Sage Grouse Land Use Plan

Sage Grouse Land Use Plan

Sage Grouse Land Use Plan. I'm Greg Martin with Colorado Ag Today.

Last week the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service announced land use plans and what effect that could have on sage grouse conservation and development. Governor Hickenlooper said he was cautiously optimistic about the approach taken. Eugene Backhaus is the State Resource Conservationist with NRCS and talks about what farmers should expect.

BACKHAUS: Under the Greater Sage Grouse as long as producers apply practices according to the conference opinion it should have little or no effect on them. For producers in the Gunnison Sage Grouse Area if they apply according to the biological opinion they shouldn't have any problem either. It's those things that are done outside of those opinions that could cause problems.

Backhaus says the bottom line is that if you have any questions you need to reach out and ask.

BACKHAUS: Basically as long as producers are working with NRCS there should be little or no effect on the ag producer. No if producers go about breaking out land to bring more cropland into production, yeah, then there's potential issues that they would have to deal with mitigation, with take and few other things.

The governor said he believes that state-led efforts are the best approach to protecting the greater sage grouse and that they would continue to work with all parties to strike the right balance needed to protect this important species as well as Colorado livelihoods.

And that's Colorado Ag Today. I'm Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.

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