Draft General Management Plan / Environmental Assessment

US Department of The Interior, National Park Service; John Day Fossil Beds National Monument

The purpose of a general management plan is to ensure that a national park system unit (park unit) has a clearly defined direction for resource preservation and visitor use that will best achieve the NPS mandate to preserve resources unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations. The ultimate outcome of general management planning for park units is an agreement among the National Park Service, its partners, and the public on why each area is managed as part of the national park system, what resource conditions and visitor experience should exist, and how those conditions can best be achieved and maintained over time. A new management plan for John Day Fossil Beds National Monument is needed because the last comprehensive planning effort for the national monument was completed in 1979 and much has occurred since then. In 1999, 1,000 acres of private land within the authorized boundary of the Clarno Unit were acquired, and a new visitor/paleontology center was recently constructed. In addition, since 1979 visitation has increased, monument staff and researchers have learned much more about the significance of the monument’s resources, and NPS staff are now coordinating paleontological research, collection, and curation on all federal lands throughout the John Day Basin. Each of these changes has major implications for how visitors access and use the monument and the facilities needed to support those uses, how resources are managed, and how the National Park Service manages its operations. Furthermore, most of the issues and action items identified in the 1979 plan have been addressed or completed, so a new plan is needed. The approved General Management Plan will be the basic document for managing John Day Fossil Beds National Monument for the next 15 to 20 years. The purposes of this management plan are as follows: provide a realistic vision for the monument’s future, setting a direction for the monument that considers the environmental as well as the financial impact of proposed facilities and programs; establish a common management direction for all monument divisions and units; clearly define resource conditions and visitor uses and experiences to be achieved in the monument; provide a framework for monument managers to use when making decisions about how to best protect monument resources, how to provide quality visitor uses and experiences, how to manage visitor use, and what kinds of facilities, if any, to develop in or near the monument; ensure that this foundation for decision making has been developed in consultation with interested stakeholders and adopted by the NPS leadership after an adequate analysis of the benefits, impacts, and economic costs of alternative courses of action.

Draft General Management Plan / Environmental Assessment

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