USFWS
Mitigation Policy Withdrawal
Effective July 30, 2018, USFWS withdrew two policies (the Service-wide mitigation policy published Nov. 21, 2016 and its ESA Compensatory Mitigation Policy) which guide Service recommendations on mitigating the adverse impacts of land and water developments on fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats. The Service will now revert to its 1981 Mitigation Policy, the 2003 Conservation Banking Guidance, and the 2008 Recovery Crediting Policy to guide its role in mitigation. Full detail of the policy withdrawal, including a summary of pulic comment and responses, posted to the federal register: (https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/07/30/2018-16172/us-fish-and-wildlife-service-mitigation-policy) Of note, the Policy Regarding Voluntary Prelisting Conservation (i.e. the prelisting mitigation policy) is still intact. It was finalized as a USFWS Manual Chapter in May 2018 and can be found here (https://www.fws.gov/policy/735fw1.html). Oregon Leks in Featured Story
USFS
Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming
The Forest Service (Regions 1, 2, 4) issued a Notice of Intent in November, 2017 to amend Forest Plans in these Regions by incorporating new information to improve the clarity, efficiency, and implementation of greater sage-grouse plans, including better alignment with the BLM and state plans, in order to benefit greater sage-grouse conservation on the landscape scale. The Forest Service plans to complete one multi-Region Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to analyze the effects of the Forest Plan amendments, most likely leading to separate Record Of Decisions (ROD) for each state. A draft EIS is expected to be released on September 21, 2018 followed by a 90 day comment period. A final EIS and draft RODs are expected to be completed in early February, 2019 which will begin a 60 day objection period. The signing of the RODs approving the Forest Plan amendments will follow the objection period and could occur between April-July 2019, depending on the number and complexity of any objections received.
The Forest Service is still dedicated to greater sage-grouse conservation. Proposed changes are intended to be overall neutral to positive for greater sage-grouse and are designed to clarify text, including aligning forest plan components with the Forest Service’s 2012 planning rule, and to improve efficiency and interagency coordination in the Forest Plans at a landscape scale.
Oregon
Region 6 (Oregon) is not included in the Forest Service Notice of Intent, because of limited sage-grouse habitat in Region 6. Region 6’s conservation commitment for the National Forests with sage-grouse habitat was identified in a 2015 Regional Forester memorandum of direction, that provides region-wide sage-grouse conservation guidance. The Regional Forester’s direction is primarily consistent with the Forest Service’s 2015 Great Basin sage-grouse amendment.
The 2018 final Malheur and Wallowa-Whitman Forest Plans include this regional direction as well as additional direction from the Oregon Sage-grouse Action Plan and Oregon-BLM Land Use Plan. The Malheur and Wallowa-Whitman National Forest’s sage-grouse plan components underwent ODFW and Oregon-BLM review for consistency with the State of Oregon’s sage-grouse action plan and Oregon-BLM’s sage-grouse plan amendment.
The 60 day objection period for Malheur and Wallowa-Whitman Forest Plan revisions ended August 28, 2018. Currently, the Washington Office is working with the Region to identify eligible objections. Pending any eligible objections and a possible objection resolution phase, final Record of Decisions for the Malheur and Wallowa-Whitman Forest Plans are expected in early 2019. The Forest Service continues to keep a watchful eye on any change to Oregon-BLM and national Forest Service direction to see what changes this may bring to our regional sage-grouse conservation direction.
