The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has proposed a new Public Lands Rule that could significantly affect Wilderness and Wilderness Study Areas the agency administers.
Please stand with Wilderness Watch to protect Wilderness by submitting your comments to the BLM by Wednesday, July 5.
The supposed purpose of the rule is to put conservation on par with extractive or destructive uses on the 250 million acres of public lands the BLM administers. However, the real motivation for the rule is unclear since BLM’s organic act—the Federal Land Policy Management Act, passed in 1976—already requires BLM to put conservation on par with these other uses. Of course, BLM’s practice hasn’t put conservation on such footing, but if the existing law isn’t enough to make the agency practice conservation, there’s little reason to believe the new rule will achieve the goal.
There are a few ways by which the new rule could impact Wilderness. First, the rule encourages designating additional Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) on public lands. This is something Wilderness Watch supports. Though Wildernesses should already receive maximum protection, ACECs could draw attention to wild places needing additional protection from recreation impacts or livestock grazing.
Second, the rule would set up a “conservation leasing” system that allows private parties to lease public lands for conservation and restoration purposes. In reality, it doesn’t appear the rule will achieve any such benefit. Since the rule requires that conservation leases must allow all ongoing activities to continue—even if they are destructive uses like livestock grazing—any benefit from restoration that might accrue from the lease would be seriously diminished. Further, leasing public lands for any purpose commodifies those lands—since commercial enterprise is generally banned in Wilderness, leasing Wilderness for any purpose would likely violate the Wilderness Act. Finally, and most concerning, the conservation leases put a heavy emphasis on active intervention, manipulation, and restoration. Such heavy-handed management runs counter to the fundamental tenet of the Wilderness Act to let nature be, so the intended management of the leased lands poses a risk to Wilderness. For all of these reasons, the new rule should exempt Wilderness from the conservation leasing program.
The leasing plan actually seems more geared to benefit extractive resource interests that can buy a “conservation lease” on already degraded lands as mitigation for developing other public lands. Since mitigation is often already required, the only difference with the new rule is that the leases will feed money into BLM’s coffers, actually creating a perverse incentive to encourage development and a demand for more leasing.
The third major part of the rule has the potential to benefit Wilderness. BLM is asking the public to suggest whether separate rules should apply to lands within the National Lands Conservation System of which Wilderness is a part. The short answer is yes, BLM should unequivocally state in the new rule that the overarching mandate for wilderness stewardship is to preserve each area’s untrammeled or wild character. As the author of the Wilderness Act, Howard Zahniser, explained, “We must remember always that the essential quality of the wilderness is its wildness,” and he added “We must also see that we ourselves do not destroy its wilderness character in our own management programs.” BLM should heed Zahniser’s sage advice and include this direction in its new conservation rule since its current policies fail to do so.
Finally, since the proposed rule is supposed to aid conservation of BLM-administered public lands, the agency should use this opportunity to reduce the damage caused by domestic cattle and sheep grazing. BLM should permanently close all vacant allotments—those not currently allocated to any rancher—and it should allow ranchers to take extended “non-use” status on allotments not meeting rangeland health standards without fear of losing those permits to another rancher.
Please speak up by July 5. |
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