Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 118.djvu/1235

 118 STAT. 1205 PUBLIC LAW 108–317—OCT. 5, 2004 from uncontrollable wildfire becomes widespread, with 8 years having already elapsed since the assessment; (10) healthy forest and woodland ecosystems— (A) reduce the risk of wildfire to forests and commu nities; (B) improve wildlife habitat and biodiversity; (C) increase tree, grass, forb, and shrub productivity; (D) enhance watershed values; (E) improve the environment; and (F) provide a basis in some areas for economically and environmentally sustainable uses; (11) sustaining the long term ecological and economic health of interior West forests and woodland, and their associ ated human communities requires preventing severe wildfires before the wildfires occur and permitting natural, low intensity ground fires; (12) more natural fire regimes cannot be accomplished without the reduction of excess fuels and thinning of subdomi nant trees (which fuels and trees may be of commercial value); (13) ecologically based forest and woodland ecosystem res toration on a landscape scale will— (A) improve long term community protection; (B) minimize the need for wildfire suppression; (C) improve resource values; (D) improve the ecological integrity and resilience of these systems; (E) reduce rehabilitation costs; (F) reduce loss of critical habitat; and (G) protect forests for future generations; (14) although landscape scale restoration is needed to effec tively reverse degradation, scientific understanding of land scape scale treatments is limited; (15) rigorous, objective, understandable, and applied sci entific information is needed for— (A) the design, implementation, monitoring, and adaptation of landscape scale restoration treatments and improvement of wildfire management; (B) the environmental review process; and (C) affected entities that collaborate in the development and implementation of wildfire treatment. SEC. 3. PURPOSES. The purposes of this Act are— (1) to enhance the capacity to develop, transfer, apply, monitor, and regularly update practical science based forest restoration treatments that will reduce the risk of severe wildfires, and improve the health of dry forest and woodland ecosystems in the interior West; (2) to synthesize and adapt scientific findings from conven tional research programs to the implementation of forest and woodland restoration on a landscape scale; (3) to facilitate the transfer of interdisciplinary knowledge required to understand the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of wildfire on ecosystems and landscapes; (4) to require the Institutes established under this Act to collaborate with Federal agencies— 16 USC 6702.

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