Getting public land management right

As the chairman of a county commission representing some of the most beautiful country in the Rocky Mountain West, much of it publicly accessible for all Americans, I believe there is good reason to be encouraged by the proposal from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to bring its planning into the 21st century. 

Its new initiative, Planning 2.0, represents the BLM’s first major update of its planning strategy for the management of 245 million acres of national public lands since the early 1980s. As we all know, a lot has changed in the West over the past three decades. Competing demands for resources and challenges with invasive species, wildfires and drought make land-use planning very difficult, and this means that we all need to roll up our sleeves and work together to solve problems. 

One of the biggest shortfalls of the current BLM planning process is the lack of transparency. The public submits comments at the beginning of the process and the agency seems to disappear for a long period of time before coming back and proposing a draft plan. It doesn’t matter who is involved; it is hard for most folks to stay engaged and feel like their input is being taken seriously. The current BLM planning process is generating some of the frustration that people are voicing toward federal lands management.

The bureau is proposing to address this issue through Planning 2.0 by providing earlier and more frequent opportunities for constituents to weigh in on BLM decisions. Under the proposed changes, the agency would seek public comment and ideas at the start of the process and would then release a preliminary set of management options for public feedback before issuing a draft plan. With this system, the public will have more opportunity to help shape the document before anything is locked in. The goal is to address concerns, potential conflicts and other problems upfront.

Another change would enable the BLM to take a landscape-level look at the planning area. As we all know, rivers and elk herds don’t stop and turn around at the local bureau field office boundary. As proposed under Planning 2.0, the BLM would have the flexibility to plan across larger landscapes when it makes sense for the resources under consideration. This proposal is common sense, and it would enable the agency to make more-informed decisions.

All of these changes would be made while maintaining the pivotal role of local cooperators, including county commissioners, who have a unique and important role in the land-use planning process. 

The BLM is currently piloting Planning 2.0 principles as it updates public land management plans in Park County, where I live and work, and we are seeing firsthand some of these proposed changes. The plan undergoing revision for eastern Colorado will determine the future management of millions of acres of public lands over the next 20 years and beyond, affecting outdoorsmen, grazers, loggers, miners and conservationists. 

It is important that we get it right, and from what we’ve seen, the proposal put into practice is beneficial for these lands and our community.

As Planning 2.0 gains support where it is actually being put into effect, you’d think this would be something that everyone could get behind. But some decisionmakers in Washington, D.C., want to make political points off Planning 2.0. After all, it is the silly season. As a Western official with a focus on real solutions, I don’t find this very amusing. All of the hard work and good intentions that are going into our local land-use planning efforts and the management of Park County public lands are being threatened by this political posturing. The BLM is finally onto something good, and we want to see it through to completion. 

Brazell lives in Bailey, Colo., and is the chairman for the Park County, Colo., Board of County Commissioners.