BLM Completes Land Acquisition to Protect Ecosystem

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) today announced the completion of a 400-acre land acquisition about 50 miles northeast of San Diego in northern San Diego County.  The acquisition, arranged through The Conservation Fund, will provide a vital wilderness linkage and help offset increasing development pressure in this sensitive ecological area. 

BLM Desert District Manager Teri Raml said the purchase provides important connectivity for habitat and wildlife movement between protected lands in the Cleveland National Forest, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and Wilderness, and the Beauty Mountain Wilderness.  "We were able to take advantage of federal legislation that allows us to use funds from sales of unneeded public lands to purchase lands like these adjacent to specially designated areas," she explained. 

The legislation, the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act (FLTFA), passed by the U.S. Congress in 2000, expired on July 25 of this year.  BLM purchased the $1.2 million Adams/Sky Oaks property just before the FLTFA expired.  The property, adjacent to the Johnson Canyon Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC), will become part of the Johnson Canyon ACEC and will be managed as an unmodified environment in accordance with BLM’s 1994 South Coast Resource Management Plan.

For further information, please contact BLM’s Palm Springs/South Coast Field Office, (760) 833-7100.

California Desert District   22835 Calle San Juan de Los Lagos      Moreno Valley, CA 92553