BLM Moves to Undercut Its Planning Framework and Most Important Conservation Tool

The Bureau of Land Management today announced a proposed rule that would weaken how the agency develops and revises land use plans, as well as how it designates and manages Areas of Critical Environmental Concern. The proposed rule would make it dramatically more difficult for the public to weigh in on land management decisions affecting 245 million acres of public land in the West and would weaken the standards for one of BLM's primary conservation tools, Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, which help protect irreplaceable habitats and imperiled plants and animals.

"Resource management planning is meant to provide the public a real say in how BLM manages our shared public lands, and Areas of Critical Environmental Concern are how the agency turns that input into on-the-ground protections for special places and important wildlife habitat," said Maddy Munson, senior policy and planning specialist at Defenders of Wildlife. "Cutting back public participation and narrowing the agency's analysis isn't streamlining, but rather stacking the deck against the places and species that need protection the most."

BLM land-use planning decides the future management of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands. These plans determine where drilling, mining, roads, recreation, conservation and wildlife protections can occur - choices that can conserve a landscape or commit it to energy or other development for decades. The rule proposed today would weaken conservation tools meant to protect BLM's most important lands and habitats. Instead of weakening these tools, BLM should use this rulemaking process to ensure that Areas of Critical Environmental Concern are protected and their designation is prioritized, not sidelined.

This rulemaking does not stand alone. Taken together with recent drastic rollbacks of wildlife policies and conservation safeguards, these changes, if adopted, will have far-reaching consequences for wildlife, habitat, and the long-term sustainability of America's public lands.

BACKGROUND

In 1976, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act became law, establishing a broad framework for the management of U.S. public lands. Among other things, FLPMA directs BLM to develop land use plans to guide the management of individual units within the National System of Public Lands. BLM subsequently issued regulations specifying requirements for developing, revising or amending RMPs.

FLPMA established Areas of Critical Conservation Concern-a conservation designation unique to public lands designed to protect places with exceptional ecological, cultural and scenic values that are at risk-and directed BLM to prioritize their designation and protection. Despite this clear direction, BLM has consistently neglected to designate qualified places and, in places, is rescinding existing designations to enable resource extraction.

For instance, in the Rock Springs Field Office in Wyoming, BLM is revaluating a plan less than one year old to determine whether existing conservation designations, including ACECs, should be removed to facilitate increased mineral development including oil and gas leasing.

FLPMA directed BLM in 1976 to promptly develop regulations and plans for identifying and protecting ACECs. Despite this obligation, BLM went more than 50 years without issuing comprehensive ACEC regulations, until the 2024 Public Lands Rule finally remedied that gap. However, the Trump administration rescinded the Public Lands Rule just one year later once again leaving BLM without comprehensive ACEC regulations.

Despite its lackluster performance around ACECs, the ACECs that BLM has designated play an outsized role for at-risk species. Current ACECs overlap the ranges of at least 260 threatened and endangered species, as well as numerous BLM sensitive species. Some of these areas are doing an enormous amount of work for a single species. For example, 65% of the threatened Mojave desert tortoise's designated critical habitat sits inside ACECs, the endangered Amargosa vole has 100% of its critical habitat within ACEC boundaries and the endangered Lane Mountain milk-vetch is at 99%. These aren't marginal overlaps. For a meaningful number of species, ACEC designation is doing most, if not all, of the heavy lifting for their survival.

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For nearly 80 years, Defenders of Wildlife has worked to protect and restore America's wildlife at risk of extinction, advancing a vision of a future in which wildlife thrives, sustained by broad public support and a resilient network of healthy lands and waters. With a network of more than 2 million supporters, Defenders is an advocate for innovative solutions to safeguard wildlife for generations to come. To learn more, please visit https://defenders.org/newsroom or follow us on Instagram @defendersofwildlife.

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