Step 4: The revised science plan will be reviewed by the workshop participants.

Step 5: The writing group (reconfigured as appropriate) will prepare an implementation plan for a 5- to 10-year program of research on land use change.

Step 6: A steering committee or executive committee will be created to guide and regularly review the program over the course of its life.

We anticipate that such a science plan for research on land use change will take six months to develop; the development of an implementation plan would take another six months. Once this process is well defined, efforts should be focused on the timely development of science and implementation plans for the other topics on the list. At this juncture, we believe the second topic to go through this strategic planning process should be research on decision making and global change. At each stage, it will be important to provide opportunities for those representing the concerns of the science community, the funding community, and the policy-making community to consider adding new science priorities to the initial list and to reconsider the sequence in which these priorities go through the strategic planning process.