Print

Share This

Email

Send to a Friend

Please fill out this form. We will email the link to this page to your friend right away. All fields marked are required.
Your First Name: Your Last Name:   Your Email:   Your Friend's Email: Yes, I would like to receive National Wildlife Federation emails.	Your Personal Message:

Public Lands

The United States Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administer 449 million acres of land and play an essential role in protecting the nation's fish, wildlife and plant species. When healthy, these lands also provide the American public with unparalleled recreation opportunities, a clean water supply, clean air, and resilience to the uncertain effects of climate change.

NWF is working as part of the "Your Lands, Your Wildlife" Coalition to promote the adoption of America's Wildlife Heritage Act by Congress, and asking the Obama administration to support its principles. This legislation would ensure that federal land managers put fish and wildlife on an equal footing with other priority uses on America's multiple-use lands, to the benefit of local economies, hunting, fishing, and viewing opportunities.

NWF's work on the "Your Lands, Your Wildlife" campaign is driven by the need for the Forest Service and the BLM to have both clear, achievable standards for sustaining populations of wildlife, and to have monitoring tools and the cooperation guidelines land managers need to meet those obligations. Specifically the legislation includes:

The America's Wildlife Heritage Act provides a much needed statutory standard for wildlife managers to use during their land-use planning processes. Currently land managers do not have consistent standards to ensure wildlife is adequately represented in BLM and Forest Service planning.

Next, the legislation harnesses cutting edge science to modernize and update wildlife management across BLM and Forest Service lands. The bill provides clear planning and logistically feasible monitoring requirements to ensure the goals for sustaining wildlife populations are being met. Finally, the proposal enhances and facilitates cooperation with the state fish and wildlife agencies, tribes and other federal agencies in the design and implementation of monitoring and evaluation programs.

With global climate change putting new pressures on fish and wildlife populations, our federal lands must provide the habitat and migration corridors that will be necessary for species survival. This bill is needed to help Federal land managers, in tandem with their state and local partners, live up to their obligations to manage fish and wildlife responsibly to give them the best shot at survival.