On July 5, 2023 our chapter and and 193 other chapters submitted the following letter to the BLM. Please read not only the letter, but also the list of signatories.

July 5, 2023

Director Tracy Stone-Manning

Bureau of Land Management

1849 C St. NW, Room 5646

, Washington, DC 20240

Attention: 1004–AE92 RE: (Doc # 2023-06310) Support for BLM Public Lands Rule – Conservation and Landscape Health

Dear Director Stone-Manning:

We are a consortium of 194 independent chapters of the National Audubon Society, with members from 41 states across the country. We submit this letter because we are interested in seeing that America's public lands are managed in a balanced way that benefits current and future generations. While scientific understanding has improved and tools to manage the lands have expanded, the challenges to our nation's public lands have increased. Therefore, we applaud the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) Public Lands Rule and the intention to promote conservation and prioritize the health and resilience of ecosystems across those lands. Our nation needs this forward-thinking approach to create a clear process by which to manage our nation's public lands to ensure healthy landscapes, abundant wildlife habitat, clean water and balanced decision-making.

The BLM's impact on our nation cannot be overstated, as it manages one out of every 10 surface acres across the country and 30% of the nation's mineral and soils. With more than 245 million acres of rolling sagebrush hills, deserts, grasslands, forest, and wetlands, the BLM manages some of our nation's most iconic and loved landscapes.

Congress tasked the BLM with a mandate of managing public lands for a variety of uses such as energy development, livestock grazing, timber harvesting, and recreation while ensuring maintenance of natural, cultural, and historic resources. It is the latter obligations that we are collectively interested in, and the important step the BLM has taken to put conservation on equal footing with other uses.

BLM lands bring substantial recreational dollars to nearby communities, provide physical and mental health opportunities for people of all means and backgrounds, hold invaluable evidence of human prehistory, are rich in cultural heritage and sacred sites, provide critical wildlife corridors across the western United States as well as habitat for more than 3,000 species, many of which can be found nowhere else. These public lands, and the diverse animal and plant ecosystems they support, are an essential part of the way of life for many western communities and Tribal nations. They also are an important legacy.

Conservation is a shared American value, perhaps the most fertile political common ground today. Americans love nature and the outdoors, wild landscapes and iconic wildlife, and conservation remains a common bond among us, regardless of where you live. We want our public lands managed sustainably so that we may be able to pass them on in healthy condition to our children, grandchildren and generations to come.

We commend the BLM for taking action to promote conservation and land health, which are consistent with its mission, authorities and responsibility. While the federal agency has largely focused on oil and gas, mining and other extractive uses, we feel that these must be balanced with conservation, recreation, wildlife and watershed health, and cultural resource protection. Thus, together, we voice our support for the BLM's three main components of the proposed Public Lands Rule: (1) protect the most intact, healthiest landscapes, (2) restore landscapes back to health, and (3) ensure wise decision-making, based on science and data.

Our nation's public lands are experiencing extreme weather events such as wildfires, droughts, and severe storms – which are occurring at increasing frequency and intensity. This proposed Rule drives us in the direction of having healthy intact landscapes that are more resilient and able to recover more easily in the face of natural disasters. In keeping with passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, this proposed Rule would allow federal land managers to identify and prioritize lands and waters that require ecosystem restoration work, such as removing invasive species.

Where there are existing intact landscapes, the use of conservation management tools should be encouraged. Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACECs) is an existing administrative tool available to the BLM which has historically been under-utilized and inconsistently applied. The proposed Rule includes the first-ever regulations on ACECs, and we are happy to see that it provides clarification on and expansion of its use. With the adoption of the Rule, ACECs can play a critical role in protecting important natural, cultural, and scenic resources, intact landscapes, habitat connectivity, and ecosystem resilience.

We are also encouraged to see habitat connectivity and wildlife corridors emphasized in the proposed Rule. Such connectivity is essential to allow migrating wildlife – including birds – to adapt to a changing climate, and BLM could strengthen the language to more broadly identify habitat connectivity and migration corridors as a conservation priority in recognition of their important role in supporting ecological resilience.

With 90% of the lands managed by BLM being open to natural resource leasing and development, we are encouraged to see conservation leases discussed in the proposed Rule. We recognize that conservation leases would not disturb existing authorizations, valid existing rights, or state or Tribal land use management. As presented, conservation leases could be used for two purposes: restoration and compensatory mitigation (where impacts cannot be avoided). Therefore, we support conservation 3 leases as a mechanism that can lead to better managed lands by realizing more durable protections and restoration efforts.

In closing, we believe that America's public lands are a national treasure. This rulemaking is an important opportunity for BLM to restore balance to its land management priorities and to encourage an inclusive approach to conservation that includes co-management with Tribal nations and the consideration of land health in all decision-making.

Sincerely,

Admiralty Audubon Society Port Townsend, Washington Aiken Audubon Society Colorado Springs, Colorado Alabama Audubon Birmingham, Alabama Alachua Audubon Society Gainesville, Florida Albert Lea Audubon Society Albert Lea, Minnesota Altacal Audubon Society Chico, California Antelope Valley Audubon Society Lancaster, California Arkansas River Valley Audubon Society Pottsville, Arkansas Arkansas Valley Audubon Society Pueblo, Colorado Audubon Everglades West Palm Beach, Florida Audubon of Southwest Florida Fort Myers, Florida Audubon Society of Central Arkansas Little Rock, Arkansas Audubon Society of Central Maryland Mt. Airy, Maryland Audubon Society of Mahoning Valley Boardman, Ohio Audubon Society of Northern Virginia Reston, Virginia Audubon Society of Omaha Omaha, Nebraska Audubon Society of the Capital Region Albany, New York Bergen County Audubon Society Paramus, New Jersey Bexar Audubon Society San Antonio, Texas Bighorn Audubon Society Sheridan, Wyoming Black Canyon Audubon Society Delta, Colorado Blue Mountain Audubon Society Walla Walla, Washington 4 Blue Ridge Audubon Asheville, North Carolina Boulder County Audubon Society Boulder, Colorado Bridgerland Audubon Society Logan, Utah Bristlecone Audubon Elko, Nevada Bronx River-Sound Shore Audubon Scarsdale, New York Bucks County Audubon Society New Hope, Pennsylvania Buena Vista Audubon Society Oceanside, California Burroughs Audubon Society of Greater Kansas City Blue Springs, Missouri Canton Audubon Society Canton, Ohio Cape Fear Audubon Wilmington, North Carolina Cape Henry Audubon Society Norfolk, Virginia Central Kentucky Audubon Society Lexington, Kentucky Central New Mexico Audubon Society Albuquerque, New Mexico Central Sierra Audubon Society Sonora, California Champaign County Audubon Society Urbana, Illinois Charleston Natural History Society Charleston, South Carolina Chemung Valley Audubon Society Elmira, New York Chesapeake Audubon Society Baltimore, Maryland Cheyenne-High Plains Audubon Society Cheyenne, Wyoming Choctawhatchee Audubon Society Fort Walton Beach, Florida Clearwater Audubon Society Clearwater, Florida Columbus Audubon Columbus, Ohio Cumberland-Harpeth Audubon Society Nashville, Tennessee Delaware Audubon Newark, Delaware Delaware-Otsego Audubon Society Oneonta, New York Denver Audubon Littleton, Colorado Desert Rivers Audubon Society Gilbert, Arizona Eagle Audubon Society Sun City Center, Florida Eastern Long Island Audubon Society East Quogue, New York Eastside Audubon Kirkland, Washington 5 El Paso/Trans-Pecos Audubon Society El Paso, Texas Evansville Audubon Society Evansville, Indiana Evergreen Audubon Evergreen, Colorado Flathead Audubon Society Kalispell, Montana Florida Keys Audubon Society Key West, Florida Forsyth Audubon Winston Salem, North Carolina Fort Collins Audubon Society Fort Collins, Colorado Four Harbors Audubon Society Saint James, New York Francis M. 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