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The Bureau of Land Management released its draft Sage-grouse Resource Management Plan today in which the agency's “preferred alternative” will restore some restrictions on drilling and other activities across the nearly 67 million acres of the birds’ remaining habitat across ten Western states.
Center for Western Priorities Deputy Director Aaron Weiss praised the BLM's new sage-grouse management plan, saying, “The sage-grouse is not just an iconic bird across the West—it’s a barometer for the health of the entire sagebrush sea. Saving this ecosystem will take hard work by federal, state, and local governments, working alongside private landowners and conservation groups. This plan provides the blueprint for success.”
Some of the restrictions reflect those that were originally proposed by the Obama administration in 2015 to protect the imperiled species. In 2015, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that listing the greater sage-grouse as an endangered species was unnecessary because the Obama administration’s plans were protective enough. However, the BLM never had the opportunity to fully implement the Obama-era strategies because the Trump administration attempted to remove protections for sage-grouse, a move that was rejected by the courts in a legal battle that continued into 2023.
The BLM's new plan announced today aims to provide certainty and stability for land managers, states, and industry, while stopping the long-term decline in sage-grouse populations across the West. “Joint efforts to conserve the greater sage-grouse and its habitat led to the largest collaborative conservation effort in our history, and we are building on that work, together with our partners, to ensure the health of these lands and local economies into the future,” Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning said in a statement.
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As we all know, the most severe consequences of climate change fall disproportionately on communities that are least able to prepare for and recover from them, including Tribal nations.”
