The ABCs of ACECs: The Overlooked Conservation Designation with Huge Potential
A 3 part series.
National Park. Wilderness. National Monument. National Wildlife Refuge. These are some of the most widely recognized designations for conserving important publicly-managed lands across the United States. But there are many other tools that federal agencies can use to safeguard our nation’s ecological, cultural, historic, and scientific resources. Tucked inside a 1976 law that guides how the nation’s largest land manager, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oversees public domain, is the “Area of Critical Environmental Concern” (ACEC). As the Biden Administration works towards achieving its goals of addressing the climate crisis, protecting 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030, and advancing environmental justice, it’s time for the BLM to ensure that this 47-year-old conservation tool finally lives up to its full potential.
A is for…What is an ACEC anyway?
The BLM, an agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior, oversees nearly 250 million acres of public lands, mostly in the West and Alaska. The diverse landscapes under the BLM’s jurisdiction include biologically important sagebrush ecosystems from Oregon to Montana, redwood stands of northwest California, vast boreal forests of Interior Alaska, red rock country of the Colorado Plateau, and the Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan Deserts along our southern border. These lands have been home to Indigenous peoples since time immemorial, and many areas now managed by the BLM continue to sustain Indigenous communities and cultures today.
In 1976, Congress passed the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), which introduced the ACEC designation to “protect and prevent irreparable damage to important historic, cultural, or scenic values, fish and wildlife resources, or other natural systems or processes.” And significantly, through that law, Congress directed the BLM to give priority to the designation and protection of ACECs in its regional plans to manage public lands.
Since FLPMA was passed, the BLM has designated some 20 million acres as ACECs, including important habitat for wildlife, key watersheds and drinking water sources, historic sites, places of cultural importance, and essential ecosystems. An ACEC can range in size from a small area of less than a hundred acres to a watershed or ecosystem of hundreds of thousands of acres, depending on the specific values the designation is meant to protect. Indigenous Tribes, state and local governments, nonprofit organizations, and any member of the public can nominate a place for an ACEC designation during the BLM’s process to develop a land management plan for a specific region.
While there has been some progress, the BLM has never fulfilled its FLPMA obligation to develop a framework for how ACECs are managed across the agency. In practice, their management is wildly inconsistent across the BLM’s field offices, and in many cases, these landmark places are provided no or little protection from industrial development, vandalism, erosion, and other threats.
Stay tuned for Part B of ABCs of ACECs next!
