As you all know, the Service seeks to insure that the best available science is used in making conservation and management decisions. It is the Service's policy to request outside scientific review of listing decisions and recovery plans (see attached 1994 Peer Review Policy.) Unfortunately, the response of all the scientific community is not always timely and may fail to materialize at all.

Sustainable Ecosystems Institute has offered to help the Service obtain scientific peer review. SEI is a nonprofit organization that develops cooperative solutions, and already works with the Service and other Federal resource agencies on many projects. Over 200 respected scientists have committed to work with SEI, and to provide review of conservation documents within the Service's timeframes. The Service and SEI are working together to implement a 1-year pilot project with the goal of making a more effective peer review process for listing packages, recovery plans, and other documents on which the Service requests input.

Service staff who wish to make use of SEI's offer for a specific project should contact Dr. Steven Courtney, SEI Vice President, at 503-246-5008, or by e-mail at courtney@sei.org, and outline your review needs. Depending on your needs, SEI will query its data base of experts. In many circumstances, the Service may know other suitable reviewers, with local or species-specific expertise. Once reviewers are selected, SEI will contact them to ask them to commit to a complete and timely review. It will be up to the discretion of the office to decide whether or not it wants SEI to distribute the document to the reviewer. SEI will periodically remind reviewers of approaching deadlines and will encourage them to complete their reviews in good time. Reviews will be sent directly to both SEI and the responsible Service office. After receipt of reviews, SEI will send letters of appreciation to reviewers' personnel files. Reviewers will not be paid unless funds are provided by SEI from an outside source.

It may be useful to look at SEI's web site (www.sei.org/peerrev.html) prior to contacting SEI. The site includes a partial list of potential reviewers, as well as some completed reviews. Attached is the SEI Guidance to Reviewers from their web site. This same guidance will be provided to each peer reviewer.

Please remember that this process will be implemented on a 1-year trial basis. It is not mandatory for Service offices to use SEI when seeking peer reviewers. However, where assistance is needed, it may prove useful. I urge you to try it, where appropriate, so we can get some meaningful feedback this year. It will take a minimal amount of time on the part of Service personnel (you need to ensure that SEI receives copies of all reviews so they can keep track of their success rate) and has the potential to greatly increase scientific input on our listing decisions and recovery plans.

Please feel free to contact Martin Miller, Acting Chief, Office of Consultations, HCPs, and recovery, or Charlie Scott, Chief, Branch of Recovery and Delisting, at (703) 358-2171 if you have any questions or for more information.