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Northern Great Plains Grasslands: Conservation or Development?
CHADRON, Nebraska, January 3, 2002 (ENS) - The six month public
comment period on preservation of 11 national grasslands and forests across
the Northern Great Plains is coming to an end. By January 22, the Northern
Great Plains Planning Team of the U.S. Forest Service must have public
comments on the Final Environmental Impact Statement that will balance
development and native wildlife on these public lands.
Hiker surveys the Little Missouri National Grassland (Photos courtesy U.S. Forest Service)
The 11 grasslands and forests that will be governed by the new plan are
situated in four states - North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming.
They include the Cedar and Grand River National Grasslands, and the Little
Missouri National Grassland, which at more than a million acres is the
largest national grassland in the country. Also governed by the plan are
the Sheyenne National Grassland, the Thunder Basin National Grassland, the
Buffalo Gap National Grassland, the Fort Pierre National Grassland, the
Oglala National Grassland, the McKelvie National Forest, and the Nebraska
National Forest.
These lands take in some of the most outstanding examples of native prairie
left in public ownership.
Jonathan Proctor, of the Montana based Predator Conservation Alliance, says
the Forest Service's latest Environmental Impact Statement for these lands
issued July 23, 2001, "took a major step backwards from a previously
released draft. This plan significantly reduced the amount of land
recommended for wilderness, opens even more wildlife habitat to oil and gas
development, and failed to recommend any wild and scenic rivers in the
grasslands."
But the Forest Service's Planning Team Leader Bob Sprentall says, "This
final Environmental Impact Statement and the three Revised Management Plans
is the result of several years of work by the U.S. Forest Service and
thousands of people who care about these lands."
"We feel that the Revised Management Plans offer a reasonable mix of uses
that includes livestock grazing, and opportunities for oil, gas, and
mineral production," Sprentall says. "At the same time, they protect soil
and water resources and benefit an array of wildlife, recreation, and
scenic values."
The National Wildlife Federation "strongly supports" this new management
plan because it begins to restore the habitat and wildlife that sportsmen,
and all people who love the outdoors, enjoy," said Catherine Johnson,
director of NWF's Rocky Mountain Natural Resource Center. "The plan will
benefit
local communities that depend on recreation and tourism revenue, safeguard
threatened wildlife species, improve hunting and wildlife watching, and
begin to repair this unique part of America's natural heritage."
But Proctor says that when explorers Lewis and Clark crossed the grasslands
of the Great Plains nearly 200 years ago, "they found a sea of grass
teeming with massive herds of bison, pronghorn antelope and elk, grizzlies,
wolves, foxes and immense prairie dog towns. Today, most of this is gone.
Much of
the prairie has been converted to farmland and oil development, and
the losses continue today."
Although these National Grasslands are supposed to be managed for all
Americans, they have not been treated well, Proctor charges. "Our public
land managers have poisoned much of the wildlife, including most prairie
dog towns, and allowed livestock to graze almost 100 percent of these
lands. Oil
and gas development has marred the prairie vistas and destroyed
essential wildlife habitat. Now is our chance to change this."
But the Forest Service believes it is taking great care to act in the
public interest. In 1995, the service decided to address the legally
mandated requirement to revise forest and grassland management plans that
were over 10 years old using a new ecosystem approach. A single planning
team for the Northern Great Plains ecosystem was brought together and
stationed in Chadron, Nebraska.
The Forest Service says that the purpose of revising the management plans
is "to develop and implement a science based, ecosystem management strategy
for these National Forest System lands." They establish grassland-wide and
forest-wide multiple use goals and objectives.
"The strategy will enable these lands to move from current conditions to
more ecologically sustainable and socially desirable future conditions, if
needed, while leaving options available to future generations," the service
says in its Summary of the Final Environmental Impact Statement.
In its choice of a preferred alternative, the Forest Service rejects the
do-nothing approach and also rejects a plan that would emphasize the
production of commodities such as livestock, minerals, oil, gas and timber.
The service also rejects the multiple-use alternative that would feature
natural processes and restoration of impaired native ecosystems.
The preferred alternative would modify current management direction by
adopting additional special area designations, such as Research Natural
Areas, Special Interest Areas, and Recommended Wilderness Areas. It would
place added emphasis on native plants and animals and recreation
opportunities.
This alternative would facilitate bison grazing on the lands administered
by the Dakota Prairie Grasslands, the Nebraska National Forest, and the
Thunder Basin National Grassland. In this alternative, bison will be
treated as a type of livestock, not as free roaming wildlife herds, and
requests to graze bison would be considered.
The majority of the 110,000 public comments submitted to date support bison
restoration on the national grasslands.
The Predator Conservation Alliance says land managers should keep livestock
away from streams and wetlands. "The Forest Service is proposing more
livestock grazing in North Dakota in this plan than in its earlier draft
plan. Livestock grazing should be reduced further than this plan proposes,"
Proctor says.
The alliance recommends that land managers rest one third of national
grasslands from livestock grazing annually to allow the growth of adequate
amounts of taller grasses necessary for several wildlife species.
The Forest Service says that all proposed alternatives would maintain basic
soil, air, water and land resources, and provide a variety of life through
management of biologically diverse ecosystems, though they may differ in
how they emphasize native plant and animal management.
But the Predator Conservation Alliance charges that areas considered key to
the long term survival of bighorn sheep in North Dakota have been opened to
oil and gas development in this latest plan, even though past oil and gas
development has led to decline and loss of bighorn sheep.
The alliance wants to see prairie dog towns conserved and restored, as the
rodents are an important prey species for many prairie predators. They also
support the reintroduction of endangered black-footed ferrets, particularly
in the nine ferret reintroduction sites on public grasslands in the
northern plains identified by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Some environmentalists say natural prairie ecosystems generally need more
support to restore themselves. In a letter to the planning team in Chadron,
Michael Vandeman, Ph.D. wrote, "The top priority of your management plan
should be the preservation and restoration of the native species, such as
the bison, prairie dog, black-footed ferret, coyote, wolf, amphibians,
bats, birds, fish, and plants. Of course, they can be secure only in a
matrix that contains all, or as many as possible, of the original species.
Even with all of our current knowledge of biology, we still don't know how
to create viable ecosystems. The best that we can do is to try to preserve
them intact."
The National Wildlife Federation, although it supports the new plan, says
it could be even stronger. Johnson says the current plan would be more
effective for people and wildlife if the Forest Service would designate the
Sheyenne National Grassland in North Dakota as a Research Natural Research
Area.
She also recommends wilderness designation for key roadless areas, which
would "help slow the spread of invasive, exotic weeds and keep wildlife
habitat."
The alliance goes even farther saying that the Forest Service should
propose all remaining roadless grassland areas for wilderness designation.
"These 45 areas covering 574,000 acres account for only 20 percent of the
total public land area, and only a tiny fraction of the entire northern
Great Plains region," Proctor argues.
Further, the service should not allow oil and gas development in proposed
wilderness areas, the alliance says, and the agency should deny placement
of fixed structures for all remaining roadless areas, special interest
areas, research natural areas and other important wildlife and recreation
areas.
"Conserving and restoring wildlife and habitat on the 2.4 million acres of
public lands on the National Grasslands on the Northern Great Plains is a
foundation for restoring grasslands across the nation," concluded Johnson
of the National Wildlife Federation. "While there are still some real
opportunities for improvement, this plan is a good start to restoring our
public land which belongs to all Americans."
Public comments are welcome before January 22 by email to: cloop@fs.fed.us, or by postal mail to:
Northern Great Plains Planning Team
U.S. Forest Service
125 N. Main St.
Chadron, NE 69337-2118
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2001. All rights reserved. |
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