Silver City, NM — The Gila National Forest is pleased to announce that the Preliminary Draft Plan (https://go.usa.gov/xnSeQ) is now available for review and comment. This preliminary draft plan reflects input gathered earlier and describes the strategic direction for management of forest resources.

The Gila National Forest highly encourages feedback on the preliminary draft plan and participation moving forward. Your feedback will help us improve the draft plan and consider alternatives to the proposed plan direction. Comments are most useful if received by April 23, 2017.

Please send comments, preferably in digital form, to gilaplan@fs.fed.us, or mail to Gila National Forest, Attn.: Plan Revision, 3005 E. Camino del Bosque, Silver City, NM 88061. Changes will occur throughout the document prior to being released as the official Draft Plan later in the year.

There will be a round of community open houses (see flyer at https://go.usa.gov/xnSeP for more details) to help create understanding of preliminary plan direction with posters and Forest Service staff available for dialogue. NOTE: Due to other scheduling conflicts, we had to change the venue for the Community Open House in Las Cruces. Instead of the NM Farm and Ranch Museum, it will now be held at the Las Cruces Convention Center (680 E. University Avenue). Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. The date (Friday, March 23rd) and time (9-11am) of this meeting remain unchanged.

For information on the Gila National Forest, check out our website at http://www.fs.usda.gov/gila or join the conversation on Facebook at www.facebook.com/GilaNForest/ or follow us on Twitter @GilaNForest.