DOI proposes evolution of public lands conservation
The Department of the Interior (DOI) has released a draft plan, according to doi.gov, to “guide the balanced management of public lands.”
The draft states that the BLM proposes new regulations that would prioritize the health and resilience of ecosystems across public lands. The announcement from DIO, which oversees the BLM, claims, “Public Lands Rule lays groundwork for conserving wildlife habitat, restoring places impacted by wildfire and drought, expanding outdoor recreation, and thoughtful development.”
Key takeaways:
An update to the definition of Conservation
According to the draft, the proposed rule promotes “conservation” that by agency definition includes protection and restoration. Historically and presently, the BLM’s conservation efforts stop short of protection. And restoration efforts on public lands outside of national monuments and historic trails has never been a focus to the point of appropriating funds for the specific task.
For context, until now, the BLM’s definition of conservation is such, as stated on the agency’s website:
The conservation side of the BLM’s mission includes preserving specially designated landscapes, such as those comprising the 35 million-acre system of National Conservation Lands (including wilderness areas, wilderness study areas, national monuments, national conservation areas, historic trails, and wild and scenic rivers); protecting wild horse and burro rangeland; conserving wildlife, fish, and plant habitat; preserving Native American and “Old West” artifacts; and protecting paleontological resources, such as dinosaur bones.
Proposition of conservation leases to promote health of public land
According to the draft, “the proposed rule clarifies that conservation is a use on par with other uses of the public lands under FLPMA’s multiple-use and sustained-yield framework. Consistent with how the BLM promotes and administers other uses, the proposed rule establishes a durable mechanism, conservation leases, to promote both protection and restoration on public lands.”
But. Why ask taxpayers to pay rent to the government to restore the very lands the government has neglected and leased for pennies to big-money capitalists who degrade the land with domestic livestock (aka: invasive species)? Unless these new conservation areas for lease are former grazing allotments that have been retired from public lands ranching and are forever out of the hands of commercial capitalism, we don’t buy the agency’s new claims of leveling up their preservation efforts.
Furthermore, if revenue for taxpayers is also a focus of this program, grazing fees should rise to be equitable with market value of private ranching and state-level fees. If revenue and taxpayer reprieve are goals, the low hanging fruit remains getting livestock off public land.
Prioritizing preservation and restoration with “coordination, cooperation and consultation of the public”
According to the draft proposal, “To implement FLPMA’s direction to ‘give priority to the designation and protection of areas of critical environmental concern,’ the planning process [currently] requires coordination, cooperation, and consultation, and provides other opportunities for public involvement that can foster relationships, build trust, and result in durable decisionmaking.
That BLM claims to require public involvement and consent is dissonant from its lack of accountability in fostering relationships, and building trust between the BLM Wild Horse and Burro program and the American public.
As an example, Wild Horse and Burro committees are historically seated by powerful ranchers while BLM claims to have public interest in its wild horse and burro program decision-making. During public hearings to discuss policy, roundups, and environmental impact around the wild horse issue, public comments backed by science and indisputable data fall on deaf ears.
“Science for management decisions to build resilient public lands”
The DOI draft states, “to support conservation actions and decision making, the proposed rule applies the fundamentals of land health (taken verbatim from the existing fundamentals of rangeland health at 43 CFR 4180.1 (2005)) and related standards and guidelines to all renewable resource management, instead of just to public-lands grazing. Broadening the applicability of the fundamentals of land health would ensure BLM programs will more formally and consistently consider the condition of public lands during decisionmaking processes.”
We find it negligent to build new systems on already failing systems. BLM has proven, decade over decade during the last century, that as an agency, it prioritizes the needs of public lands ranchers over that of critical environments, cost to taxpayers, sustainable budgets, and the future of public lands in general. To base an entire restoration rule on policy that prioritizes cattle and sheep isn’t conservation. It’s criminal.
While WNP applauds an update to the definition of conservation, a commitment to restoration, and the ethics to follow science and data, we’re watching the evolution and potential implementation of this proposal closely.
Our concern is that BLM will adopt these new definitions, regulations and programs, and then proceed with business as usual — turning a blind eye to its mission and responsibility by bastardizing policy that ultimately prioritizes extraction and livestock industry, plundering the very wildness it exists to protect.
The draft in its entirety can be found here.