Monitoring

The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration (CFLR) program was established under Section 4003(a) of Title IV of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, and reflected the premise that the best way to integrate restoration actions on National Forests was to integrate ecological, social, and economic needs. The Amador-Calaveras Consensus Group (ACCG), Cornerstone CFLR project was awarded in February 2012, with the core goal of moving landscapes towards sustainable conditions, reducing uncharacteristic wildfire, restoring a range of ecological functions, and maintaining rural communities and livelihoods.

The ACCG Collaborative had a team with diverse knowledge, technical resource skills, planning expertise, and perspectives on forest restoration and community conditions develop the Cornerstone monitoring strategy. This monitoring team included a variety of Forest Service staff, representatives from environmental and non-profit organizations, Amador County consultant, and the forest products industry. The monitoring strategy describes what will be monitored, how to conduct the monitoring, how the monitoring results will be used, and the responsible party for each step in the process, and provide guidance in:

• Determining if restoration projects are implemented in accordance with the project design and intent.
• Determining if the outcomes and effects of restoration actions are achieving desired conditions.
• Identifying whether the restoration treatments need to be modified to accommodate results of monitoring.

The monitoring team spent over 1,142 hours working on the monitoring strategy in FY 2014, which included a 4-day workshop held in February with over 30 participants. The Monitoring work group continues to implement the Cornerstone Monitoring Strategy (2016) and has produced the Cornerstone Ecological Indicator Report in 2014, and more recently in 2019.