Conservation and Landscape Health

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Bureau of Land Management</SUBAGY> <CFR>43 CFR Parts 1600 and 6100</CFR> <DEPDOC>[BLM_HQ_FRN_MO450017935]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1004-AE92</RIN> <SUBJECT>Conservation and Landscape Health</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Land Management, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) promulgates this final rule, pursuant to the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA), as amended, and other relevant authorities, to advance the BLM's multiple use and sustained yield mission by prioritizing the health and resilience of ecosystems across public lands. To support ecosystem health and resilience, the rule provides that the BLM will protect intact landscapes, restore degraded habitat, and make informed management decisions based on science and data. To support these activities, the rule applies land health standards to all BLM-managed public lands and uses, codifies conservation tools to be used within FLPMA's multiple-use framework, and revises existing regulations to better meet FLPMA's requirement that the BLM prioritize designating and protecting areas of critical environmental concern (ACECs). The rule also provides an overarching framework for multiple BLM programs to facilitate ecosystem resilience on public lands. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The final rule is effective on June 10, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Patricia Johnston, Project Manager for the Conservation and Landscape Health Rule, at 541-600-9693, for information relating to the substance of the final rule. Individuals in the United States who are deaf, deafblind, or hard of hearing, or who have a speech disability, may dial 711 (TTY, TDD, or TeleBraille) to access telecommunications relay services. Individuals outside the United States should use the relay services offered within their country to make international calls to the point-of-contact in the United States. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Section-by-Section Discussion of the Final Rule and Revisions From the Proposed Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Response to Public Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Procedural Matters</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> Under FLPMA, the principles of multiple use and sustained yield govern the BLM's stewardship of public lands, unless otherwise provided by law. The BLM's ability to manage for multiple use and sustained yield of public lands depends on the resilience of ecosystems across those lands—that is, the ability of the ecosystems to withstand disturbance. Ecosystems that collapse due to disturbance cannot deliver ecosystem services, such as clean air and water, food and fiber, wildlife habitat, natural carbon storage, and more. Establishing and safeguarding resilient ecosystems has become imperative as the public lands experience adverse impacts from climate change and as the BLM works to ensure public lands and ecosystem services benefit human communities. The Conservation and Landscape Health Rule establishes the policy for the BLM to build and maintain the resilience of ecosystems on public lands in three primary ways: (1) protecting the most intact, functioning landscapes;  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> (2) restoring degraded habitat and ecosystems; and (3) using science and data as the foundation for management decisions across all plans and programs. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  This rule defines “intact landscape” to mean “a relatively unfragmented landscape free of local conditions that could permanently or significantly disrupt, impair, or degrade the landscape's composition, structure, or function. Intact landscapes are large enough to maintain native biological diversity, including viable populations of wide-ranging species. Intact landscapes provide critical ecosystem services and are resilient to disturbance and environmental change and thus may be prioritized for conservation action. For example, an intact landscape would have minimal fragmentation from roads, fences, and dams; low densities of agricultural, urban, and industrial development; and minimal pollution levels.” </FTNT> The rule establishes a definition of “conservation” that encompasses both protection and restoration actions, <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> recognizing that the BLM must protect intact natural landscapes and restore degraded landscapes to achieve ecosystem resilience. To support efforts to protect and restore public lands, the rule clarifies that conservation is a use on par with other uses of the public lands under FLPMA's multiple-use and sustained-yield mandate. Recognizing that public land conservation is incompatible with a “one size fits all” approach, the rule identifies multiple conservation tools to be used where appropriate, including protection of intact landscapes, restoration and mitigation planning, and ACEC designation. Consistent with how the BLM promotes and administers other uses, the rule establishes a durable mechanism—mitigation and restoration leasing—to facilitate both mitigation and restoration on the public lands, while providing opportunities to engage the public in the management of public lands for this purpose. Achieving ecosystem resilience will require, to some extent, the protection of intact landscapes. The goal of the rule is to provide a decision support and prioritization framework for the BLM as it seeks to identify where such protection is appropriate. The rule does not prioritize conservation above other uses; instead, it provides for considering and, where appropriate, implementing or authorizing conservation as one of the many uses managed under FLPMA, consistent with the statute's plain language. <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  In this rule, conservation is a use; protection and restoration are tools to achieve conservation. Protection is not synonymous with preservation; rather, it allows for active management or other uses consistent with multiple use and sustained yield principles. </FTNT> The final rule also clarifies throughout that its provisions should be implemented in a manner that supports land use planning decisions and objectives that emphasize specific uses in specific areas. The Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, for example, identifies Development Focus Areas and conservation areas, as well as conservation and management actions to mitigate the effects of renewable energy development. The 2015 Greater Sage-grouse Plans provide more protections for the most valuable Priority Habitat Management Areas while permitting more activities and related impacts in General Habitat Management Areas. The West-wide Energy Corridors designated by the BLM are identified as areas that are suitable for large transmission lines or pipelines, subject to site-specific analysis of proposed projects and required conditions to avoid or minimize adverse impacts. This preamble and the rule text raise as an example throughout areas that are managed for recreation or degraded lands prioritized for development. The use of this example is not meant to imply that the Bureau permits development only on degraded land. This final rule does not alter the manner in which the BLM makes or implements these types of land use planning decisions and recognizes how managing for ecosystem resilience across a landscape can incorporate conservation and development, as well as other uses. This recognition is reflected in the rule's approach to identifying and managing areas for landscape intactness, prioritizing areas for restoration, and evaluating land health to inform decision-making. The BLM's efforts to protect and restore landscapes and ecosystems and make informed planning, permitting, and program decisions rest on the agency's ability to assess land health conditions and consider those conditions when making decisions. The rule therefore modifies existing BLM practice by applying the fundamentals of land health and related standards and guidelines to all BLM-managed public lands and uses, not just grazing (see § 6103.1(a)). This broad application includes uses, such as oil and gas development and renewable energy generation, that are likely to result in at least local impacts to land health. This rule requires the BLM to take “appropriate action” where a specific land use is a factor in failing to achieve land health, but what constitutes “appropriate action” may be constrained in a given case both by law and the applicable resource management plan (RMP). For example, where lands are available for solar development under the RMP, options for taking “appropriate action” to address land health would not include prohibiting solar development, but may include measures to avoid, minimize, or compensate for impacts from solar development. In general, assessments of land health are intended to inform how uses are managed, rather than if they occur, by providing accurate data on current conditions. In implementing the fundamentals of land health, the rule codifies the need across BLM programs to use high-quality information to prepare land health assessments and evaluations and make determinations about land health condition. The rule reiterates the importance of meaningful consultation during decision-making processes with Tribes and Alaska Native Corporations on issues that affect their interests, as determined by the Tribes. It requires the BLM to respect and incorporate Indigenous Knowledge into management decisions for ecosystem resilience and directs the BLM to seek opportunities for Tribal co-stewardship of intact landscapes and other lands and ecosystems, consistent with agency and departmental ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 308k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━