will be diluted and likely not useful to resource managers. The more focused NPRB activities can be, the more they will accomplish.

Given the key role the IERPs will serve in organizing NPRB science activities, the committee feels strongly that the concept of IERPs should be introduced early in Chapter 1 (with their detailed description still remaining in Chapter 3). In this way, the intent of the workshops, which is to provide targeted information that helps bring the IERPs to fruition, can be made explicitly clear. If this is not clear, the workshops will appear unrelated and fragmented, and in the end they will not be very useful to the Science Panel or support the success of the NPRB overall.

Along with the concept of IERPs, the committee believes that the IERP discussion in Chapter 2 section 3 contains information that actually belongs in Chapter 1, where it would be given more prominent attention. Chapter 1 is where the NPRB’s overarching premises, goals, and philosophies are explained and the IERP concept belongs as part of this description of the program’s foundation ideas, and not buried at the end of Chapter 2.

• Revise the organization by moving Section 2.3 to Chapter 1 and introduce the IERP concept early in Chapter 1.

• Planning workshops should be used where additional, focused scientific input is needed, such as to outline the scientific issues, research components, and estimated resource needs for the IERPs.

• The NPRB (Executive Direction with guidance from the Board, and Science Panel) should identify pressing management needs and select the priority IERPs for study.