TRCP emphasizes the need to finalize plans, turn to implementation to advance conservation on the ground 

(Washington, D.C.)—The Bureau of Land Management has announced its final greater sage grouse plan amendments that will guide management of 65 million acres of sage grouse habitat across 10 Western states.  

“After more than a decade of collaboration between federal and state agencies, private landowners, industry and NGOs to revise management plans to conserve the greater sage grouse, we thank the BLM for their efforts to finalize these amendments,” said Madeleine West, interim vice president of Western conservation for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “This milestone must be a marker that ends the cycles of planning and moves attention back to on-the-ground management to benefit the sagebrush ecosystem and the Western communities that rely on it.” 

Since 2012, the BLM has engaged in three separate planning efforts to amended management plans to conserve the greater sage grouse and its habitat for the purpose of preventing the need for federal protections under the Endangered Species Act.  The first set of plan amendments were finalized in 2015 in tandem with a determination by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that the greater sage grouse did not warrant ESA protections.  This effort was a result of unprecedented collaboration between state and federal agencies, private landowners, industry and NGOs.  The BLM initiated a new round of planning in 2018 to enhance cooperation and improve alignment with the state plans or management strategies.  Legal deficiencies found in those plans, finalized in 2020, required the BLM to initiate this latest cycle of plan amendments, now for the third time.   

The planning area for the BLM’s plan amendments is nearly 121 million acres of sagebrush ecosystem – the largest terrestrial biome in the Lower 48 at over 165 million acres across the West.  It is home to the iconic greater sage grouse as well as 350 other fish and wildlife species, many of which are game species valued for the hunting and fishing opportunity they allow.  A 2022 U.S. Geological Survey report revealed that half of the original sagebrush ecosystem has been lost at a rate of approximately 1.3 million acres each year over the last two decades.  Numerous fish and wildlife species depend upon this ecosystem, but so do rural economies such as agriculture, hunting and fishing and outdoor recreation, which makes reversing the decline a priority for all Westerners.  

“With these new plans, the BLM has removed some poison pills that existed in the 2015 plans, retained important changes included in the plans finalized in 2020 to respect state authorities, and incorporated updated science to reflect our improved understanding of ecosystem needs over the last decade,” added West.  “TRCP looks forward to working with the BLM, state agencies, and other public land users to implement these plans in a durable, lasting manner that has the greatest positive impact on sage grouse and Western communities.” 

The BLM is accepting protests on the plan until December 16, 2024.  Documents are available on the agency’s eplanning website. 

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