Cimarron and Comanche National Grasslands Management Plan Revisions

In 2005, the Bush administration replaced existing regulations that direct development of National Forest and Grassland management plans. This year, the Comanche and Cimarron National Grasslands will be the very first units to undergo management plan revision under these dangerous new Forest Management Act (NFMA) regulations.

View a photo essay of the Grasslands

Because it has given specific directions for safeguarding endangered species, protecting vulnerable natural habitats, maintaining public access to natural areas and recreational opportunities, and limiting commercial uses such as timber harvesting, livestock grazing, and oil and gas extraction, the Forest Service planning process has historically been incredibly important.

The new Forest Service policy promises to severely weaken environmental protections-another regulatory change motivated by the Bush administration's obsession with opening our public lands to commercial plundering.

The Forest Service likely decided to use the Comanche and Cimarron Grasslands as the first test case for the regulations because they are relatively small and out of way, and lack a strong conservation constituency. The Comanche is tucked away in very rural southeastern Colorado; the Cimarron sits just over the border in southwestern Kansas. These lands host over 1,000 vertebrate and plant species, picturesque canyons and mesas, numerous ancient Native American rock art sites, long stretches of the Santa Fe National Historic Trail, and the largest assemblage of preserved dinosaur tracks in North America. The biggest prairie dog complex in the Southern Prairie exists on the Comanche and is the best site for returning extirpated black-footed ferrets to the region.

Here is just a sampling the changes we oppose:

• Management plans developed under the new regulations are actually not allowed to contain enforceable standards. We wonder, why develop a management plan at all?
• The old regulations mandated a rigorous Environmental Impact Statement in conjunction with planning uses for the land; the new regulations enable the Forest Service to bypass this essential environmental review before approving land uses.
• Maintaining viable populations of native wildlife species is no longer a provision of the planning regulations. Consequently, the Comanche and Cimarron Draft Management Plan says disturbingly little about how species will be protected.
• Specific requirements for incorporating public input used to be a strong part of Forest and Grasslands planning. The new regulations mandate a "collaborative approach" to developing management plans but are not clear about what that means.
• The new regulations give Forest and Grassland supervisors extraordinary power over public lands management by enabling them to amend plans at their discretion, thus dismantling checks and balances and opening up decision-making to the biases and whims of single bureaucrats.

Forest Guardians is participating in the Comanche and Cimarron planning process by speaking at public meetings, submitting comments on the Draft Plan to the Forest Service, and developing a Sustainable Use Conservation Alternative to the Forest Service Plan. The revision process presents a tremendous opportunity for us to shape the new Grasslands management planning process and quash Bush's illegitimate new regulations.

View the Sustainable Use Conservation Alternative

View our comments on the draft grasslands plan

Why is your participation in this process so important? The Forest Service is proposing to exclude all Forest Service planning from environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires the Forest Service to consider alternatives and substantiate conclusions with science, on the basis that their new Forest Plans will have no environmental significance because they promise nothing, do nothing, and can be changed at any moment. But they allowed this one Grasslands Plan revision-the Cimarron and Comanche Plan-to be written under NEPA, with an Environmental Assessment (EA) and Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI). Your comments are essential to show that their Plan will have significant environmental impacts in comparison to Forest Guardians' Sustainable Use Conservation Alternative.

The National Forest Management Act (NFMA)

Forest Management Act (NFMA) regulations governing land and resource management planning on the national forests.

Read the act, a summary, and explanation of the problems related to the regulations

For specific questions about our efforts to protect deserts and grassland, contact Lauren McCain, desert and grasslands coordinator.