The BLM Role
The BLM’s 30 years of experience in sagebrush conservation allowed the agency to take a leadership role in outlining cooperative, landscape-scale action to conserve sagebrush habitats. The National Sage-Grouse Habitat Conservation Strategy (November 2004) translates the BLM's broad knowledge and experience into action at the local and regional levels to manage sage-grouse habitat on public lands. The National Strategy describes management practices designed to support and promote the range-wide conservation of sagebrush habitats for sage-grouse and other sagebrush-dependent wildlife species.
The Strategy uses sound science, draws on the BLM’s on-the-ground successes, and reinforces the importance of cooperating with States and other stakeholders to find not just one but many solutions to the challenge of conserving sagebrush habitats that benefit more than 350 species that depend on these habitats for all or part of their life cycles.
BLM sagebrush conservation takes place in the context of the BLM's multiple use mandate. Activities such as grazing, recreation, mining and energy development are also permitted on public lands, and these may positively or adversely affect the quality of the wildlife habitat also found there. The effects of any activities on the public lands are addressed in the 162 land use plans that guide every management action and approved use of public lands. The National Strategy provides Bureauwide guidance for managing sagebrush habitat in the context of multiple use.
Guidance for Addressing Sagebrush Habitat Conservation in BLM Land Use Plans (81kb PDF) gives BLM managers a framework for consistently and effectively addressing sage-grouse conservation during land-use planning. Guidance for the Management of Sagebrush Plant Communities for Sage-Grouse Conservation (363kb PDF) provides even more specific direction for improving and stabilizing sagebrush lands when implementing a land use plan for a particular BLM resource area.
Following publication of the National Strategy, BLM State Offices in the 11 States developed strategies for conserving sagebrush habitat in their jurisdictions. Land use plans were reviewed and revised as necessary to ensure that BLM-authorized and BLM-permitted activities avoid or mitigate effects on sage-grouse habitat. State-level strategies for BLM lands were coordinated with state wildlife department conservation plans developed for all lands in each state, regardless of ownership status. State-level BLM strategies also set goals for enhancing sagebrush habitat, to ensure that adequate resources and leadership are devoted to sagebrush conservation.
The BLM also actively participates in sage-grouse local working groups (LWGs) and incorporates specific habitat objectives and conservation measures the groups develop into the Bureau's State-level strategies. LWGs are organized and led by people living and working closest to the land, and their strategies and plans provide a platform for the BLM's conservation efforts on public lands.
Healthy Landscapes in a Changing West
In February 2007, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced the Healthy Lands Initiative (HLI), a new approach to meeting emerging challenges in resource management with broad, landscape-scale restoration and conservation work designed to achieve results at an accelerated pace. Many of the lands in HLI emphasis areas are sagebrush or sage-steppe ecosystems. Through investments in habitat conservation and policy improvements, the Initiative is expected to protect 800 species - including the sage-grouse.
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