BLM releases new plan to conserve Sand Creek Desert in southeast Idaho
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IDAHO FALLS, Idaho - The Bureau of Land Management Upper Snake Field Office has released a plan to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires, improve and protect crucial wildlife habitat, and provide for a working landscape on BLM, State, and private lands located within the Sand Creek Desert area in southeast Idaho.
The decision record and finding of no significant impact for the Sand Creek Desert Vegetation Management Plan Environmental Assessment provide for restoration of up to 15,000 acres of mountain big sagebrush and 5,000 acres of conifers on BLM-managed public lands within the Sand Creek Desert area over ten years to reduce hazardous fuels and enhance vegetation diversity. An additional 15,000 acres of mountain big sagebrush could be restored on State and private lands. The Sand Creek Desert area is characterized as a high elevation, high precipitation sagebrush steppe community. It is a highly productive and resilient landscape with very dense brush cover.
The plan was developed over three years by the Sand Creek Desert Collaborative, which includes the BLM and other Federal, State, and local government entities, conservation non-governmental organizations, and livestock grazing entities. The Sand Creek Desert Collaborative was formed in response to the 2018 Grassy Ridge Fire, which burned approximately 100,000 acres in the Sand Creek Desert and highlighted the need to restart efforts to reduce dense brush cover to ensure a more resilient landscape.
“This plan demonstrates that by working together, people with many different interests and perspectives can agree on a common vision for a large landscape and develop a way to carry it out in a coordinated way across ownership boundaries,” said BLM Upper Snake Field Manager Jeremy Casterson.
The Sand Creek Desert Vegetation Management Plan aligns with the Department of the Interior priorities of tackling the climate crisis and wildland fire preparedness by promoting climate resiliency across landscapes. It is also consistent with the America the Beautiful initiative, a decade-long challenge to pursue a locally led and voluntary, nationwide effort to conserve, connect, and restore the lands, waters, and wildlife upon which we all depend.
“The Sand Creek Desert Vegetation Management Plan is the culmination of months of discussion and collaboration with state and federal agencies, private landowners, and conservation organizations,” said Deputy Conservation Director Kathy Rinaldi of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. “It is working together in collaborations like this that the Biden Administration’s goals for the America the Beautiful initiative can be achieved.”
The first accomplishment of the Sand Creek Desert Collaborative was to plan and implement a system of fuel breaks in the area, which are currently being constructed. The restoration and fuel treatments that the Sand Creek Desert Vegetation Management Plan provides for will complement the fuel breaks.
“The strategic placement of fuels treatments along with the establishment of fuel breaks will aid in fire suppression activities and reduce the occurrence of large-scale wildfires within this important landscape,” said Regional Supervisor Jim White of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. “In turn, this should improve the resilience of the Sand Creek Desert’s sage steppe habitats that sustains not only iconic populations of mule deer, sage-grouse, elk and moose, but important ranching operations as well.”
“Since 2018 and even before, the Office of Species Conservation has been at the table with several stakeholders and BLM on projects such as this vegetation plan and the Sand Creek Fuel Breaks project,” said Administrator Mike Edmondson from the Idaho Governor’s Office of Species Conservation. “The group works to implement the All Hands, All Lands approach that we try to strive towards in Idaho. Wildfire and wildlife do not know boundaries.”
The public can view the vegetation management plan on the BLM Land Use Planning and National Environmental Policy Act Register website at https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/2011452/510.
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The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land located primarily in 12 western states, including Alaska, on behalf of the American people. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. Our mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of America’s public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.