Red Lodge Clearinghouse

The Bureau of Land Management is rewriting a key policy manual for management of "special status" species -- those listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act, candidate species and plants and wildlife designated by the agency or state directors as "sensitive." An environmental group obtained and released the draft revisions yesterday.

The proposal would scale back some of the safeguards BLM currently gives to species that are lower down on the protection hierarchy: those on state conservation lists and those that are candidates for endangered species listing. The Fish and Wildlife Service's "candidate" species list includes more than 280 plants and animals whose protection is warranted but precluded.

"These changes are a cynical attempt to undermine conservation on our public lands," said Lisa Belenky, staff attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, which released the draft policy manual.

The Bureau of Land Management oversees more than 40 percent of all land managed by the federal government. It manages 258 million surface acres of land and mineral rights for 700 million acres, mostly in the western United States.

The policy manual does not change the regulations or laws that protect imperiled wildlife, but instructs the agency on how to implement them. It lays out responsibilities among national, state, district and field offices. The draft policy changes are dated in April, but some state BLM officials have said they did not know about the proposed changes.

BLM spokesman Matt Spangler said the policy directives would not abandon conservation principles or harm listed species. The agency is attempting to focus its conservation efforts where they can do the most good and take an ecosystem approach by focusing on larger landscapes.

"Individual state boundaries are a human concept and have little meaning to wildlife," Spangler said. "As a result, a species status within an individual state is not necessarily indicative of the species status across its range."

The changes to the manual come in response to a number of policy revisions and court decisions that have been issued since the last update in 2001, according to BLM. The agency started the revision in 2006 and has just finished a review process with state and field offices and the Interior Department solicitor's office. Spangler said they hope to complete the rewrite by the end of this month.

The updated manual would eliminate current requirements for BLM to give special protection to species that states have identified as threatened or endangered. BLM currently manages state-protected plants and animals as "sensitive species" with special conservation goals intended to minimize further threats.

The proposed changes could have a major effect in California, which has its own robust state-level species protection law. For example, the Mojave ground squirrel is protected under California law but not federal law. BLM manages 15.2 million acres in California, nearly 15 percent of the state's land area.

When assessing other activities on BLM land, the manual reduces the FWS consultation requirements for candidate species. It also instructs managers to consider effects on endangered and threatened plants at the "population level," rather than on each listed plant.

BLM manages for multiple use, including energy, timber, forage, recreation, wildlife habitat and wilderness. Environmentalists are concerned that if the proposed policy revisions go forward, BLM managers could favor grazing or recreational vehicle use over protection of some plants and animals.

Environmentalists say eliminating the extra protection for candidate species or state-level protection species could push them over the brink.

"How is the BLM going to fulfill its responsibility to not push already endangered species further toward extinction?" asked Josh Pollock of the Center for Native Ecosystems. "BLM needs to focus on recovering these species rather than trying to get around its current obligations to conserve them."

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