MARSING, Idaho – This year's Rangeland Fall Forum is coming to the Owyhees.
The event is being held in Marsing on October 10 and the theme for 2019 is "Science, Policy and Perspectives: Collaborating in the Owyhees."
It will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Owyhee Initiative, which brought stakeholders together in a collaborative management approach to face the landscape's challenges, including invasive species, wildfires and water availability.
Lynn Scarlett, vice president for public policy and government relations with The Nature Conservancy, is the keynote speaker and oversaw the initiative's negotiations as Deputy Interior Secretary under President George W. Bush.
"Owyhee County is one of the pioneers, one of the leaders in helping to both generate and then sustain these efforts,” says Scarlett. “And they're essential because I also always like to say to folks, 'You know, we can have our own passions and our own view of the perfect, but in the end no solutions are going to be durable unless they work for all the people in those places.'"
The Owyhee Initiative Implementation Act was introduced by Idaho Senator Mike Crapo in 2009 and codified the agreement between local ranchers, conservationists, outfitters and other interests in the region.
The area faces a lot of pressures – and chief among them is a changing climate. But Scarlett says good, collaborative management can help safeguard the Owyhees.
"The healthier the landscapes are, the healthier the water flows are, the better the existing management is the more resilient that landscape can be to changes,” says Scarlett.
The forum also will include panels on wildfire treatment and local outcomes on the ground from the initiative, and closing remarks by environmental journalist Rocky Barker. On October 11 there will be talks on the range itself outside of the town of Triangle.
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California advocates for hunters and anglers are speaking out in favor of two public lands bills that were just reintroduced in the U.S. Senate. They're designed to maintain public access and conserve big-game migration corridors.
The Public Lands in Public Hands Act would require the Bureau of Land Management to get congressional approval in most cases to sell or transfer parcels to a non-federal entity, such as a state or private owner.
There's been a push in some parts of the West to hand control of large parcels of federal land over to the states, said Madeleine West, vice president for western conservation at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.
"Certain parcels, if you got rid of those, it would block off access to really pristine hunting grounds," she said. "It's those sort of worst-case scenarios that we just want to be able to safeguard against."
Utah has petitioned - unsuccessfully so far - to force the BLM to sell the state more than 18-million acres of federal land, and House Republicans recently passed a rules package that makes it easier to sell off federal lands. States, faced with the enormous cost of managing the lands and fighting wildfire, could then elect to sell them to private interests.
A second bill, the Wildlife Movement Through Partnerships Act, would codify programs to protect wildlife migration corridors. West noted that the programs were created during the first Trump administration and continued during President Joe Biden's time in office.
"These are programs that can have real, long-term benefit," she said, "and so, some certainty that they will exist into the long term, regardless of future political changes, is really valuable."
The programs, which are currently voluntary, provide funding for state wildlife agencies, landowners and nonprofits that do habitat restoration work and map out wildlife migration patterns.
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Minnesotans have until next Tuesday to offer their thoughts on the state's next Climate Action Framework.
Those tasked with protecting a distinct type of wetland hope the public learns more about their fate before speaking up.
Only trailing Alaska, Minnesota has the largest amount of peatlands in the U.S. They are waterlogged areas covered with dead plant materials, such as decaying leaves. Almost like a big kitchen sink on the landscape, they absorb carbon emissions while acting as ecosystems for a number of species.
Meredith Cornett, peatland resilience project planner for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, said drainage ditches for unused farmland have turned into a problem because water from peatlands flows into them.
"We are currently doing a demonstration project to identify the best candidates for locking these ditches," Cornett explained. "Filling them in some cases and trying to restore the natural hydrology."
If successful, they can prevent more peatlands from drying out and releasing stored emissions back into the atmosphere. A recent estimate found nearly 850,000 acres of peatland in Minnesota are partially drained. Cornett noted federal grants have helped with restoration work but she encouraged public comments through the updated Climate Action Framework to create more urgency.
In northeastern Minnesota, the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is making a strong push to protect and restore peatlands.
Nancy Schuldt, water projects coordinator for the Fond du Lac Environmental Program, said beyond the emissions effects, the wetlands have a deep connection to tribal communities.
"It's important habitat for moose, an incredibly culturally significant species, which is in a population decline up in this region," Schuldt noted.
Habitat for other plant and animal species prioritized by Indigenous populations also benefit from having a diverse group of wetlands in place. In recent decades, the Fond du Lac Band has enhanced water management to overcome the drainage effects traced back to colonization.
Schuldt alluded to the broader threats, such as droughts made worse by climate change, while also calling for a greater political will to limit land development near peatlands.
Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
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The U.S. Supreme Court has opted not to hear a lawsuit brought by the State of Utah, which alleged the federal government's ownership of large parts of the state is unconstitutional.
The decision marks a win for conservation advocates.
Olivia Juarez, public land program director for the nonprofit GreenLatinos, said Utahns now will not have their tax dollars used to fund what they call the state's "ill-founded lawsuit and disinformation campaign." Utah had made the effort to seize public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management.
Juarez acknowledged with a Republican-dominated Congress, similar efforts may return.
"We are better set up to fight against some of the biggest challenges that the Trump administration is going to pose to the American public," Juarez contended. "Two of them namely being the climate and biodiversity crisis and also a cultural crisis about belonging."
Juarez pointed out public lands represent the origins of American and pre-American history. The case marks the latest setback for states looking to gain control of public lands, some of which hold valuable oil and gas, timber and other resources. Utah state leaders have said they have not ruled out taking their suit to a lower court.
The nomination hearing for Donald Trump's pick for Interior Secretary, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, is scheduled for this Thursday. The new administration will inherit a number of challenges, including disputes over conservation leases on Bureau of Land Management lands.
Juarez argued the multiple-use doctrine for public lands should be upheld.
"That rule will be under attack by the incoming Congress and presidential administration," Juarez noted. "It'll be important to reaffirm to the next secretary that conservation is a use that is valuable, economically as well as culturally."
Juarez added last weekend, public lands and conservation advocates rallied in Salt Lake City to show their support for protecting public lands across the Beehive State like the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments.
"Our goal was to bring people together at a time that it feels good," Juarez stressed. "It's a really hopeful moment for the nation's will to treat public lands as a solution to climate disaster, rather than making them part of the problem."
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