Taking a seat at the public lands table

In Montezuma County, Colorado, where I live, work, and farm, we have all kinds of people using public land: ranchers, miners, hunters, backpackers and off-road enthusiasts are just a few. It takes a lot of work to make sure everyone is able to use these lands without damaging them. But when our neighbor, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), tries to engage in conversations about land use, our local elected officials are sometimes too busy jockeying with the agency over control of these shared national lands. We need to have a fair seat at the table, and we need to have an honest discussion between all the stakeholders. That doesn’t mean crying foul and pointing fingers at the feds. It means being adults, listening and engaging in conversations as they are happening, not complaining afterwards that you weren’t part of the party.

The BLM’s new rule governing the formation of land use plans, called Planning 2.0, is a big step forward. It will mean more participation from everyone affected at the local level earlier in the process. It will mean more transparency. It will mean that people who use the land, people who care, will find common ground and take the long view when developing plans. It will mean we make practical, scientific decisions about public land – not political ones. That’s why people across the West support Planning 2.0, and it’s why we need Congress to get behind this effort and support the BLM’s new rule.

{mosads}Under 2.0, whenever the BLM begins developing a land use plan, it will involve the public early on. First, people will get a chance to review preliminary planning documents. Then they’ll get a chance to submit their own observations and be assured that their voices are being heard. This ensures that BLM planning doesn’t leave anyone behind.

Here in Southwest Colorado, where so much of the land is public, it’s especially important that all voices are considered when plans for the land are developed. A great example of how this can work is Phil’s World—a top-shelf, widely known and widely appreciated network of mountain bike trails. Phil’s World has evolved through collaboration, and it couldn’t have happened any other way, since the trails cover a mix of BLM, state, and private land. This is a case where the private and public land-owners, businesses, and groups of local citizens have gotten together to create a recreation resource that is a hoot for the people who use the trails and is an increasingly important economic boost for the region. This is collaboration around common ground at its best, and the model can work elsewhere under Planning 2.0.

The BLM is also proposing to make management plans within nature’s boundaries, not century old political borders. It’s simple: the forests, rangelands, rivers, mountains and wildlife got here first. Citizens who love—and live off—the land, and the agencies charged with the stewardship of these lands, need to have the latitude to plan with the whole natural picture in mind, and be held accountable for it.

These improvements to BLM’s planning process mean that Planning 2.0 has generated a lot of support, especially at the local level. The people who are tied most closely to the land – ranchers, farmers like me, and the many others who depend on thriving lands, from Colorado to California – have voiced their support for 2.0. Local governments have also realized the value of the proposed rule, since it will bring together state, local, tribal, and federal voices to make sure we have fair resource management plans across the West.

If a drilling or mining project is going to start upstream of my farm, I want to know what’s going to happen to the water I use to grow my crops. I want to know how my well and my drinking water are going to be impacted. If new conservation measures are going into place on nearby BLM land, I need to know the effects of that, too. And the officials making the management plans need to know what my concerns and needs are, so that they make a plan that works best for me, my neighbors and the broader region in which we raise our families. Planning 2.0 will help make that happen.

Chuck McAfee is a 3rd-generation landowner, community volunteer and retired electrical engineer from Montezuma County in Southwest Colorado.