New national policy promotes collaborative habitat connectivity conservation on public lands

The policy—Instructional Memorandum 2023-005 (“memo”) to agency staff—elevates habitat connectivity as a fundamental part of the BLM’s mission. The memo also encourages collaboration with state and tribal agency partners to assess and conserve habitat connectivity. Finally, it provides direction for ensuring habitat connectivity is considered in BLM planning and decision-making processes.

Given the fundamental importance of BLM lands for species movement, this policy could have major implications for habitat connectivity in the U.S. The BLM is the nation’s largest landowner, covering 10% of the country, mostly in the western U.S. Additionally, BLM lands are exceptionally important for connecting large, protected areas, compared to other federal lands. As climate change and development increasingly degrade and fragment our western landscapes, proactively planning to protect existing migration routes and restore connections between seasonal habitats is more important than ever. This commitment by the agency will be vital to the conservation of critical migratory routes for iconic species like pronghorn, which range from Canada to Mexico across the interior western U.S and traverse BLM lands multiple times.

Acknowledging Habitat Connectivity as Part of BLM’s Mission

Perhaps the most significant element of the memo is that it establishes that conserving and restoring habitat connectivity is central to the BLM’s “multiple use and sustained yield” mandate set out in the Federal Land Planning and Management Act of 1973 (FLPMA). The memo states that conserving habitat connectivity is essential for ensuring self-sustaining populations of wildlife species, which are one of the six principal multiple uses of federal public lands under FLPMA. Linking habitat connectivity to the BLM’s overarching mission elevates it as a priority for planning and proactive management.

Identifying Areas of Habitat Connectivity

In order to accomplish the agency’s stated goals, the memo directs BLM state offices to  assess data on habitat connectivity, permeability, and resilience in order to identify “areas of habitat connectivity.” The memo defines these as “habitats on BLM-administered public lands that support or facilitate priority species movements and other ecological processes, such as seed dispersal, migrations, and stopover sites.” The three primary objectives of this inventory process are as follows: develop baseline data to characterize the value of BLM lands in conserving species and their habitat; establish datasets that identify the location and extent of connectivity areas across BLM lands; and determine gaps in data related to priority species and habitat.

Priority species and habitats will be determined by state directors, in consultation with state and tribal wildlife agencies. Leaving these decisions up to state-level officials allows those with localized expertise to lead the decision-making process. State-level offices are well-positioned to collaborate with other state and tribal agencies and are ultimately responsible for implementing land use plans and projects. This means that external partners interested in supporting habitat connectivity should coordinate with state office officials, rather than national or field office staff.

It is also important to note that the memo does not outline the technical process for determining these areas of habitat connectivity on BLM lands. While this lack of prescriptive direction allows state directors the latitude to use tools and datasets that are readily available to them and most relevant to their geographic area, the absence of a standardized process could considerably complicate cross-boundary planning for conserving connectivity at the landscape scale.

Incorporating Habitat Connectivity Considerations into  Planning & Decision-making

Once the initial data assessment phase is complete, the memo directs agency staff to consider the identified habitat connectivity areas in the land use planning process, as Resource Management Plans (RMPs) are updated or revised. More specifically, state directors are instructed to develop planning guidance to restore, maintain, improve, and conserve areas of habitat connectivity.

The memo also provides direction for state offices to consider connectivity in project-level decisions, which are made in accordance with the RMP for a particular BLM unit. For instance, according to the memo, a BLM official could implement this guidance by deciding to remove barriers to species movement (e.g., replacing barbed wire fences), mitigate wildlife-vehicle collisions (e.g., building wildlife crossing structures across roads), and/or acquire additional lands to support habitat connectivity (e.g., using Land and Water Conservation Funds dollars)

The policy also opens the door for officially protecting the identified areas of habitat connectivity under a broader land conservation designation. Shortly after issuing the habitat connectivity memo, the BLM issued IM 2023-013, which encourages BLM state offices to consider habitat connectivity when evaluating whether to designate an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC). Thus, federal, state, tribal, and non-governmental stakeholders could point to areas of habitat connectivity as justification for establishing an ACEC to facilitate fish and wildlife movement and migration, an objective the agency has now explicitly acknowledged is an important element of their mission.

Overall, the memo builds on the growing public concern over habitat fragmentation and ability of species to move for daily and seasonal needs. The Department of the Interior, the Forest Service, the Western Governors’ Association, and multiple states have released similar guidance in recent years aimed at better incorporating habitat connectivity into planning and project level processes. Ultimately, the BLM’s new national policy will improve coordination with state and tribal partners on assessing and conserving habitat connectivity. This will allow the agency to more effectively address the  growing threats of habitat fragmentation and climate change and to conserve the nation‘s natural resources and natural heritage for future generations.

Please note: This digest is intended to provide up-to-date information on policy development from a neutral, unaffiliated position as it relates to connectivity and corridor science and management.

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