BLM Planning and Implementation: Successes, Challenges and Opportunities

This presentation discusses/illustrates the USDI Bureau of Land Management (BLM) multiple use issue analysis and resolution at two different scales: the Resource Management Plan (RMP) policy scale and the applied project scale. BLM RMPs will be discussed with specific examples of how RMPs guide future management decisions. Greater sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) will be used as a primary example. Seven RMPs in the Montana/Dakotas had drafts for RMP revisions or Greater sage grouse RMP amendments in 2013. Guidance contained in the RMP establishes sideboards for project alternatives and what may be considered. The Crooked Creek Project in the Lewistown Field Office will be covered to illustrate how projects are planned within the framework of an RMP to achieve specific conditions on the ground and the tools, information, and experience used to develop these actions. Finally, examples of applied efforts to improve wildlife habitat across BLM lands in the Montana/Dakotas will be demonstrated