CLiF Notes: June Edition

Priority Campaign Update: The Owyhee Canyonlands

Last week, Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley re-introduced the Malheur Community Empowerment for the Owyhee Act, a community-driven, Oregon-crafted solution for protecting the most important and threatened places in the Owyhee Canyonlands.

The Conservation Lands Foundation and our Friends Grassroots Network partners– Friends of the Owyhee and Oregon Natural Desert Association–have been working over the last four years to craft this proposal, which includes wilderness protections for about 1.1 million acres, almost 30,000 acres of in-trust lands for the Burns Paiute Tribe, and sustainable economic investments and opportunities for the poorest county in Oregon. 

Virtually explore and take action to permanently protect the largest expanse of unprotected wildlands in the lower 48 states through our Owyhee Wonders StoryMap.

Photo: Tim Davis

The Friends Grassroots Network in Action

Friends Grassroots Network member Oregon Natural Desert Association won litigation against the Bureau of Land Management over its original resource management plan for the Owyhee Canyonlands and set a new precedent for forcing the agency to consider managing lands for wilderness values. 

The amendment to this plan includes more than 400,000 acres of new lands with wilderness characteristics (administratively managed as wilderness) in the Owyhee region. It also means that while a monument or Congressionally designated Wilderness is important, there are strong administrative protections in place for the time being.

Read more here.

Photo: Vince Ready

Chaco region protected from development

On June 2, the Department of the Interior announced its plan to administratively withdraw over 300,000 acres of public lands and minerals surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park from future oil and gas leasing for a period of 20 years. 

Interior Secretary Haaland made this withdrawal official after holding multiple public meetings and seeking comments from the public throughout 2022, during which time Pueblos of New Mexico and the American Southwest, Conservation Lands Foundation, and people from across the state and country spoke up in support of protecting the Greater Chaco Landscape. 

We applaud President Biden and Secretary Haaland for taking tangible actions to protect this landscape. The announcement comes one month after the entire New Mexico congressional delegation, led by Senator Ben Ray Luján and Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez, reintroduced the Chaco Cultural Heritage Area Protection Act of 2023, a bill to permanently withdraw the federal lands and minerals around Chaco Canyon from expanded oil and gas development.

Read more here.

Photo: Department of the Interior

Annual review highlights a year of momentum and success

Our 2022 annual review is here!

We're incredibly proud of a year marked by the people and partnerships that made public land protections happen.

Thanks to your support, we were able to:

• Grant nearly $2 million to members of our Friends Grassroots Network
• Protect over 9 million acres of public lands from oil and gas development
• Secure a 25 percent increase in funding for the Bureau of Land Management to manage and protect National Conservation Lands in 2023