California Biodiversity Council
c/o CAL FIRE FRAP
PO Box 944246
Sacramento, CA 94244
(916) 445-5845
(916) 324-1180 fax lauren.mcnees@fire.ca.gov

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Fire Protection and Resource Conservation: Pilot Project to Integrate Fuels Reduction with Species and Watershed Protection in the San Bernardino Mountains

The goal of this project was to evaluate how fuels management projects can be implemented quickly while providing high quality environmental protection. The team was tasked to use ongoing project planning to identify impediments to timely and effective fuels reduction work, and work together to improve efficiency of the current planning, review and approval processes. The final goal would be to identify areas that will be the focus for future fuels reductions projects over the next 2-5 years.

The team's findings showed that: 1. The participating agencies were already working together to streamline the planning, review, and regulatory processes, 2. Many of the “impediments” that were envisioned at the start of the project were actually self-imposed requirements by the land-managing agencies, 3. Using regulatory permits is the conventional way of providing environmental protection, but this model was identified as a poor substitute for integrated agency planning, and 4. There is considerable local interest in pursuing more integrated agency planning.