For Immediate Release, January 12, 2021

Contacts:
Scott Lake, Center for Biological Diversity, (802) 299-7495, slake@biologicaldiversity.org
Kya Marienfeld, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, (435) 259-5440, kya@suwa.org
Paul Ruprecht, Western Watersheds Project, (208) 421-4637, paul@westernwatersheds.org
Connie Howard, Sierra Club, Toiyabe Chapter, (775) 224-3916, constancehoward58@gmail.com

RENO, Nev.— Conservation groups filed formal notice today of their intent to sue the Trump administration for violations of the Endangered Species Act stemming from two last-minute decisions authorizing widespread clearcutting, herbicide spraying, grazing, plowing and prescribed fire across 223 million acres of Bureau of Land Management public lands in the Great Basin.

The plans will have potentially devastating consequences for the imperiled greater sage grouse and other wildlife that call these vast landscapes home. They also will exclude the public and the scientific community from key land-management decisions across Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho and Utah.

“The Trump administration’s reckless, 11th-hour decision authorizes the Bureau to use highly destructive methods to remove millions of acres of native trees and shrubs,” said Scott Lake, Nevada legal advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The agency hasn’t even considered the consequences of these highly destructive actions on dozens of threatened and endangered species. It’s a clear violation of the Endangered Species Act, and we won’t allow these plans to become reality.”

The administration is using two environmental impact statements to circumvent local environmental analysis and public comment. They authorize the Bureau to remove massive amounts of vegetation anywhere within the 223 million-acre analysis area, which is home to more than 130 threatened and endangered species. Many of these species are endemic to local environments and found nowhere else on Earth.

“These two decisions have incredibly far-reaching implications for future management of fragile native ecosystems throughout the American West,” said Kya Marienfeld, wildlands attorney with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. “Science, transparency and public input are meant to be the backbone of managing Western public lands, but instead, these decisions improperly substitute anecdote for evidence while cutting off all normal channels of public notice, review and future accountability.”

The plans are part of a larger Trump administration program of forest and shrubland destruction underway across the West. Other components include categorical exclusions that sidestep environmental analysis and public accountability for pinyon pine and juniper clearcutting projects up to 10,000 acres and logging projects up to 3,000 acres.

Although the Interior Department admits many of the proposed methods, such as so-called “targeted grazing,” are experimental or unproven, there are no plans for long-term monitoring or maintenance to avoid significant, long-term damage to public lands and native ecosystems. The potential for these projects to spread invasive weeds, like fire-prone cheatgrass, make them particularly problematic.

“Using cows to mow down vegetation to dirt level to reduce fuel won’t work,” said Paul Ruprecht, Oregon-Nevada director for Western Watersheds Project. “Intensive grazing destroys the soil crusts and removes the native bunchgrasses that are nature’s two best defenses against cheatgrass. Targeted grazing will only increase cheatgrass, and ultimately backfire.”

“The Sierra Club believes these Trump administration deforestation programs would effectively destroy the healthy ecosystems of much of the western United States known as the National System of Public Lands,” said Connie Howard, chair of conservation and public lands for the Toiyabe Chapter of the Sierra Club. “The sagebrush biome accounts for a large component of these lands, and the pinyon, juniper and sagebrush plants targeted for removal are home to over 350 wildlife species and play a critical role in sequestering carbon in the face of climate change. We are pleased to join our conservation partners in efforts to stop this assault on our public lands that is not based on science or any long-term thinking as to consequences to endangered and threatened species, ecosystem health or climate change and resiliency.”

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