “Are chaparral and coastal sage scrub vegetation communities type converting to non-native annual grasslands?”

To answer the question, forest biologists will assess the extent of non-native annual grasses throughout the SBNF.

Other areas where the monitoring question would change include:

• the number of special use permits

• tree mortality, extent and breadth

• stream flow

• fire frequency, size and severity

The new monitoring framework and documentation of best-available science required by the planning rule are available at www.fs.usda.gov/main/sbnf/landmanagement/planning.

The Forest Service is requesting comments within 30 days of March 25, 2016. They can be mailed to the San Bernardino National Forest, 602 S. Tippecanoe Ave. San Bernardino, CA, 92408, or delivered via email to sbnf_lmp_monitoring_transition_comments@fs.fed.us.

Questions may be posed to Tasha Hernandez, at 909-382-2905 or thernandez@fs.fed.us.