The Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument (GSENM) will be one of WWP’s primary focal points in Utah due to the exceptional resources within the Monument as well as the Monument’s primary goal of restoration and natural processes. The failed attempt to reduce grazing impacts within the Monument through an area-wide EIS is now officially dead. Now WWP will have to deal with dozens of smaller EA’s. We are hoping that, in light of the Monument’s requirements to prioritize ecosystem function, the processes will be science-based, but if they are driven primarily by political considerations instead of the needs of the land, WWP will be ready to provide a vigorous defense through our usual tools of on-the-ground science and litigation.

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Background

WWP’s Utah Office protested these RMPs and has commented on the Grand Staircase Draft Plan with other organizations.   These plans include 12,563,976 acres of BLM land in southern and central Utah in the Kanab, Moab, Monticello, Price, Richfield, Vernal Field Offices and the Grand Staircase.

The plans revealed that a high percentage of the lands are at risk of accelerated erosion, that plant communities are greatly altered from natural conditions and that streams and uplands are degraded.

Livestock graze 90% of these lands and no alternatives for livestock grazing were evaluated in plan development, yet livestock are the principal cause for over a century of land degradation here.

Vegetation Treatments (juniper and sagebrush removal) and Fire Treatments are planned to affect millions of acres for the benefit of livestock

Millions of acres of wilderness quality lands have magically been lost from any accounting since the last plans were approved

Millions of acres of Areas of Critical Environmental Concern were nominated for protection by citizens and organizations.   The net result is that some Plans actually reduced existing ACECs and few acres were newly designated

The majority of the land area is left open to oil, gas and mineral exploration and extraction in spite of only a small percentage of active leases explored or developed

Over 20,000 miles of roads and trails remain open to Dirt Bikes and ATVs, creating habitat fragmentation of over 2 miles per square mile in some plans while wildlife impacts occur at much lower road densities.   Under these plans, the noise of off-road vehicles will permeate the desert’s stillness across these lands with most of the land still open to their use to the detriment of those who would come here for nature’s quiet and solitude.