Working to protect public lands and wildlife since 1967


Lander Management Plan (Wind River Basin)

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Lander Valley/Wind River Basin

The public lands of the Bureau of Land Management’s Lander Field Office contain some of America’s finest wildlife habitats, intact historic trails, dramatic open spaces, and wildlands. An array of landforms give rise to salt deserts, sagebrush steppe, native grasslands, shrublands, juniper woodlands, as-pen stands, cottonwood and willow riparian corridors, and evergreen forests—nearly every habitat type found in Wyoming can be found in this field office.

The field office boundaries encompass 6.6 million acres, 2.7 million acres of which are public lands and minerals managed by the BLM. These lands include all of Fremont County, and parts of Natrona, Carbon, Sweetwater, and Hot Springs Counties. Rising up from the Lander Front to the west is the rugged and beautiful Wind River Range and the Owl Creek and Bridger Mountains can be seen in the to the northeast. The Sweetwater Watershed, in the southern portion of the field office, contains some of the last, best, intact sections of the Oregon, Mormon, California, and Pony Express National Historic Trails. In the northern most portion of the field office you will find one of our nation’s finest wildlife areas, the Dubois Valley.

In addition to historic, scenic, wildlife, and tourism and recreation, livestock grazing and minerals are also among the many resources managed by the Lander BLM.

The management of such a vast expanse of land and its many and varied resources is an enormous responsibility. An appropriate balance between use and protection of these resources is needed, and would help to ensure that current and future generations continue to benefit from this area.  Such effective management cannot be achieved without careful and collaborative planning. Among other things, this means that meaningful public participation is vital.

The Management Plan

The management of the BLM lands of the Lander Field Office, like all BLM lands, is guided by a document called a Resource Management Plan, or RMP. These plans are typically revised every 15-20 years. They serve as a sort of blue-print for every on-the-ground action and management decision that the BLM will make, until it is time for the plan to be revised again.

Plan Status

The Lander RMP is under revision. This revision process began in February of 2007 and should be completed by late 2011. Currently, the BLM is in the process of finishing its draft plan, which will include it’s proposed preferred plan, a spectrum of plan alternatives, and an analysis of the potential environmental impacts of the preferred and alternative plans. This draft is slated to be released for a 90-day period of public review and comment in the spring of 2011. We encourage your participation.

 

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