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November 18, 1999 <br />FWS /R6 <br />Southern Ecosystem <br />Mr. Paul Tebbel <br />Chair, Technical Committee <br />Lillian Annette -Rowe Audubon Bird Sanctuary <br />44450 Elm Island Rd. <br />Gibbon, Nebraska 68840 <br />Dear Mr. Tebbel: <br />The Department of Interior, Bureau of Reclamation and Fish and Wildlife Service, has reviewed <br />the Technical Committee's October 6,1999, Draft Integrated Monitoring and Research <br />Component (IMRC). The document will be central to unifying the diverse components of the <br />evolving Program, and we appreciate the hard work the Technical Committee has devoted to it. <br />Overall, we believe it is a good start to serve this purpose. While it already may be more than <br />adequate for describing the proposed Program in the environmental impact statement, it will also <br />serve as a framework for the necessary organization of the proposed Program under the <br />principles of adaptive management. We offer the following suggestions and comments to <br />improve this important document. <br />Adaptive Management <br />The concept of adaptive management is central to the functioning of the proposed Program and <br />its discussion under section III should naturally precede the discussion of monitoring and <br />research. In addition to defining and discussing the concept of adaptive management in general, <br />this section should clarify how it applies specifically to the operation of the proposed Program. <br />The main purpose of monitoring and research under this management philosophy is to provide <br />information to support future management decisions. To best direct the development of effective <br />monitoring and research to this end, the adaptive management section should explicitly state and <br />fully discuss the specific questions Program managers will face in the Platte River Basin, <br />including the background of research and management framing these questions. This discussion <br />will lead logically to how best to support these decisions in the following section on monitoring <br />and research. These specific questions should then be restated in Section: V for each individual <br />species and resource of interest to show how the monitoring and research program is designed to <br />provide information for making management decisions. <br />�e ,5,k <br />v�• <br />