Why We’re Suing the Bureau of Land Management to Stop Deforestation and Burning Across 905,000 Acres of Southwest Montana

If a person illegally burns something, it is called arson. But when the federal government decides to deforest and burn unspecified areas within a 905,000-acre area to create more grass for cattle, it’s called a “vegetation management project.”

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) authorized one of these so-called “vegetation management projects” for its 905,000-acre field office in southwest Montana without identifying the specific locations, timing, or total or maximum acreage of burning, cutting, herbicide spraying, and intensive livestock grazing. BLM intends to determine these basic details after the public is allowed to weigh in.

The project area stretches across the Pioneer, Tobacco Root, and Centennial Mountains as well as Gravelly Range — all of which feed the blue-ribbon Beaverhead, Big Hole, and Madison Rivers. In addition to threatening these world-class trout streams, this area also contains some of the best habitat for sage grouse in Montana and the Northern Rockies.

This “vegetation management” project authorizes the agency to burn and deforest up to 10,000 acres per year and spray up to 1,000 acres annually with herbicides – but doesn’t say where or over how many years. Likewise, the project also allows intensive grazing for an unspecified number of years in undetermined locations.

Without this basic information, the public has no way to tell if the agency is complying with its own environmental rules and federal law, let alone analyze the impacts on fish, wildlife, and public lands. That’s exactly why the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Native Ecosystems Council, Council on Wildlife and Fish, and Western Watersheds Project are taking the BLM to court over this ill-conceived and illegal project.

Pinyon Jays

Pinyon jay populations have plummeted by over 85 percent in the last 50 years — mainly due to habitat loss caused by massive Forest Service and BLM deforestation projects like this one. This project will exacerbate that decline by destroying the juniper trees that pinyon jays rely on to survive. Yet the agency failed to even acknowledge the presence of pinyon jay in the project area, let alone analyze the impacts on the bird, despite its own scientific evidence that the project will impact pinyon jays.

Cumulative Effects

The BLM also failed to take a “hard look” at the cumulative effects of the project combined with similar projects on adjacent lands. Those projects include the Forest Service’s Selway-Saginaw logging and burning project — which we are also challenging in federal court.

Cattle Grazing

Although the agency acknowledged the well-documented harm grazing causes to rangeland health and wildlife, it failed to include a reduction in cattle grazing as an alternative option for the project.

Instead, the agency decided such an alternative was not appropriate because the project didn’t involve the installation of new water infrastructure for livestock. Yet, later in its sorely deficient environmental analysis, the agency admits that new water troughs will be used for the project’s intensive targeted grazing.

Livestock grazing and infrastructure are some of the most significant threats to sage grouse and sagebrush habitats. But this project merely continues the destruction of sage grouse and songbird habitat on vast landscapes of public lands.

Of course, the federal government should follow the laws that protect the environment, public lands, and fish and wildlife. Fortunately, those laws include citizen enforcement provisions. Since our commitment is to protect and restore the ecosystems of the Northern Rockies and the species that rely on them, we’re taking the Bureau of Land Management to court to ensure it follows the law and protects, not destroys, public lands and wildlife.

Please consider helping us protect this habitat and also help Counterpunch keep readers informed about what our government is doing.

The post Why We’re Suing the Bureau of Land Management to Stop Deforestation and Burning Across 905,000 Acres of Southwest Montana appeared first on CounterPunch.org.