Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) require special management attention to protect their important values.  Management prescriptions are developed to protect the quality, uniqueness and significance of an area’s resources.  Because an Area of Critical Environmental Concern may be designated for historic, cultural and scenic values as well as fish and wildlife resources and other natural systems, resource management is designed specifically for the relevant and important values in that particular area.  The ACEC designation contributes to the larger stewardship picture for Utah’s critical public land resources and does not automatically prohibit or restrict other uses in the area.

The Bureau of Land Management’s Richfield field office currently has four designated Areas of Critical Environmental Concern totaling 14,780 acres.  In three of these areas, another special designation—Wilderness Study Area—overlays and protects the unique and important resources, making the ACEC designation redundant.  The 2,200 acre North Caineville Mesa area would remain an ACEC to protect the area’s “relict vegetation,” which is vegetation remaining from the period before European settlement.  South Caineville Mesa, Gilbert Badlands Research Natural Area and Beaver Wash Canyon will no longer have the ACEC designation, but will continue to be protected by other special designations.
The proposed Richfield plan identifies 27 received nominations for new Areas of Critical Environmental Concern totaling more than 1.6 million acres in the Richfield planning area.  Careful review and analysis by a BLM team of experts resulted in the identification of 16 areas as potential ACECs totaling approximately 886,810 acres.  These larger potential ACECs encompassed all of the four existing ACECs.  Under the proposed plan, only the Old Woman Front Research Natural Area totaling 330 acres would be recognized as a new ACEC to protect the area’s relevant and important relict vegetation.  The area is located in eastern Sevier County adjacent to the Fishlake National Forest and the U.S. Forest Service Old Woman Cove Research Natural Area.

Although 15 of the potential ACECs are not proposed for designation, all of the significant resources would continue to be protected under a variety of other designations and existing regulations.  For example, important values located in the 4,800 acre Beaver Wash Canyon potential ACEC would receive protection because 99% of the area is located within the Dirty Devil Wilderness Study Area.  The Wilderness Study Area designation protects the area’s fragile desert riparian ecosystem through land management prescriptions and travel management decisions.

The BLM is committed to protecting the complex mix of important and unique values on the public lands it manages.  Whether or not an area receives an ACEC designation, the BLM makes resource management decisions that ensure these values are protected for the present and long into the future.

Cornell Christensen
Richfield Field Office Manager