CAVE AND KARST RESOURCE MANAGEMENT WITHIN A MULTIPLE-USE AGENCY: MOVING TOWARD SYNERGISTIC COLLABORATION BETWEEN DISCIPLINES TO MANAGE A FRAGILE SUBSURFACE ECOSYSTEM

The Forest Service manages a wealth of caves and karst resources across the country in desert, rainforest, grassland, and urban settings. Caves and karst landscapes represent diverse and specialized ecosystems that are difficult to manage, with concerns relating to biology, geology, and groundwater hydrology. Adding to the difficulties of cave and karst resource management, it is also a relatively new concept in the US, one largely developed following the passage of the 1988 Federal Cave Resources Protection Act (FCRPA). In order to meet the requirements of the FCRPA, National Forests developed cave management plans and wrote cave and karst resource protection standards and guidelines into their individual Forest Plans. However, due to limited funding and the fact that caves and karst systems are often primarily managed for recreation, many lack adequate resource assessments for biology, water quality, and other facets of a subsurface ecosystem. Fostering communication between recreation and resource management groups such as geology would mitigate not only budget limitations, but also bring together the synergistic group of professionals needed to manage the agency’s diverse cave and karst resources. Resource management methods such as subsurface watershed delineation, geologic mapping, mineralogical inventories, and geophysical assessments provide valuable tools for cave, karst landscape, and groundwater protection. These methods also provide vital information for management of biological and archaeological resources within caves, and can be used for interpretation and education. In recent years, the agency has made great advances, such as the establishment of a national groundwater program, which extends protection to stream based caves and karst systems. However, threats to cave and karst resources on our National Forests continue to grow. The Forest Service’s goal is to achieve sustainable land management under a multiple use management concept. In order to meet that goal and to mitigate these growing threats, recreation specialists, geologists, and other disciplines from across the agency need to work together to strengthen their individual cave and karst resource management programs, and in doing so, ultimately strengthen the National Cave and Karst program of the National Forest Service.