Vision and Goals

Goals (continued)

Goal 1 - Maintain healthy forest ecosystems with habitat that will support populations of native species and protection of riparian areas and water.

• Manage the BLM lands within the landscape to contribute to conservation needs of special status species and ecosystems on which they depend.

The Endangered Species Act of 1973. The provisions of the Endangered Species Act, as amended, apply to plants and animals that have been listed as endangered or threatened, those proposed for listing, and designated and proposed critical habitat. The purposes of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) applicable to the BLM are:

The Endangered Species Act requires all federal departments and agencies to conserve endangered and threatened species while utilizing their authorities to achieve these purposes.

The Endangered Species Act also requires agencies to:

"...insure that any action...carried out by such agency is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered species and threatened species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of habitat of such species."

The BLM policy is broader than the Endangered Species Act. In addition to federally listed and proposed species, BLM policy addresses special status species that may be affected by BLM activities, for the following reasons:

• It is in the interest of the public and the affected special status species for BLM to undertake conservation actions for such species before listing is warranted, or before designation of critical habitat becomes necessary.
• It is also in the interest of the public and the affected special status species for BLM to undertake conservation actions that improve the status of such species to the point where their special status recognition is no longer warranted.
• Through these actions, the BLM will have greater flexibility in managing the public lands to accomplish native species conservation objectives, while fulfilling other mandates of the Federal Land and Policy Management Act.

The objective of the BLM Special Status Species Policy is to ensure BLM management actions are consistent with conservation needs of special status species and do not contribute to the need to list any Special Status Species under the provisions of the Endangered Species Act (BLM Manual 6840.02B).

Special status species in Oregon include all federal and state listed species, candidates for federal and state listing, and all species designated by the Oregon/Washington State Director as a sensitive or assessment species.