News Nugget
Study Predicts Fewer Sage Grouse As Energy Development Increases
By Courtney Lowery, 10-27-09
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A new study shows that sage grouse, up for Endangered Species listing in February, will face even bigger population declines in the Mountain West if energy development progresses as Bureau of Land Management expects it to.
The three year study, published earlier this month in the peer-reviewed PLoS One science journal as well as here on WyoFile.com, warns that energy development plans on BLM land in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Montana and North and South Dakota could lead to a 7-19 percent loss of population for the bird.
The study’s authors, which include The Nature Conservancy in Lander, Wyoming, the National Audubon Society in Laramie, Wyoming and the University of Montana’s Wildlife Biology Program are clear about the goal of the research: To help decision makers craft a better oil and gas development pattern that would shift exploration to less sensitive grouse habitat. If done right, the authors say, oil and gas development could keep the sage grouse safe and off the ESA list.
One of the co-authors, David Naugle, a wildlife landscape ecologist at the University of Montana, tells the New York Times: “The answer to energy development in the West is not ‘no,’ but rather ‘where.’ I think our nation’s energy independence is paramount. Thus, the way we designed this study was to be helpful.”
Scott Streater’s piece in the Times’ Greenwire blog does a good job of summing up the report here. And, you can read the full report here.
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Comments
Sadly, I don't see that changing until there is no other choice.
Maybe this is the only way they feel they can get the oil/gas companies to listen to them.
Since the critics don't appear to have read the Report (maybe they would prefer to let industry "biologists" and BLM craft sage grouse management policies in a vacuum), here's a sampling of recommendations and an excerpt from the conclusion:
Areas already leased and important for sage-grouse could be considered a priority for lease swaps or buy-backs, where government, non-governmental organizations and other private entities swap land or buy the lease back from the company that bought the development rights. Alternatively, companies could also be encouraged to forfeit their development rights with a perpetual NSO agreement, as part of the negotiation for enhanced access to exploration and development in other areas. Done in the right places, a creative combination of approaches could yield maximum benefit to species.
* * *
Quantifying anticipated future impacts can help to justify proactive protection of places important to biodiversity and to underscore the ecological consequences of failing to do so. We hope to inspire regulatory agencies and land mangers to use technologies available in mapping and modeling to forecast new impacts and for policymakers to use this information to avoid business-as-usual development ([56], [57]), in favor of proactive efforts to predict and avoid impacts in places crucial for species conservation. In the long run, this is likely to be the more ecologically sound, less costly, and more efficient—the more sustainable—course of action.