A CONSERVATION VISION for BLM LANDS in the YEAR 2025

Transcription

1 A CONSERVATION VISION for BLM LANDS in the YEAR 2025 Owyhee River, Idaho John McCarthy

2 Introduction The 245 million acres in the western United States and Alaska that are under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) contain some of the most beautiful and ecologically significant landscapes left unprotected on this continent. These lands are the last best chance we have to build a system of diverse conservation lands that at least approaches what the future is certain to require for the permanent physical, economic, and spiritual well-being of our people not to mention the well-being of the land itself. The early years of the 20th century offered President Theodore Roosevelt an unprecedented opportunity to protect our national forests and create national parks and wildlife refuges. The early part of the 21st century presents our generation with another unique opportunity the protection of large western landscapes of diverse high sagebrush steppes, southwestern deserts, critical Alaskan ecosystems, and more. The BLM has the opportunity both to shine as a land management agency and to shine a light on some of the most extraordinary wild places in America. The BLM is the largest single land manager for sagebrush and grassland ecosystems across the West. The Agency holds our best opportunity for conserving much of what is unique about the West for the future. In many ways, Americans have taken the vast interior West for granted; the sagebrush and grassland landscapes that have formed our western self image have been fragmented and drastically reduced from their original geographic extent and few pristine examples of this ecosystem now exist. While we are finally and steadily gaining knowledge of the biological diversity and ecological roles that sagebrush and grassland ecosystems play we also know that these lands are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The BLM is a multiple use agency. But the perception of what it means to manage lands for multiple use has evolved over the years, since first adopted by BLM in the early 1960s, then codified in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), and more recently as encompassed in the agency s management of lands with a conservation focus. Although conservation coexisted with the concept of multiple use before the creation of the National Landscape Conservation System in 2000, the establishment of the new system brought with it an explicit charge for BLM to embrace a new conservation-oriented mission for these lands. From the very inception of a system of conservation lands it has been acknowledged that these lands are managed as an integral part of BLM s full portfolio of the National System of Public Lands and that the conservation lands would serve as a new, and higher, benchmark for 21st century land stewardship. Americans expect and deserve to have all of their public lands managed for ecological health, for the contributions they make to clean air, clean water, wildlife habitat, and for the current and future generations of Americans who enjoy them. In 2025, just 15 years from now, the BLM s organic act, FLPMA, will have been guiding the agency s management for 50 years. In that same year, the National Landscape Conservation System will turn 25. What should the BLM managed lands look like in 15 years? This document poses a long term challenge to the BLM to grow its system of National Conservation Lands and enhance the stewardship of all of the lands under its guardianship. It also lays out some immediate administrative actions that can lay the groundwork for achieving a long term conservation vision. 1 Paria Canyon Jeff L. Fox

3 GROWING Growing BLM S CONSERVATION BLM s Conservation LANDS Lands The National Landscape Conservation System (Conservation Lands) the most innovative American land conservation system created in the last 40 years was established to protect the crown jewels of public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The Conservation Lands offer the spectacular qualities of national parks and national wildlife refuges yet the system focuses on protecting large landscapes, encompassing entire ecosystems, watersheds, and archaeological communities. The Conservation Lands are intended to preserve the remote and wild character of these landscapes and to serve as an outdoor laboratory where current and future generations can study prehistoric life and environments, ecological processes, human history, and the application of scientific knowledge to improving land management. There are dozens of landscapes that have been identified as worthy of national recognition and additional protection, either as National Conservation Areas or as National Monuments. Some have active, locally supported campaigns or are even subject to legislative action and others have not yet garnered such attention. Regardless, all of these areas deserve the administration s attention and support in both the legislative arena and as the President considers the use of the Antiquities Act. The following recommendations show how the administration can leave a conservation legacy for generations to come by more than doubling the size of the Conservation Lands in the next 15 years. Increase the acres of BLM lands managed as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System from 8.6 million acres to 24 million acres with designated wilderness in every western state. Increase the acres of BLM lands managed as National Monuments and National Conservation Areas from 11.6 million acres to 34 million acres with monuments and conservation areas in every western state. Recommend and work to establish Wild and Scenic River segments on BLM lands in every western state. Represent the full diversity of ecosystems managed by the BLM within the units that make up the Conservation Lands in order to provide baseline scientific data in the face of climate change and to serve as laboratories for land management innovation. 2

4 Growing BLM s Conservation Lands (cont.) The Obama Administration has the opportunity to create a wilderness legacy that protects over 10 million acres of public lands, more than President Johnson when he signed the Wilderness Act in Just as President Theodore Roosevelt revolutionized federal land management at the turn of the past century, President Obama could leave a 21st Century wilderness bequest to future generations of similar historical proportions. The foundation of this legacy could start with a comprehensive review and modernization of federal land agency policy with regard to inventorying, providing interim protection, planning, and recommending additional proposed wilderness acres. New plans built on good inventories and new recommendations would create a new crop of conservation opportunities to be harvested by future administrations and Congresses for decades to come. President Obama has already invested in this legacy by signing into law 2.1 million acres of new wilderness in the Omnibus Public Lands Act of 2009 in his third month in office. In the remaining session of the 111th Congress, we hope to see another two to five million acres of new wilderness signed into law. The Wilderness Act makes clear the executive branch s role in recommending additional wilderness proposals to Congress. In the 112th Congress, there are another three to five million acres that could be ripe for passage, making it possible for President Obama to preside over the creation of 10 million acres of new wilderness in his first term, and definitely more than any other President except Carter within two terms. Congressional designations are critical, but alone are not enough to secure a wilderness legacy. Leadership at the Secretarial level to rethink, craft, and implement strong new wilderness policy to guide wildlands inventory, management, planning, and recommendations to Congress is absolutely necessary to create a pipeline of future opportunities for securing even more wilderness. Prioritize passage of new wilderness legislation across the leadership of the administration during the remainder of its first term, supporting both those bills making their way through the 111th Congress and those in the pipeline for the 112th Congress. Remove BLM policies that have prevented the agency from fully inventorying its lands for wilderness character or fully protecting additional wildernessquality land by rescinding BLM policy implementing the 2003 Utah v. Norton settlement and providing for designation of new wilderness study areas. Require consideration of wilderness characteristics in pending and future land-use plans through inventory and protection of wilderness-quality lands, including by designating wilderness study areas and considering management to enhance wilderness characteristics through restoration. Provide additional screening and environmental review before taking any irreversible actions on citizenproposed wilderness by issuing a take care policy. Rescind the 2003 Norton/Watt directive for Alaska, which ceased most wilderness reviews in planning processes in that state, and issue new guidance on Alaska wilderness inventory and consideration in management planning. 3 1 Except under President Carter, who signed the 60.8 million-acre Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) into law at the end of his term.

5 Administratively Designating and Protecting Critical Lands The BLM has had at its fingertips for the past 34 years a potentially very powerful and hugely underused conservation tool. FLPMA calls on the BLM to identify Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) and to manage these areas to protect their critical resources. BLM has half-heartedly designated ACECs and in many cases has never developed management prescriptions to protect these resources. Many of BLM s National Monuments and National Conservation Areas have at their core previously identified areas of critical environmental concern or other administrative designations. Identifying and protecting ACECs protects lands and resources that can form the foundation for future conservation areas and additions to the Conservation Lands. Past BLM leadership has never realized the untapped potential of ACECs, yet all of the authority currently exists to vastly improve conservation on tens of millions of acres of sensitive BLM lands. Unfortunately, BLM has not distinguished between ACECs that have been designated due to fragile or sensitive soils from those designated to protect rare archeological or paleontological resources or unique wildlife habitat. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has designated 25 million acres of BLM lands as critical habitat for listed and sensitive species yet BLM has not used the ACEC designation to comprehensively further the protection and management of these critical environmental resources. Encourage and celebrate creation of new ACECs as a part of the BLM s on-going inventory and planning responsibilities and as new resources are discovered. Consider overlaying ACECs wherever the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has designated critical habitat. Issue an updated BLM policy manual for ACECs to provide direction to categorize various kinds of ACECs, lay out standard management prescriptions, encourage research and science, and otherwise provide guidance to the agency on how to designate and manage ACECs. Prioritize protection of ACECs as required by FLPMA and maintain all existing ACEC designations unless there is a strong showing that other provisions governing management of the area will protect the relevant and important values. Require management prescriptions (including mineral withdrawals) to protect ACEC resources in resource management plans. Draw ACEC boundaries as large as necessary to protect the relevant and important values identified. Fully use designations such as Globally Important Bird Areas, Significant Caves, Research Natural Areas, National Natural Landmarks, community watersheds, and other designations to protect and manage unique resources, especially in light of the long term challenges posed by climate change. Designate Special Recreation Management Areas that both encourage recreation and protect the special resources that are attracting recreationists, such as non-motorized backcountry hunting experiences. Utilize the full suite of administrative designation options for lands that are historically and culturally significant. Develop Wild and Scenic River policies that take climate change impacts to rivers and riparian areas into account, including warmer waters threatening cold water fisheries, depleted stream flows impacting wildlife and recreation, and degraded water quality from increased erosion and major weather events. BLM has wide discretion through its land use planning process to designate special areas and associated management prescriptions. For example, local citizens have proposed a Canyonlands Special Recreation Management Area in the Jarbidge Field Office in Idaho to serve as a backcountry hunting area and provide visitors opportunities to engage in non-motorized recreation experiences including hunting, fishing, hiking, horseback riding, horse packing, and viewing the areas outstanding wildlife and natural scenery. 4

6 Managing and Restoring Lands GROWING BLM S CONSERVATION LANDS Designated for Conservation The BLM has the opportunity both to shine as a land management agency and to shine a light on some of the most extraordinary wild places in America. In 2000, the BLM was given responsibility for managing America s newest system of conservation lands. The American public and other federal agencies are watching to see how BLM responds to the management challenges faced by this new system of conservation lands. However, because these lands have a long history of multiple use and have not been explicitly reserved from the public domain for the single purpose of conservation (although there is a clear priority), the BLM s task is a difficult one. This task is made more difficult by agency culture, limited agency budgets, vested rights, and the political pressures brought by traditional commodity interests. The agency has completed land-use plans for most of the National Monuments and National Conservation Areas designated since However, plans are still in process for approximately one-third of the monuments, and ongoing management issues arise for all of the units. In addition, some of the plans completed during the previous administration are subject to ongoing legal challenges. The administration has the opportunity to launch a new standard of stewardship for the BLM s Conservation Lands by ensuring that the conservation mandates of both Congress and presidential proclamations are given the priority necessary to protect and enhance the special resources within the system. Clear policy guidance is needed to ensure that this new standard of stewardship is built into agency planning and management decisions at all levels. The success or failure of the newest system of conservation lands will be determined during the next decade. Will the BLM step up to the challenge of innovative management to conserve the cultural, biological, scenic, and wild assets within the National Landscape Conservation System; or will these lands be managed just like the rest of the public domain managed by BLM? Will Congress and the American people have faith in BLM to be a steward for these spectacular lands and support the growth of the Conservation Lands, or will the system stagnate or be transferred to other agencies such as the National Park Service? Issue a Secretarial Order outlining a vision for the National Landscape Conservation System that emphasizes the protection of conservation values and what it means for individual units to be a part of a system of Conservation Lands. Support legislation creating an organic act for the system that outlines what kinds of lands should be included and Congress s stewardship expectations for the Conservation Lands. Highlight and institutionalize the virtues of unroaded lands and a minimal road network for Conservation Lands through new travel planning guidance. Require every BLM state office to have a strategic plan for protection and enhancement of Conservation Lands units supported by a science plan to guide research and a consistent reporting mechanism on the health of the Conservation Lands. Ensure all Conservation Lands units have an inventory process for the specific objects and values they were created to protect; these nationally recognized values should be prioritized over other uses. Make the National Conservation Lands more accessible to the public by updating the website including detailed maps and visitor information for each unit and a creation of a National Conservation Lands Passport program. 5

7 Working Across DOI Jurisdictions Well over a dozen National Wildlife Refuges in the West are adjacent to, or in many cases surrounded by, high quality BLM managed wildlands of substantial acreage. The BLM lands can serve as the watersheds feeding the refuges, the habitat corridors that contribute to wildlife migration through refuges, and buffers for adaptation or protection from climate change impacts and from development. U.S. Geological Survey data indicate that by 2100, climate change will drastically alter the biological environment of many of the 520 national wildlife refuges in the US with at least 65% shifting to sharply different biomes than today. A tremendous conservation opportunity exists for the BLM to manage BLM lands adjacent to wildlife refuges in support of the species the refuges are designed to protect. Among the refuges that are worthy of further exploration are the Modoc and Lower Klamath in California; the Hart and Malheur in Oregon; Sheldon, Desert National Wildlife Complex, Ruby Lake, and Stillwater in Nevada; the Fish Springs and Ouray in Utah; the Monte Vista in Colorado; the Pathfinder in Wyoming; and the Charles M. Russell and Black Coulee in Montana. Potentially millions of acres of BLM lands could be managed in service of greater conservation supporting key wildlife species across the West while also contributing to enhanced wildlands protection. In addition, BLM lands are often adjacent to, or even surround, units of the National Park Service in the West. Opportunities exist to further protect park resources, enhance visitor experiences, and protect important resources on BLM lands by looking across agency boundaries. One example is a proposed ACEC for the Zion Scenic Corridor in the St. George Field Office in Utah. The proposed ACEC follows the Virgin River and Highway 9 out of Zion National Park, an area that provides amazing scenic views for visitors to the Park. The ACEC would protect scenic vistas, biological, historical and cultural resources, soils, and watersheds. In conjunction with the Department of the Interior s Landscape Conservation Cooperatives initiative, amend BLM Resource Management Plans to contribute to the management and protection of National Wildlife Refuge resources, especially in light of climate change impacts. Where appropriate, execute interagency easement agreements between the BLM and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for BLM lands adjacent to refuges. Develop joint management and visitor services plans whenever a unit of BLM s National Landscape Conservation System is adjacent to a unit of the National Park Service. Examine BLM lands adjacent to units of the National Park Service for their potential designation as National Conservation Areas and National Monuments where resources similar to those within the park unit exist on BLM lands. Require that all BLM Resource Management Plans specifically account for adjacent park units and resources when developing management prescriptions for adjacent lands, including consideration of ACECs to protect key resources. 6

8 Making Land Tenure Adjustments for Conservation While the boundaries and configuration of public lands that have been reserved for particular purposes such as parks, forests and watersheds, and wildlife refuges have some semblance of order, the 245 million acres of BLM lands do not. They are arranged in a patchwork-quilt pattern of interspersed public, private and state lands that does not lend itself to effective or efficient land and resource management. As we look to manage for habitat connectivity and climate change adaptation, these land tenure patterns become even more onerous, reflecting the 19th century mentality of public lands for private purposes instead of a 21st century ethic of public land conservation. In the 1800 s Congress granted 128 million acres to corporations for the construction of railroads and today, portions of these railroad checkerboard lands cross vast swaths of the West making management of wildlife and habitat a nightmare. Nearly 150 years later many of these lands are still privately held with this legacy most notable in Montana, Wyoming and Nevada but can still be seen in states such as Idaho, Oregon, New Mexico and Arizona. In addition to private in-holdings, hundreds of thousands of acres of isolated state trust lands which are dedicated to generating revenue are surrounded by BLM lands. Even the BLM s Conservation Lands are riddled with in-holdings with over 715,000 acres of in-holdings within the exterior boundaries of national monuments and national conservation areas (61% of these are private and 37% are state lands). Develop a new initiative within the Department of the Interior aimed at reconfiguring the federal estate in order to create large, intact landscapes that can further conservation of wildlands, watersheds and wildlife habitat and corridors. The Department should define what configuration of core lands are needed for wildlands protection, adaptation, and migration and these should serve as a unifying conservation and land tenure objective. Develop a long-term plan for eliminating the railroad checkerboard in ecologically important areas in the West, such as critical sage grouse habitat. Encourage legislative land exchanges between the federal government and key state agencies managing school trust lands resulting in lands critical to protecting wildlands or to ecologic integrity being transferred to the federal government and enabling the states to fulfill their trust responsibilities more effectively. The problematic checkerboard of federal, state and private lands clearly lends itself to a series of well thought out and carefully orchestrated land transactions designed to increase the overall conservation value of the federal estate. In-holdings within conservation lands that pose a threat to the protection and management of conservation values should be added to the public land system as they become available for purchase, easement or exchange. Isolated federally owned lands that do not serve critical ecological or social needs should be sold under FLTFA and private or state lands that are critically important for broader ecosystem and watershed integrity, and/or to create or maintain critical wildlife corridors should be purchased or covered by conservation easements. BLM 7

9 Improved Planning and Eco-Regional Assessments The development of resource management plans for BLM lands is critical to meeting the agency s legal mandates and to ensuring the long-term health and diverse benefits of public lands. Unfortunately, many people claim that the federal land use planning process for public lands is broken. These land use plans cost millions of dollars, routinely take 2-4 years to develop, and are instantaneously out of date as soon as they are finished. Instead of being references showing the distribution of special values and resources of public lands and the strategies for protecting and managing them, resource management plans and amendments to them are cumbersome paper documents that can only reliably be found in the local BLM offices. BLM needs to move its land planning into the 21st century. BLM should gather, from across the agency, an interdisciplinary task force made up of the finest planning, scientific and technology minds to look forward to the next decade and figure out a methodology and technology that would allow the agency to plan in a completely different way. Invite key people from organizations such as Google, ESRI, Microsoft, Apple, National Geographic, Universities, and land use planning consultants and experts to work alongside some of the most creative agency planning staff. The charge for this group would be to suggest ways to move federal resource planning into the 21st century that results in a transparent planning process that efficiently and effectively uses technology to create a living document once approved, incorporates monitoring data, triggers for action based on adaptive management, and on-going land use management actions and decisions. Revamp land use planning process to use state-of-the-art technical, management and social networking technology. Tap IT businesses, non-governmental organizations, universities and consulting firms to work with BLM to design and implement new planning tools. Create an open source web-based planning tool that everyone can access. Build a platform that allows use of Google Earth and other web resources. Set aggressive data standards but allow data from outside the agency to be considered. Encourage natural values (ecosystem services) to be mapped and incorporate the latest scientific information on resource conditions. Design a system to allow nimble, fast, transparent, predictive landscape analysis of various alternatives and of cumulative impacts. Ensure that adaptive management scenarios can be identified and analyzed up front and then tracked on the back end. Build a module that allows a translation from a proposal in the plan to the budget that would be required to carry it out. Ensure system allows for integration of monitoring data and protocols and triggers that initiate specific adaptive management actions. Help the agency track and document actions taken to further planning objectives (i.e. an area is thinned for fire protection or an area is leased for oil and gas or a new trail is constructed) or for changing conditions (an area is burned in a fire or affected by another disturbance) and the impacts of management actions so that the plan is always up to date with current conditions. Allow the agency to easily track promised mitigation measures with actual mitigation and monitoring requirements. Create opportunity for continuous learning and improvement, including by allowing a comparison of cumulative impacts assumed during planning with what monitoring is actually showing. Encourage cross-jurisdictional, cross agency and landscape level planning. 8

10 Improved Planning and Eco-Regional Assessments (cont.) BLM has initiated a process of developing ecological assessments for eco-regions in which it manages significant amounts of land. The priority eco-regions are the Central Basin and Range, Chihuahuan Desert, Colorado Plateau, Mojave Basin and Range, Sonoran Desert, and Yukon. The goal is to identify and protect areas with intact natural resources, ecological functions and ecological services. Ecological assessments are also being done to provide information that can be used in Environmental Impact Statements for energy development, to develop some mitigation strategies, and to support a management strategy for sage grouse. The assessments are designed to be compendiums of information to guide BLM managers in developing planning and management strategies. BLM will gather and review existing assessments and data from partners and others to be included in the assessments. BLM s eco-regional strategy will also include an assessment of the impacts of climate change within the eco-regions. As the agency with the most federal land, the BLM stands to be the leader of landscape-scale conservation management in the face of climate change. Planning and managing for climate change will require land management agencies to take an integrated approach across different ownerships and management regimes and to understand and value lands and biomass for carbon sequestration. This should include more experimentation and active management in some areas and more restricted in other areas to allow for adaptation to shifts in climate. Among the most vulnerable of the resources BLM manages are its water resources including the 117,000 miles of fish-bearing streams, thousands of isolated springs and seeps, and over 3 million acres of lakes and reservoirs. Climate change will impact historic hydrologic cycles, runoff and flow patterns, and the frequency and severity of drought. With only 40% of BLM s riparian areas functioning in proper ecological condition these water resources are at particular peril and the eco-regional assessments should pay particular attention to watersheds. Data gathered as part of the eco-regional assessment should provide BLM information to designate wildlife corridors and critical wildlife habitat that would benefit from protective management prescriptions. With the information gathered in the assessments, Resource Management Plans can be updated to add ACECs designed to protect specific wildlife habitat. For example, a proposed ACEC for the Coyote Basin white-tailed prairie dog complex in the Vernal Field Office in Utah would protect a keystone species for many other species, including listed species such as the black footed ferret and burrowing owl. Black-footed ferrets have been reintroduced to Coyote Basin, and this is one of the few places where the white-tailed prairie dog ecosystem remains relatively intact. In order to make the best use of the investment BLM is making in these ecological assessments, the following recommendations for additional analysis and action should be pursued. Use the data and analysis for the eco-regional assessments, BLM should shift to planning based on risk management including examining and planning for vulnerability, exposure, and uncertainty and setting up management prescriptions that reduce each of these factors to mitigate and adapt to the consequences of climate change. Identify ecologically intact areas and crucial wildlife habitats through the eco-regional assessments and programmatically amend land use plans to include protective administrative designations and management prescriptions designed to respond to the anticipated impacts of climate change. Identify, as a part of each eco-regional assessment, pilot areas in which to conduct historical research on past periods of drought, including records associated with grazing permits, use authorizations, resource conditions, and water resources. Analyze records of past use and resource conditions, along with past agency and community responses to drought conditions to compile a set of standard best practices to be used in response to predicted climate change impacts. 9

11 Kokopelli Trail, Colorado BLM Incorporate within the regional assessments data and models on the economic and social values (both market and non-market) to allow an accurate understanding of trade offs in land use planning and management decisions. Include a complete accounting of the value of the natural resources including direct use, community, scientific, and off-site benefits as well as natural values and ecological services. Accept submissions of citizen wilderness inventories. These inventories are frequently more up to date than BLM s own inventory data and can be instrumental in developing true ecological assessments on a landscape scale. Using inventory data assembled by local citizens familiar with the land is consistent with FLPMA, will save the BLM time and expenses, and will contribute greatly to the information available to BLM managers. Identify through ecoregional assessments critical and at risk watersheds supporting cold water fisheries, springs with endemic or rare species, and important riparian areas and wetlands and analyze and address their vulnerability to impacts from climate change in land use plan amendments. Identify wildlife corridors across planning units and use ACECs to provide management prescriptions to protect species movement and migration. Ensure the eco-regional assessment data provides adequate detail to serve as a basis for the analysis of the management situation for Resource Management Plans including the status and trends of climate change and climate change impacts to resources. 10

12 As stewards of our vast National System of Public Lands the Department of the Interior and the BLM should have a vision of the future for those lands and resources. Americans should expect no less. The threat of climate change, the growth in the US population and the changing nature of the public s relationship to our public lands demand that wise conservation be BLM s fundamental management principle. By looking out fifteen years and anticipating what is needed, the BLM can craft a course today to guide America in meeting that vision. Vermillion Basin, Sam Fox The Wilderness Society s mission is to protect wilderness and inspire Americans to care for our wild places.