August 24, 2016 Planning Team Leader Forest Plan Revision 1323 Club Drive Vallejo, CA 94592 Sent to:
[email protected] RE: Inyo National Forest Draft Land Management Plan and Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Region 5 Early Adopter Forests Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Inyo National Forest (INF) draft land management plan and the three Forest Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). Friends of the Inyo is a locally-based nonprofit conservation organization dedicated to the stewardship, exploration, and preservation of the Eastern Sierra’s public lands and wildlife. Over our 30 year history, Friends of the Inyo has been an active partner with the Inyo National Forest, initially providing public comments on actions stemming from the Forest’s 1988 forest planning process to today where staff, members, and volunteers have contributed well over a quarter of a million dollars in in-kind labor, interpretation and support across nearly every professional Forest discipline. We represent a collective voice of more than 700 local and regional members. We have engaged in the INF plan revision process since the development of the Forest Assessment in 2013. These comments follow our comments submitted on Desired Conditions, Need to Change and Scoping comments. Our approach is to support and improve the preferred alternative; however, there are instances where we believe other alternatives better address a resource or issue and in these cases we ask the particular component be moved to the preferred alternative. We worked with a variety of species experts and collaborators on these comments and in some cases we use their language for our comments.