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The Interior Department is moving quickly to reverse the damage of the Trump years and restore necessary protections for the imperiled greater sage-grouse. On Monday, the Bureau of Land Management agreed in a court filing to restart the land use planning process in order to ensure the grouse is properly protected, laying the groundwork to revoke plans implemented by the Trump administration. The process will likely include new environmental reviews and reinstating the use of compensatory mitigation to offset the effects of oil and gas drilling in grouse habitat. "The Department will work closely with the states, local governments, Indian Tribes, and many stakeholders who have worked in a collaborative and bipartisan fashion for more than a decade toward sustainable and balanced land management of sagebrush habitat for the greater sage-grouse and the hundreds of other species that rely on it," the BLM announced it their statement yesterday.
The bird shares the sagebrush ecosystem with 350 other species of wildlife, including mule deer and pronghorn antelope, and is considered an indicator species for the health of the overall ecosystem. Sage-grouse populations have declined steeply in recent decades, with an 80% rangewide decline since 1965 and a nearly 40% decline since 2002. Center for Western Priorities Policy Director Jesse Prentice-Dunn stated, "It’s a race against time to ensure the sage-grouse is protected from the dual threats of unchecked development and the impacts of climate change... This vital step will give the sage-grouse the chance to beat the clock when it comes to protecting enough of its habitat to ensure its survival. After four years of the Trump administration doing everything in its power to drill and mine our public lands, it’s refreshing to see an administration prioritize science over profits."
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Moments like the defacing of petroglyphs in southern Utah can provide the necessary fodder to make much-needed changes as a society to how we respect Indigenous peoples and their histories. The momentum for this change should come from the outdoor community supporting Native communities to ensure that they can both access and protect our ancestral homelands. This means fully enforcing existing federal laws protecting these resources on public lands and empowering tribes and other Native-led organizations, like the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, to be the managers of our own homelands. The first step toward rectifying this history is collectively unlearning the history we have been taught.”
