Commissioners express support for BLM’s revised public lands rules
San Miguel County added several proposed comments and comments to strengthen the federal agency’s proposal
By Sophie Stuber, Planet Contributor
Summer is in full swing, and more users are taking to the trails around Telluride. With Colorado’s public lands becoming more popular year after year, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) introduced a new plan to better center conservation practices in land management. Local conservation and environmental groups hope these measures will help protect natural spaces.
The BLM’s Public Lands Rule should address some of the current challenges in caring for public lands. The proposal creates a framework to protect and maintain wildlife habitats, water sources and landscapes. The measures continue BLM’s multiple use and sustained yield mission, but incorporate conservation into other land use practices.
Locally, San Miguel County Commissioners endorsed the public lands rules in a letter published on June 16. County commissioners Lance Waring, Kris Holstrom and Anne Brown signed the letter.
“The rule is a long overdue way to deliver on the BLM’s mission of protecting multiple uses, including conservation,” the commissioners wrote.
The new public land rules would have managers of BLM lands around the country prioritize conservation. This change will help local environmental and conservation groups better collaborate with land managers.
“It’s great that the BLM is going to bring conservation values up to the level of other values,” Mason Osgood, executive director of Sheep Mountain Alliance, told the Daily Planet.
Sheep Mountain Alliance supports the BLM’s new public land rules, which will help their conservation work in the San Juans.
“This proposed rule acknowledges the critical importance of maintaining ecological integrity on
our landscapes and ensuring resilience against climate change for the many species of wildlife, and for the BLM, this represents a step in the right direction,” Osgood said.
There is also a new proposal in the public lands rules that would allow leasing of land for conservation purposes, with a similar structure to oil and gas leasing.
Although SMC is in favor of the land rules, the board of county commissioners detailed several measures that they considered would be improvements to the BLM’s proposal.
“The updated policies must ensure local land managers have a clear direction, up-to-date data on current land conditions, and the best science to support them in decision-making,” commissioners wrote.
Several of the public comments focused on the BLM’s Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC), specifically for managing grazing and additional designations for Gunnison Sage Grouse.
The Gunnison Sage Grouse’s habitat used to encompass southwest Colorado, northern New Mexico, eastern Utah and northeastern Arizona. Today, they are limited to the core Gunnison Basin population in west-central Colorado and seven disconnected satellite populations.
In the Telluride area, the grouse are located in the West End, Norwood, Dry Creek Basin and Lone Cone. These satellite populations are essential for preserving the species. The health of the sage-grouse population is an indicator of the health of the whole high desert ecosystem.
“Locally, Sheep Mountain Alliance has been working on protecting Gunnison Sage Grouse on BLM land,” Osgood said. “Consideration of ACECs on the basis of ecosystem resilience and habitat connectivity is of utmost importance, particularly in zones such as in the West End of San Miguel County, Colorado where multiple land use is currently threatening the survival of the Gunnison Sage Grouse as a species.”
The county commissioners also noted that grazing regulations on public lands should be revised. Grazing is currently allowed on many public lands, including some wilderness areas, but it can have a significant impact on the ecosystem, particularly commercial livestock grazing.
Grazing compacts and erodes soil and can negatively affect water resources and natural plants and animals. Heavy animals like cows have an outsized impact, according to Josh Osher, public policy director at the Western Watersheds Project.
“We lose a lot of our stream bank and the stream banks holding vegetation. The root systems are really what holds the stream banks together, so when we lose the vegetation, the stream banks start to crumble,” Osher told the Planet.
Domestic sheep grazing can also be detrimental to the native bighorn sheep in Colorado.
“Domestic sheep potentially carry diseases that are fatal to bighorn sheep. So there's an inherent conflict. It can't be resolved by anything except removing domestic sheep,” Osher said.
Revising grazing practices in the BLM’s public land rules is critical for native species, who do not have other habitats.
“There is supposed to be some deference to the native wildlife, which only has these lands. Livestock can be on private lands,” Osher said.
Although the BLM public land rules do include all usage types for these areas, the county commissioners emphasized the importance of conservation across the state, especially with increased land use.
“Public land management is challenging for multiple uses, but conservation for protection must be prioritized,” the commissioners wrote.