Use of risk assessment panels during revision of the Tongass Land and Resource Management Plan.

Shaw, Charles G., III. 1999. Use of risk assessment panels during revision of the Tongass Land and Resource Management Plan. PNW-GTR-460. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 43 p. (Shaw, Charles, G., III, tech. coord.; Conservation and resource assessments for the Tongass land management plan revision). This paper describes the process used to conduct the 16 risk assessment panels and a subsistence working group held during revision of the Tongass land management plan. It provides an overview of how results from the panels were used by forest managers in plan-related decisionmaking, discusses some reactions to the effort, and identifies some opportunities to improve the process. The panel results provided estimates of the relative risk that implementation of a range of alternative approaches to management of the Tongass National Forest would pose to the continued persistence across the landscape of an array of species or resources and estimates of potential socioeconomic effects on communities. As anticipated, results from these risk assessment panels became an integral component of the effects analysis section of the environmental impact statement that provided the context for successfully completing the Tongass Land and Resource Management Plan.