The state of Colorado, along with conservation groups and other government agencies, has recently focused on improving habitat connectivity for animals, fish and plants. The Bureau of Land Management is the latest agency to announce policy aimed at protecting these connections. We think this will not just benefit wildlife, but the people who enjoy these lands as well.

The new policy consists of guidance provided to state BLM offices to assess areas of habitat connectivity and conduct planning, management actions, and conservation and restoration efforts to help keep those areas intact and healthy. The policy doesn’t affect private land, the BLM said it isn’t designating connectivity corridors under its action and it doesn’t intend to do so, according to reporting by The Daily Sentinel’s Dennis Webb.

“This ties into work we are already undertaking with states, Tribes, conservation groups, federal agencies and others to make sure wildlife has room to roam well into the future,” BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning said in a news release. “The BLM looks forward to continuing and expanding these collaborations on behalf of win-wins for wildlife, natural resources, and people.”

We agree this action can be a win for everyone, especially for sportsmen and women who will benefit from healthier big-game populations. This initiative is actually tied to a Trump-era order that focused on protecting, restoring and improving priority big-game winter range and migration corridor habitat.

Beyond our hunters, other recreationalists like anglers will benefit from healthier streams and fish populations. Wildlife viewing may also improve, which is a tourism draw to the state. A healthier ecosystem in general will benefit all users.

Gov. Jared Polis said in the BLM’s release, “Our iconic public lands and wildlife in Colorado are a treasure of the West so I appreciate that the Bureau of Land Management will continue to support biodiversity and resilience on federal lands.”

The policy says that the BLM long has worked on habitat management, but management of connections between and within priority habitat for both migratory and nonmigratory species “has, in some cases, received less attention and, with increasing habitat fragmentation and degradation, maintaining habitat integrity and connectivity has become a significant need.”

We think prioritizing habitat connectivity fits squarely in BLM’s modern mission, which was established in 1976 with the passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. The act changed the BLM mission with a policy of retaining public lands and managing them for “multiple uses and sustained yield through land-use planning.”

We hear a lot about multi-use land management and we strongly support that philosophy. We should be able to share the use of the land between the energy industry, ranchers grazing cattle and recreational uses. This model has been extraordinarily successful.

We’ve heard less about the second prong of the BLM mission – the sustained yield. A sustained yield, to us, means a landscape that can support all these uses in a sustainable way. This initiative is a good step toward supporting the sustained yield aspect of the BLM’s mission.

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel Editorial Board

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