A coalition of groups are criticizing plans for managing about 4 million acres of national forest lands in Idaho and Montana. Conservation groups in the region, as well as the Nez Perce Tribe, have submitted their objections to the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests Land Management Plan from the U.S. Forest Service. .
As Congress prepares to start work on a new Farm Bill this week, hunters and anglers say billions of dollars in investments in private-lands conservation are at stake. The previous Farm Bill expired last year but was given a one-year extension until this Sept. 30. .
As opponents to the Bureau of Land Management s new rules push back, public lands advocates are praising the agency s decision to put conservation on par with other uses, such as oil and gas extraction and development. In Arizona, the BLM manages just over 12 million acres of public land. Daniel Hart, director of clean energy and climate policy with the National Parks Conservation Association, said the state s 22 national parks share boundaries with those public lands and considers them an interconnected landscape. .
The Bureau of Land Management recently released two rules that alter how the agency manages its 245 million acres of public lands, 48 million of which are found in Nevada. The BLM s new Public Lands Rule will put conservation on par with other multiple uses, and the agency s Fluid Mineral Leases and Leasing Process Rule revises outdated fiscal terms for oil and gas leasing operations. Nevada is home to four national parks which bring the state more than $280 million in economic benefit from tourism, according to the National Park Service. .
As critics work to roll back new Bureau of Land Management rules, public lands advocates are defending the agency s move to put conservation uses on equal footing with extraction and development. Matthew Kirby, senior director of energy and landscape conservation for the National Parks Conservation Association, said the new rules can be used to benefit national parks, for example, by reducing pollution from oil and gas drilling on the 3.3 million acres of BLM-managed mineral rights in eastern Colorado. "Thousands of feet higher than where the actual drilling is happening, you can go up to Rocky Mountain National Park," Kirby recounted. " .