This article was originally published in The New York Times.
Each fall and winter, thousands of elk from Yellowstone National Park leave behind the deep snows of the park’s harsh and unforgiving high country and descend to surrounding ranch lands to feed on native grasses. Access to this forage is vital to maintaining the health of these herds. But because this food is often on private land, there is no guarantee that elk will continue to have access to it, or even that the native grasses will remain.
A group of conservationists that I work with proposed a simple idea: What if our nonprofit groups paid landowners to restore critical areas of winter-range habitat so that Yellowstone’s elk herds could thrive?
In 2021, we struck a deal with a rancher to install wildlife-friendly fencing, eradicate invasive cheatgrass and promote the growth of native plants. The habitat lease restored 500 acres of prime elk habitat in Montana’s Paradise Valley and was celebrated by environmentalists and ranchers alike. These leases pay landowners to create, maintain or improve landscapes in ways that benefit wildlife.
Now, under new guidance issued by the Biden administration last month, the Bureau of Land Management, the nation’s largest manager of public lands, with some 245 million acres under its control, is set to begin leasing land to conservation and other groups to carry out similar habitat restoration work. This is a major turn for an agency that was required by law to give priority to extractive industries, leasing lands for grazing, logging, mining and energy development—but not for conservation.
For more than a century, narrowly defined “use it or lose it” rules have required public land leaseholders to graze, log, mine or otherwise develop the land, or risk having their leases canceled. Such rules prevented conservationists from participating in the leasing processes that determine how vast swaths of Western lands are managed. Instead, conservation on public lands has been treated as something to be legislated, designated or regulated, rather than empowered as a legally valid lease.
Such restrictive leasing rules may have made sense long ago to prevent land speculation and encourage Western development. But these policies created significant barriers to conservation efforts. The land management agency’s new approach will provide opportunities on public land to do the type of conservation work we have done on private land in Montana.
Still, vast tracts of federal land remain off-limits to these kinds of public-private conservation partnerships. The United States Forest Service manages nearly 193 million acres, many of which are in need of restoration. The forest service should follow the bureau’s example.
The idea of allowing restoration leasing on public lands has its detractors. Many Republicans and industry groups opposed the plan, concerned that it would hinder resource development. Six Western states and several industry groups have filed lawsuits challenging the rule, arguing that the bureau does not have the authority to lease land for conservation.
And the new policy is not without shortcomings. Many details, such as which lands will be eligible for restoration leasing and at what cost, are left to the discretion of the bureau’s local field offices or agency interpretation. As a result, the rule’s impact could vary across regions and could easily be weakened by future administrations.
The rule also doesn’t modify the “use it or lose it” provisions for current leases, which means conservationists have limited opportunities to negotiate with existing leaseholders to reduce grazing, drilling and other land uses. Instead, restoration leases are confined to areas without active leases or to locations where the land management bureau deems them compatible with leasing activities.
A better, market-based approach would allow competing groups to negotiate with or bid against each other to determine which use has more value to prospective leaseholders — mining, for instance, or restoration. This would streamline the lengthy and contentious battles that often pit extractive industries against conservation interests over certain tracts of land.
Despite these limitations, this new policy is a step forward in the conservation of America’s public lands. Similar approaches have already yielded measurable conservation benefits on private lands and align with actions taken by many Western states. Indeed, states throughout the West allow conservation interests to lease water rights for environmental purposes and allow leasing of state-owned lands for conservation or restoration purposes.
On private lands across the country, conservationists have negotiated with ranchers, farmers and other landowners to set up habitat leases and conservation easements, which limit how the land is used to protect its conservation value. These efforts have involved working with ranchers on stream-restoration projects and compensating landowners for the wildlife and ecological benefits their properties provide.
Conservation is a legitimate use of public lands that people should be empowered to pursue. This monumental, long-overdue step ensures that America’s public lands aren’t just leased to extract their resources, but also to conserve them as well.
