Current work in wildlife, rivers, public lands, and climate

Monday, April 3, 2006
Forest Service Comanche-Cimarron Plan Threatens all U.S. Forests & Grasslands

Remote Colorado and Kansas Grasslands are Test-Case for Dangerous New Policy
Contact: WildEarth Guardians

A proposed management plan for the Cimarron and Comanche National Grasslands promises to make rural southeast Colorado and southwest Kansas the flashpoint of a brewing controversy over public lands. Last year, the Bush Administration issued new regulations governing revision of plans on National Forests and National Grasslands. The Comanche and Cimarron plan is the first test-case for these regulations that threaten to eliminate safeguards for native wildlife and habitat and open public lands to more plundering by private industry.

“The whole country has its eyes on the remote Cimarron and Comanche Grasslands right now,” stated Lauren McCain, Director of WildEarth Guardians’ Deserts and Grasslands Program. “At stake is the fate of a biodiversity hotspot and a chance for a new direction in an economically depressed area.”

The Forest Service released its Draft Cimarron and Comanche Land Management Plan in December. At stake is imperiled Southern Plains prairie wildlife, including the largest concentration of prairie dogs in the region; the largest collection of dinosaur tracks in North America; and the longest stretch of the Historic Santa Fe Trail on public land. In an area with very little federal land, the Comanche and Cimarron National are a vital refuge for biodiversity.

The Grassland planning process also provides an important opportunity. Protecting the natural values and resources of the Comanche and Cimarron is the best hope of restoring resilience to periodic droughts that are growing more frequent and severe due to global warming and climate change. It may also be the best hope for restoring some economic vitality to a region that’s losing population and local businesses. Other communities in the Southern Plains are beginning to see the value in the unique prairie wildlife and having some success in leveraging these assets into tourist dollars. Towns such as Canadian, Texas and Milnesand, New Mexico, for example, are capitalizing on one of the areas rare birds, the lesser prairie-chicken, to attract birdwatchers who will travel for miles to see the birds’ intricate mating ritual. Lesser prairie-chickens breed and live year-round on both the Comanche and Cimarron.

WildEarth Guardians has offered a Sustainable Use Conservation Alternative to the Forest Service Draft Plan. The group plans to challenge the new forest planning regulations by participating in the Comanche/Cimarron planning process.

“Our Alternative provides clear management direction to safeguard the Grasslands’ natural values and help protect area wildlife and key natural areas from continued destruction by livestock grazing, oil and gas drilling, and other threats,” stated Lauren McCain, Director of WildEarth Guardians’ Deserts and Grasslands Program.”

The previous Forest and Grassland planning regulations mandated a rigorous Environmental Impact Statement to evaluate potential environmental impacts of new federal land management plans. This required the Forest Service to consider a range of management alternatives and substantiate conclusions with science. The Cimarron and Comanche draft management plan underwent a less stringent Environmental Assessment. The Forest Service released the Environmental Assessment and a Finding Of No Significant Impact on December 21, 2005. The Forest Service provided no alternative management proposals for public consideration other than the one Draft Plan.

The Forest Service is proposing to exclude all future Forest and Grassland planning throughout the U.S. from any public environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act. Instead, the Forest Service is planning to issue one, blanket Categorical Exclusion to cover all of these federal plans. This is because, according to the new regulations, Forest/Grassland plans will merely provide guidance for projects not make actual management decisions.

“The Forest Service claims new Forest and Grassland Plans will have no environmental significance because they promise nothing, do nothing, and can be changed at any moment,” argued Forrest Fleischman of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, which has endorsed the WildEarth Guardians’ Conservation Alternative. “If that’s true, why waste taxpayer dollars making a plan at all?”

The new planning regulations also exchange goals and standards for unenforceable “desired conditions” and guidelines, no longer require management to maintain viable populations of native wildlife species, and no longer include public participation as a key component of developing Forest/Grassland plans. Additionally, the new policy grants extraordinary power to District Rangers by enabling them to amend plans at their discretion, thus dismantling checks and balances and opening up decision-making to the biases and whims of these lone bureaucrats.

“With only vague, ‘aspirational’ goals and no enforceable standards or guidelines, this isn’t really a Plan so much as it is a pipe-dream,” said McCain of WildEarth Guardians. “If finalized, it will likely turn into a nightmare for area wildlife and plants imperiled by current land uses.”

The Forest Service likely chose the Comanche and Cimarron Grasslands as the test-case for the new planning regulations because they are remotely located and do not have a large, well-organized conservation constituency. The region is best known as the epicenter of the 1930s Dust Bowl, when millions of tons of topsoil blew away in terrifying black dust storms.

The Dust Bowl remains one of country’s worst “natural disasters.” However, the real culprit is plowing up of the native grasses for wheat farms. When drought hit in the early ’30s nothing held the soils in place, the extensive root systems had been destroyed by the plow. The Government bought up some of these failed farms to restore back to grass; these lands became the National Grasslands.

The Southern Plains region and the Comanche and Cimarron Grasslands are still vulnerable to periodic droughts. Cyclical natural droughts have affected the region for eons, but global climate change is increasing drought frequency and severity. The large grassland fires in the Southern Plains this winter are making that fact more apparent. Fire scorched over 8,800 acres of the Cimarron National Grassland in early February. But fire frequency has been significantly altered with decreases in fine fuel loads due to cattle grazing and increases in highly flammable cheatgrass. WildEarth Guardians Conservation Alternative seeks to restore natural fire cycles to safeguard natural ecosystems.

The National Grasslands were the key to bringing the Southern Plains back to life economically and ecologically after the Dust Bowl. The Cimarron and Comanche Grasslands management planning processes can be a catalyst for these lands and their managers to lead the region once again in a more ecologically and economically sustainable direction.

Additional Contact:Forrest FleischmanPolicy AdvocateForest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics541-484-2692forrest@fseee.orghttp://www.fseee.org