Victory For Bears Ears

 

We have great news to share! Thanks to our advocacy and legal action, an administrative judge has halted a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) project that would have bulldozed 13 reservoirs to redistribute cattle within Bears Ears National Monument.   This decision is a critical win for the fragile desert ecosystem of Bears Ears. Western Watersheds Project (WWP) challenged the project, arguing that the BLM failed to conduct a thorough environmental analysis before approving actions that could cause irreversible harm. Sage Steppe Wild filed a separate appeal of the same decision. The judge agreed, ruling that the project posed "immediate and irreparable impacts" to the monument’s lands.

Photo by volunteer with Great Old Broads for Wilderness.

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The BLM’s plan aimed to spread livestock across previously ungrazed areas, in an allotment leased by The Nature Conservancy, by bulldozing 13 new water reservoirs and adding miles of additional barbed-wire fencing. But this approach ignores well-documented science: Cattle concentrate around water sources, damaging vegetation, compacting fragile biological soil crusts, and accelerating desertification. Instead of improving land health, the project would have expanded livestock damage into pristine areas—directly contradicting the conservation goals of Bears Ears. The judge’s ruling makes it clear: BLM must do more to demonstrate that allowing livestock into untouched areas will not harm soils, vegetation, wildlife, and the cultural and natural resources Bears Ears was established to protect.   The fight isn’t over. WWP remains committed to holding land managers accountable and ensuring that Bears Ears and other irreplaceable landscapes receive the protection they deserve. As climate change and drought intensify, we must rethink outdated grazing policies that continue to degrade our public lands.   This victory was only possible thanks to the support of dedicated people like you. Please consider making a donation today to help us continue this critical work.   Thank you for standing with us in defense of our public lands.   Erik Molvar Executive Director Western Watersheds Project Photo by WWP taken near a proposed reservoir site. It shows healthy, intact biocrust and abundant grasses which would be within the zone of impact of a new reservoir.

Pt Reyes Returned to Tule Elk

Yesterday, Western Watersheds Project signed a comprehensive settlement intended to usher in a new era at Point Reyes National Seashore and bring an end to a decade of litigation.

Together with Resource Renewal Institute and the Center for Biological Diversity, and tirelessly represented by Advocates for the West, we hammered out an agreement that retires commercial ranching on 16,756 acres of Point Reyes (totaling 4,729 cow-calf pairs). This will enable the population of rare tule elk to roam freely across all of the National Seashore, and it ends the agricultural practices of manure-spreading — as well as the growth and harvesting of silage crops associated with the dairy ranches— for good.

The Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria will continue to have a say in aspects of Seashore

Yesterday, Western Watersheds Project signed a comprehensive settlement intended to usher in a new era at Point Reyes National Seashore and bring an end to a decade of litigation.

Together with Resource Renewal Institute and the Center for Biological Diversity, and tirelessly represented by Advocates for the West, we hammered out an agreement that retires commercial ranching on 16,756 acres of Point Reyes (totaling 4,729 cow-calf pairs). This will enable the population of rare tule elk to roam freely across all of the National Seashore, and it ends the agricultural practices of manure-spreading — as well as the growth and harvesting of silage crops associated with the dairy ranches— for good.

The Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria will continue to have a say in aspects of Seashore management.  Recreational opportunities and public access will improve, and environmental benefits like increased native wildlife populations and better water quality will be realized. 

The buyout and voluntary retirement of 12 of the 14 ranches on the National Seashore was accomplished using private funding. Two commercial ranches will remain on the Seashore, with 282 cow-calf pairs continuing to affect 2,210 acres. On the 16,756 acres where ranchers have agreed to relinquish their grazing leases, targeted non-commercial grazing operations will be allowed, with ecological objectives such as weed control and restoration of native coastal grasslands. Commercial ranching will continue on Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Overall, the settlement creates a path to restoring the native coastal grasslands of the National Seashore. We will work to ensure our goal of reducing livestock impacts on public lands and restoring wildlife and healthy native ecosystems is met by this agreement.

 

It's a big change in priorities for how the National Seashore is managed, and all-in-all, and we’re proud of what we’ve achieved.

Court Rules Against BLM in Colorado Grazing Allotments

An administrative law judge in the Department of the Interior has ruled against the Bureau of Land Management for failing to properly assess the environmental impacts of renewing grazing permits across 24 allotments in the PonchaVilla area of Colorado’s San Luis Valley. These allotments cover a staggering 65,273 acres of public lands, including critical habitat for the Gunnison sage grouse, a bird listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

 

The court found that the Bureau's decision to renew these grazing permits did not take the required “hard look” at how increased grazing could harm the environment. The judge highlighted that in some of the allotments, actual grazing use has been as low as 1% or even 0% of what’s currently permitted and of the future levels under the appealed decision. BLM failed to analyze and explain how these lands could handle more grazing without negative environmental impacts. 

 

With Gunnison sage grouse already facing threats from habitat degradation and cheatgrass invasion, it’s essential that public agencies act responsibly to safeguard the ecosystems that these birds depend on. 

 

BLM Rangeland Health Status (2024)

The Significance of Livestock Grazing on Public Lands

BLM's allotment Land Health Standards (LHS) assessment records (1997 - 2023)

https://mangomap.com/peer/maps/144094/BLM-Rangeland-Health-Status-(2024)---The-Significance-of-Livestock-Grazing-on-Public-Lands?_gl=1*qqw498*_ga*MTY1MDIzMzA2OS4xNzI1NTc3Mjc2*_ga_05P1NCLCQP*MTcyNTY4ODQzMS4yLjEuMTcyNTY4OTA0NC4wLjAuMA..#

Helping Grizzlies

This link is to Western Watershed's Projects webpage about a matching grant of $25,000.00 to honor Grizzly 399.

This link is to the Wikipedia page about Grizzly 399.

Please donate; every dollar helps!

A Message From WWP

 

A message from WWP’s Executive Director, Erik Molvar

Nov 6, 2024

By now, America has woken up to the reality that we are facing a second Trump presidency.

In a Trump administration, anti-environmental extremists and corporate exploiters of federal public lands have their dream situation. While on the campaign trail, Candidate Trump disavowed Project 2025 and pretended not to endorse it, but these are the policies of his first administration, written by the political appointees from his first administration. We expect the coming administration to push aggressively to implement this agenda.

 

We have been here before. We know how to do this.

 

The first Trump presidency made little lasting impact on environmental issues. They slashed Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. His administration delisted wolves nationwide and stripped protections from Yellowstone grizzlies. Sage grouse protections were gutted, millions of acres of public lands were auctioned to the oil industry, and Dwight and Steve Hammond – the poster children of the Bundy insurrection – were awarded the public land grazing permit that had been revoked for violation of federal law.

 

Legal victories by Western Watersheds Project and our allies were essential in reversing each of these setbacks, and more.

 

And during those dark years, wolves reoccupied much of their historic range, and grizzly populations increased.

 

It wasn’t without setbacks. Sage grouse populations have continued their downward spiral, fueled by inadequate habitat protections. Flammable cheatgrass has expanded its invasion of the West, and land health remains dismally poor, both driven by chronic overgrazing by livestock. While WWP and allies scored one legal victory over a massive Trump drilling project in eastern Wyoming, another in western Wyoming overcame our best legal defenses, and now the fate of the Path of the Pronghorn migration is at the mercy of market forces.

 

The Biden administration has been no picnic from an environmental perspective. Despite significant gains on National Monuments, many opportunities to advance conservation have been squandered. The complicated narrative and confused policy priorities have cloaked opportunities for our opponents to advance their priorities.

 

For the next few years, the narrative gets a lot simpler: The sworn enemies of environmental conservation expect to be handed the keys to the agencies that manage public lands and wildlife. The battle between conservationists and our traditional foes will be thrown into stark relief. The darkest hidden agendas of anti-environmentalists will be paraded in public. That makes them easier to defeat.

 

The coming Trump administration is assured a Republican Senate, for its first two years anyway, allowing them to push through ideologically extreme political appointees to head federal agencies. Throughout the long arc of history, ideologues have tended to overreach, offering opportunity for reversals.

 

Despite election outcomes, the overwhelming majority of Americans support healthy lands and abundant wildlife. Vast numbers of us don’t want to see western public lands despoiled by industrial destruction or turned into a livestock-blighted cesspool. 

 

Westerners, the time has come to steel ourselves for the expected onslaught. To embrace the beauty of the West. To love the place we live. And to fight for what we love.

 

At Western Watersheds Project, we’re ready.

 

Are you with us?

 

Erik Molvar

Executive Director

Western Watersheds Project

 

Donate to support their work

Western Watersheds Project

P.O. Box 1770 Hailey, ID

83333 United States

Advocates For the West Update

The Advocates For the West Fall/Winter Case Notes recently came out. Given the challenge of staying-the-fight with major bureaucracies, I find their efforts inspiring. Hopefully, you will too...enough to lend your support.

The link is to the updates on their lawsuits/cases.

https://advocateswest.org/cases/