Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023 | 4:06 p.m.
The Bureau of Land Management today announced several new conservation projects across the West, including one designed to protect game animals in Nevada.
The BLM will fund six nonprofits that will make improvements on BLM land, including habitat restoration, seed banking, regrowing sagebrush and protecting game animals and fish.
Funding for the project includes $28 million from the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act.
In Nevada, $2.5 million will go to the nonprofit Backcountry Hunters and Anglers to preserve backcountry hunting and fishing territory. They will inventory, modify or remove fences on BLM land as needed in big game migration corridors throughout Nevada, California, Colorado, Oregon, Montana and Wyoming.
John Gale, the group’s vice president of policy and government relations, said the funding will allow the organization to scale up stewardship projects throughout the western United States.
“Through fence removal and modification, habitat restoration, work with private landowners, and inspiring future generations of habitat stewards, we can unite people around common values,” he said. “By working with critical management agency partners like the BLM, we can establish a lasting model to inform all of our conservation endeavors still to come.”
The BLM also will partner with The Nature Conservancy on a $9.9 million project to build natural-looking beaver dams and rock structures throughout Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado, Oregon and Utah to preserve rivers and sagebrush ecosystems.
The second largest allotment, $8.9 million, will go to Trout Unlimited for a watershed and aquatic restoration project that will span the Upper Colorado Basin, California-Great Basin and Columbia Pacific Northwest.
In New Mexico, the bureau will partner with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation on the ongoing Pecos Watershed Conservation Initiative and Southern Plains Grassland Program, providing $1.8 million.
The Mule Deer Foundation will receive $3.5 million to protect existing sagebrush habitats and grow more, which are important for mule deer and sage-grouse winter migration.
The final $1.2 million will go to the Navajo Nation’s Dine Native Plants Program, which spans New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.
“We’re proud to announce these six national partnerships that build on our restoration track record and put people to work restoring public lands,” BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning said in a statement.
