TAKE ACTION: URGE THE BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT TO PROTECT PUBLIC LANDS IN SOUTHERN NEVADA!
Southern Nevada is an amazing landscape of desert, mountains, and wildlife that offers room to hike, hunt, fish and enjoy the natural scenic beauty. Most of these lands—about 3 million acres—are publicly owned and held in trust for all Americans to enjoy. Overseen by the Bureau of Land Management, they contain designated wilderness areas, important habitat for desert tortoises, rich archeological sites, and many other environmental and cultural treasures. Because these special places belong to us all, we have a say in how they are managed.
SOUTHERN NEVADA’S PUBLIC LANDS ARE IN YOUR HANDS—MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD!
In Nevada, only 230,000 acres of public land has been permanently safeguarded as wilderness. The land use plan that is being considered and is available for public review and comment by citizens, and the Bureau Of Land Management has fallen short in properly assessing additional wild areas that are still in need of protection.
The BLM identified only another 7 percent of those 3 million acres as having wilderness qualities, and it has proposed to set aside an even smaller fraction—just 1 percent. Numerous areas deserving of protection are either not identified as having wilderness characteristics or not slated for conservation, including Billy Goat Peak and Bitter Ridge in the Gold Butte area, the Middle and North McCullough Mountains, Arrow Canyon, Amargosa Valley, the Virgin Mountains, and Buffington Pockets. These lands not only provide a variety of recreational opportunities, but they also are home to desert tortoises, gila monsters, and kit foxes.