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habitat conservation sites; 2.) defining conservation management, fiscal, and land management staff responsibilities of each HCP participant, 3.) formally f abandoning the Gibson Road right-of-way through the North Sebastian Conservation Area, and 4.) permitting implementation of prescribed ecological burns within the incorporated limits of City of Sebastian. B. implement mechanical and restoration burning strategies, as set forth in Section 5.3, immediately to initiate recovery of optimal Florida scrub -jay habitat quality features within the 418_ acre Sebastian HCP Scrub -Jay Habitat Conservation and Corridor Compensation Areas. Apply mechanical treatments to reduce the tree canopy cover to less than 15% (1 to 2 trees per acre) and to eradicate the exotic pest plant, Brazilian pepper. Use logging operations as the primary mechanical technique to thin pine trees and to fell tree -sized (>3.0 in. diameter at breast height (dbh)) scrub oaks and cabbage palms. Use the Cut Stump herbicidal control method to remove Brazilian pepper for the targeted conservation sites. Initiate an aggressive restoration burning program, within 6 to 8 weeks from completion of mechanical treatment on the initial conservation site, or as soon thereafter as suitable weather conditions permit, to reduce shrub height, consume vegetative debris left on the ground from applied mechanical treatments, and initiate recovery of open areas. C. Implement a habitat management program that uses prescribed fire as the primary management tool to maintain, in the long-term, optimal Florida scrub -jay habitat quality features within the Scrub -Jay Habitat Compensation Areas. Integrate habitat management principles that favor maintenance of the biological diversity that is characteristic of the Atlantic Coastal Ridge scrub ecosystem, and thereby optirnal for Florida scrub -jays, by promoting variation in managernent unit size and location, fire frequency (based on scrub -jay habitat quality structural criteria), fire-: intensity, fire patchiness, and timing of burns (favoring natural season burns) (Schmalzer of al. 1999; Main and Menges 1997; Breininger and Oddy 1998)• � The presence of optimal Florida scrub -jay habitat features, as defined in Breininger et a/, (1995, 1996b), evaluated at the landscape scale will be used to measure achievement of this biological objective at each of the Scrub -Jay Habitat Compensation Areas: 1 ,) Qak Cover;, greater than 50% of the shrub layer comprised of scrub oaks; 2.) pperaS aCe; 10%-30°l0 of the arca comprised of open space (bare sand or sparse herbaceous vegetation) forming a mosaic among the oaks; 72