than 25 years since their last Forest Plan revision. To this end, we have created “Cave and Karst

Management Guides" for each Forest to help with the cave and karst management.
        ​

The Cave and Karst Management Guides are "how to" documents to help manage the resource in the

southwest forests. The cave and karst guides use the Code of Federal Regulations (CFRs) and the

Forest Service Manual (FSM) as the strategic structure. In many places the CFR and FSM numbered

paragraphs are listed verbatim. The documents are very similar, but also include areas where Forest

specific items apply (EXTENT OF THE RESOURCE), (Significant Cave Nominations) and whether the

Forest has large areas of karst.
        ​

The Cave and Karst Management Guides include:

• Authorities

• Cave Management Objectives and Policies

• Karst Management Objectives and Policies (surface management around caves.)

• Significant Cave Nomination requirements, forms, process and evaluation guidelines.

• Caving Ethics

• Forest filing and administrative guidelines including public and master file (positive control) content.

• FOIA restrictions

• Research criteria

• Cave Management Categories
        ​

… and much more …
        ​

The documents have been sent to the Arizona forests for review. Since Region 3 of the USFS includes both Arizona and New Mexico, many of the items are relevant to New Mexico as well.

​

Questions/Comments/Criticisms/Suggestions welcome. Please send to:
        ​

Ray Keeler

rckeeler@cox.net

623-523-1760