New Mexicans: Ensure Our Public Lands Are Managed Responsibly

September 12, 2018

This is YOUR chance to play a role in how our public lands are managed and ensure that sportsmen and women have a say about the places where we love to hunt and fish

The BLM’s Carlsbad Field Office encompasses over two million acres across southeast New Mexico, including the Guadalupe Mountains, Pecos River, Delaware River, and the Black River. These landscapes provide some of the finest hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation opportunities in the state, as well as important habitat for big game and fish.

Currently, the Bureau of Land Management is revising the plan that will determine the future management of these lands. The Carlsbad Field Office’s Draft Resource Management Plan was released in August with a 90-day public comment period, and sportsmen and women must get involved to ensure that the best habitats are conserved and that these lands are managed responsibly for multiple-use.

Please attend one of eight local public meetings in the next few weeks (see schedule below). These events will offer updates on the planning process, allow the public to share their ideas and opinions on the draft plan, and explain ways for interested citizens to stay involved.

The best way to see that our priorities are included in the plan is to have a presence and provide input at these meetings. Meeting dates, locations, and times, as well as suggested talking points are listed below.

Thank you for taking the time to support our public lands, and I hope to see you at one of the following meetings.

Where and When

Meeting Location	Date	Time	Address
Carlsbad	September 17	12:30 – 3pm; 5:30 – 8pm	Pecos River Village Conference Center, 711 Muscatel Avenue
Artesia	September 18	12:30 – 3pm	Central Valley Electric Cooperative, 1403 N. 13th Street
Roswell	September 18	5:30 – 8pm	Holiday Inn Roswell, 3620 North Main Street
Hope	September 19	5:30 – 8pm	Village of Hope, 408 South 2nd Avenue
Albuquerque	September 20	12:30 – 3pm	Holiday Inn Albuquerque, North I-25, 5050 Jefferson Street NE
Jal	September 25	12:30 – 3pm	Jal Community Center, 109 W. Panther Ave
Hobbs	September 25	5:30 – 8pm	New Mexico Junior College, 5317 N Lovington
Midland, TX	September 27	12:30 – 3pm	Midland County Centennial Library, 2503 Loop 250 Frontage Rd

Suggested Talking Points

Conserve big-game seasonal habitat and migration corridors: Elk, mule deer, and antelope utilize a variety of landscapes throughout the year, and the long-term health of these areas—particularly those contiguous, high-quality wildlife habitats that are not yet developed—should receive special consideration under the plan.
Additional resources for responsible stewardship: Funding for the reclamation and restoration of abandoned and orphaned well sites and energy infrastructure should equal that spent on new development. Additionally, the agency should provide the resources necessary to effectively monitor and enforce existing rules and regulations.
Responsible energy development: Oil and gas development on these lands should be conducted thoughtfully and in balance with other multiple-uses. Wildlife-dependent recreation and the hunting and fishing opportunities in places such as Serpentine Bends, or on the clear waters of the Black River, Delaware River and Pecos River should be safeguarded as this area undergoes further development.

Photo courtesy of BLM New Mexico

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by: Joel Webster

posted in: Habitat and Clean Water

September 7, 2018

Roadless Rule for Alaska Should Follow the Examples Set in Idaho and Colorado

If the forest service and Alaska are going to develop a state-focused roadless rule, they should stick to the standards set by previous efforts

Sometimes the world of public lands policy makes me feel like I’m helping my young daughter with her latest Lego set. She and I might spend hours assembling a boat or car, one piece at time until it’s completed and functional, and then she’ll play with it for a few days before deciding that it’s time to tear it apart and start all over again.

Such a process resembles the current situation of public land management in Alaska, where a carefully crafted conservation plan has been working with success since its establishment seventeen years ago, but the Forest Service must return to the drawing board to create a new plan for managing 14.7 million acres of some of the world’s most productive salmon and Sitka blacktail deer habitat.

And in this case, rather than the few hours it takes to rebuild my daughter’s plastic toys, the decision to scrap this carefully crafted policy will require millions of public dollars and years of committed work by our already overworked management agencies.

That’s right, the U.S. Forest Service recently announced that it has agreed to work with the state of Alaska to develop a state-specific rewrite of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which is designed to conserve undeveloped backcountry public lands that have never been roaded or developed. These areas in the Tongass and Chugach National Forests provide enormous benefits right now for hunters, anglers, and the commercial fishing industry, and the current roadless rule is doing its job of ensuring they continue to do so.

With that said, since it is now clear that a new plan will be rewritten for Alaska, we want to outline how this process must unfold in order for it to succeed. About a decade ago, the states of Idaho and Colorado followed a similar path and developed state-based rules for roadless areas within their borders, and the TRCP played a leading role in seeing that these efforts produced plans that benefitted wildlife, conserved habitat, and safeguarded quality hunting and fishing opportunities.

Below are the lessons learned along the way that the Forest Service and state of Alaska must heed if they hope to develop a workable and supportable Alaska roadless rule.

Must-Dos for Roadless Rule Planning

First, in order to generate broad buy-in and support, an Alaska roadless rule must be, on balance, as strong as or stronger than the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. In order to do this, any new allowances for development in roadless areas must be counterbalanced with increased conservation measures. This was the approach taken in both Colorado and Idaho, where negotiations for provisions allowing new roads, more aggressive timber harvest, and mineral extraction in some areas resulted in additional safeguards for what were deemed the highest value roadless areas. This model enabled solutions-focused stakeholder groups to collaborate over the management of these lands and develop an end product with support from multiple interests. A similar expectation must be established for an Alaska roadless rule to help drive cooperation and compromise, and the rule’s ultimate success.

Second, any changes to the current management of roadless areas must result from a collaborative process that includes pragmatic representatives from a wide array of state and national stakeholder groups. The Forest Service’s memorandum of understanding with the state of Alaska indicates that the state will establish a state-driven collaborative to develop recommendations on the management of these lands. Both the Idaho and Colorado roadless rules succeeded, however, because the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Forest Service, and the states themselves supported the inclusion of stakeholders representing both state and, critically, national interests in the collaborative process. Because of this diverse level of involvement, these management rules were able to pass muster and be supported both locally and nationally.

Finally, the rule-making process should require as much public participation as possible. The success of Idaho and Colorado rules was dependent on strong public participation, and a number of key refinements to these rules were suggested by the public. The USFS should not only embrace and fully consider input from a broad range of voices, but also hold public meetings in the lower 48, in addition to the state of Alaska. Right now, the planned public meeting schedule does not include any meetings outside of Alaska, despite the fact that these lands are owned by all Americans. Ample commenting opportunities for the public to weigh-in officially will ensure that a variety of perspectives and interests will be heard in the planning process.

We’ve been here before, and if policymakers are serious about developing a roadless rule for Alaska that will be supported by stakeholders and provide for balanced management, they would do well to heed the lessons learned in the Idaho and Colorado roadless rule processes. With so much at stake, there’s no excuse to reinvent a proven model.

Photos courtesy: Forest Service Alaska Region, USDA

by: Chris Macaluso

posted in: Habitat and Clean Water

August 30, 2018

A Fishing Paradise Rises from the Remnants of Louisiana’s Barrier Islands

How oil spill fines are helping to restore beaches and marshes that serve as critical defense against storm surge and enhance coastal fisheries

Louisiana’s barrier islands are an integral part of the state’s rich coastal fishing, culture, ecology, and economy. Eighteen barrier islands stretch from the Chandeleur Island chain east of the Mississippi River to Raccoon Island nearly 200 miles away in Terrebonne Parish. This includes Grand Isle, the state’s only inhabited barrier island and one of America’s top recreational fishing destinations.

Along with headland beaches like the Caminada and Pass Chaland Headland—where the marsh extends into but is not surrounded by water—Louisiana’s barrier islands are the first line of defense against winds and waves from the Gulf of Mexico. They provide protection to sensitive wetlands surrounding coastal lakes and bays, as well as the communities perched on what little high ground exists in the Mississippi River’s rapidly shrinking delta.

The islands are incredible places to fish and offer unique nesting and resting spots for hundreds of species of resident and migrating birds. From spring to fall, barrier island surf teems with speckled trout that have been drawn out of the interior wetlands to the Gulf to spawn or chase migrating shrimp and schools of menhaden and mullet.

Late-summer and fall also bring huge schools of breeding-size 12- to 50-pound redfish into the passes and surf zones, where they spawn and fatten up on blue crabs that gather in large masses along barrier island beaches to lay eggs. When Gulf-side surf is roughened by summer’s southerly winds, the marshy backsides of the islands offer protection, and often better fishing, to anglers.

Unfortunately, Louisiana’s barrier islands have been ravaged by the same forces of subsidence, erosion, and sediment starvation that have claimed 2,000 square miles of coastal wetlands in the last century. Restoring the state’s barrier islands is a key part of the overall effort by Louisiana to restore and protect its coast.

The Tale of Whiskey Island

Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority has invested nearly $500 million in rebuilding more than 60 miles of beaches and barrier islands since 2007. They have also overseen construction of hundreds of acres of back-barrier marshes designed to enhance fisheries habitat and help retain the sand that has been pumped ashore by dredges to rebuild beaches and dunes.

Arguably, the most ambitious of these efforts is the recently completed restoration of Whiskey Island in Terrebonne Parish. For more than a year, sand was pumped to the island by a dredge from an ancient, sunken sand deposit 10 miles southwest of the island called Ship Shoal. Gradually built up by the Mississippi River about 7,000 years ago, Ship Shoal has proven to be the ideal source of material for two largescale beach restoration efforts and will be tapped again for at least two more barrier island restorations in the next decade.

The $117-million project to restore 1,000 acres of beaches and dunes at Whiskey Island—and establish another 160 acres of marsh platform behind the dunes to complement a 2009 project on 300 acres of marsh—was funded entirely with fines paid by BP and the other companies responsible for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. Nearly $20 billion in fines will be paid by BP alone over the next 15 years, and much of it will be used to address damage to fish and wildlife habitat.

Anglers are particularly fortunate that Whiskey Island’s beaches and marshes, coated and stained by oil eight years ago, have been renewed. The effort has helped to sustain and even enhance Terrebonne’s rich recreational and commercial fisheries and give coastal birds, like brown pelicans, which were hit hard by the spill, a place to nest and feed for at least two more decades.

Nearly $20 billion in fines will be paid by BP alone over the next 15 years, and much of it will be used to address damage to fish and wildlife habitat.

More Funding Equals More Savings

The project also demonstrates the broader scale of Louisiana’s coastal restoration efforts now that oil spill dollars have become available. Past barrier-island restoration efforts were pieced together over a decade or more. But with oil spill penalties committed by Louisiana and federal resource agencies like NOAA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, larger, more comprehensive projects can be built all at once, which ultimately saves money and makes for a more resilient and productive island.

Here’s why: We used to have to wait for $20 to $50 million in funding to restore 200 to 400 acres of marsh or beach at a time, then agencies would have to come back in five years or so with another chunk of money to build the next section. Now that money is available to complete an $80- to $100-million barrier island restoration all at once, millions aren’t wasted on mobilizing and demobilizing equipment and manpower at the beginning and end of multiple projects.

It’s actually a lot less expensive to build one 1000-acre restoration project than to break that effort into two or three smaller efforts spread out over a decade.

The Long Haul for Habitat

The TRCP and its sportfishing partners have advocated and worked with state and federal officials over the last eight years to make sure restoration efforts, like those on Whiskey Island, are the top priority as the Gulf continues to rebuild areas devastated by the Deepwater Horizon spill.

Good fishing requires good habitat. Projects like the Whiskey Island restoration and other efforts to rebuild beaches, barrier islands and marshes across the Gulf make sure there is high-quality habitat for fish and fishermen for decades to come.

Watch this video to see these project benefits in action.

Top photo by Flickr user Spencereblake

by: Steve Kline

posted in: Habitat and Clean Water

August 22, 2018

The Four Bills Paul Ryan Should Help Pass to Solidify his Standing as the Sportsmen’s Speaker

In the final months of the 115^th Congress, the Speaker of the House may have his legacy on his mind—here’s how he can do right by hunters, anglers, and wildlife

A session of Congress progresses about the same way as a day in a deer stand—both get started with enthusiasm about the opportunities to achieve meaningful things, and flashes of brief activity keep you focused on why you are here and what you are doing.

Both seem to end the same way, too: With a hopeful and expectant feeling that the last minutes might be productive, that all your effort will be worthwhile. And even if the tag is not filled, or the bill is not passed into law, we hope we’ve learned a few things that might help us next time.

The 115^th Congress will see its sunset in the final days of 2018, and this is a particularly unique closing gavel for a Congress, for it will be the end of Representative Paul Ryan’s speakership and congressional career after serving Wisconsin’s 1^st district since 1999.

It might be a long time before another bona fide hunter is in the Speaker’s office. As Ryan prepares to step away, there are four bills he should send to the president’s desk to leave an enduring legacy as the Sportsmen’s Speaker.

The Farm Bill

Versions of this critical legislation have been passed by both the House and the Senate, and while both chambers of Congress are working in conference to reconcile differences, the current law expires at the end of September. Both versions of the Farm Bill include provisions that are important to sportsmen, from funding critical conservation projects on working farms and forests to ensuring a bright future for the Conservation Reserve Program and reauthorizing the Voluntary Public Access program—the only private lands access incentive program in the entire federal government.

This close to the finish line, it would be a shame—not to mention a setback for high-priority wildlife habitat work nationwide—if the next Congress is forced to start all over again.

The Modern Fish Act

Passed out of both the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Natural Resources Committee, the Modern Fish Act is the legislative application of the recreational fishing industry’s vision for improving marine fisheries management. In fact, it reads like a priorities list for TRCP and our marine fishing partners, like the American Sportfishing Association and Coastal Conservation Association.

The bill would improve data collection and take better advantage of some of the groundbreaking work being done to analyze recreational fishing activity through smartphone apps—all in service of creating longer, more predictable fishing seasons.

Perhaps most compellingly, the Modern Fish Act would give federal fisheries managers the flexibility to try new approaches to managing recreational fishing, where the hard poundage quotas that work for commercial fisheries just don’t get the job done.

The HELP for Wildlife Act

Passed out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in the very beginning of this Congress back in 2017, the Help for Wildlife Act is one of the most comprehensive wildlife bills to be assembled by federal lawmakers in recent memory. The legislation would inject new life and fresh funding into such critical programs as the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and the National Fish Habitat Conservation Act.

In short, if passed, this bill would put many of our most effective conservation initiatives on firmer footing moving forward.

The WILD Act

It may be tough to get excited about a Senate vote count, but this legislation passed by unanimous consent—this is the very definition of bipartisanship and a rare thing in Washington in 2018.

The WILD Act has a host of provisions, but among the most important for sportsmen is the bill’s inclusion of a reauthorization for the Partners for Fish and Wildlife program, one of our most effective private lands conservation programs. It emphasizes on-the-ground work to benefit some of the most imperiled species, including sage grouse and lesser prairie chickens. The WILD Act would reauthorize the Partners program, which has been lapsed since 2011, through 2022.

The WILD Act also includes language prioritizing coordination between a variety of stakeholders on addressing invasive species outbreaks and encouraging expedited action before AND after invasive species are discovered. This language could help state and federal agencies get a handle on pythons in the Everglades and Asian carp in watersheds across the country.

Support Is There, But Time Is Running Out

All of the aforementioned bills have bipartisan support, and signing them into law would meet some serious needs of the fish and wildlife conservation community. We hope that in our final months working with a Speaker of the House who deeply understands the importance of quality days afield, this success could be within reach.

If Speaker Ryan can see the wisdom in working to get these bills over the finish line, he will earn the well-deserved applause of America’s hunters and anglers before he gets to spend more time outside himself. And we stand ready to help make sure the last days of the 115^th Congress are productive ones.

by: John Cornell

posted in: Habitat and Clean Water

August 13, 2018

Administration’s First BLM Management Plan Could Hint at What’s to Come

Land-use guidelines for 2 million acres of public lands in New Mexico include some conservation, some room for improvement

The American public now has access to a proposed long-term plan for energy development and recreational use of more than two million acres of BLM lands in southeast New Mexico. When finalized, the new Resource Management Plan (RMP) will guide management decisions for the next twenty years or more on lands within the Carlsbad Field Office.

This is the first draft BLM land-use plan to be released under the Trump administration, and perhaps offers a glimpse of what’s to come in a number of forthcoming forest plans and RMPs. With zero plans finalized in 2017 and many in drastic need of an update to incorporate changing conditions, new challenges, and more recent science, sportsmen and women would do well to give the Carlsbad plan careful consideration. The degree to which their voices are heard on this particular draft could set a precedent for future plans across the West.

“The draft RMP takes into consideration a number of changes that have affected Carlsbad BLM lands since the old land-use plan was created 30 years ago,” says John Cornell, New Mexico field representative for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “As sportsmen, we recognize the need to update the RMP to address management concerns, especially those regarding wildlife habitat.”

Photo courtesy: Deanna Younger/BLM New Mexico

As part of the planning area, the Delaware Basin will soon be part of the third largest oil- and gas-producing region in the world, behind only Russia and Saudi Arabia. Because of the growing importance of this area to the current administration’s energy development plans, public land resources have been strained, and the draft RMP addresses the resulting increase in user conflicts in a way that largely benefits game species.

The RMP currently guiding decision-making was written in 1988.

“While this draft is an improvement on the decades-old plan, we would still like to see an increased emphasis on restoration and reclamation of old well sites, where caliche pads, roads, and utility corridors void of vegetation are desperately in need of re-seeding with weed-free, native grasses,” explained Cornell. “We will continue to work cooperatively with our sportsmen partners, local livestock producers, and BLM officials to ensure that energy development is balanced with the needs of fish, wildlife, and our outdoor traditions.”

The BLM will soon announce a series of public meetings to be held in several communities within and outside the planning area, where the public will have the opportunity to learn more about the draft and submit written comments.

Top photo courtesy of BLM New Mexico