BLM’s Plans for Steens Mountain Area Must Be Revisited

Plans for motorized vehicles in the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area must be revisited, a federal appeals court ruled April 25.

The Steens Mountain Area covers about half a million acres of public and private land in southeastern Oregon. The Bureau of Land Management’s travel and recreation plans for this region, which will open up hundreds of miles of new routes for motorized vehicles, pose a serious threat to the region’s ecology, according to the nonprofit Oregon Natural Desert Association.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit partially reversed a lower court ruling that upheld the ...