The Bureau of Land Management is clarifying its controversial Public Lands Rule, which puts conservation on equal footing with traditional land uses.
The BLM released guidance documents last week to instruct its state and field office managers across the West how to carry out the new rule, which officially went into effect in June.
The documents walk through protocols for land health and watershed assessments and nominations for Areas of Critical Environmental Concern.
“All of those tools will serve as kind of a roadmap for how BLM can appropriately balance the uses on those landscapes,” said Kara Matsumoto, the public lands policy director at the Conservation Lands Foundation. “We are really excited to see the BLM providing its land managers on the ground with some clarity and tools to steward these landscapes appropriately.”
One of the documents calls on state BLM directors to identify at least two priority areas for restoration by the end of the year.
Another document provides more details on the two new categories available for leasing BLM land.
Organizations, businesses, tribal governments, or state agencies can now apply for restoration leases to “passively or actively assist the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed to a more natural, resilient ecological state.” They can also apply for mitigation leases to offset impacts from other activities on BLM land.
The documents also include a questionnaire for land managers to determine whether the leases fit with land use plans and to ensure that restoration and mitigation won’t conflict with existing uses on the land like grazing and mining.
But industry groups and several Western states think promoting conservation will affect ranching and energy production. They’re suing the agency to block the public lands rule, saying it violates federal law.
The BLM is also forming a new committee focused on implementing the Public Lands Rule, allowing it to consider a range of stakeholder feedback. The agency plans on opening applications to join the committee soon.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio (KNPR) in Las Vegas, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
