Last month, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced finalized resource management plans (RMPs) for the state of Colorado. Two of the plans announced are for lands managed by the Colorado River Valley and Grand Junction field offices and will affect roughly two million acres on the Western Slope for the next 15 to 20 years. The Sopris Sun spoke with Wilderness Workshop for more details.
The new RMPs were met with mixed receptions among Colorado stakeholders. On the conservation side, nonprofits and local agencies are enthused about the additional protections the plans establish for wildlands, cultural sites and wildlife habitats. However, those same groups feel the plans also reflect a missed opportunity for preventing greenhouse gas emissions, since the RMPs outline oil and gas leasing parameters.
Some energy companies, conversely, are pleased that minimal changes have been recommended for mineral leasing.
In a public statement, Wilderness Workshop assessed that the RMPs “only make modest gains on reducing damaging climate emissions by closing lands with no and low potential — and some areas with moderate potential — for oil and gas development, leaving many sensitive environmental areas open to future oil and gas leasing.”
Despite that, in Wilderness Workshop’s view, this year’s RMPs are significantly improved over the most recent 2015 iterations. The Carbondale-based nonprofit viewed the previous RMPs as inadequate. Advocacy Director Erin Riccio explained that the 2024 plans “provide important protections for special places like the Grand Hogback and Castle Peak.”
BLM has the power to determine whether lands can be leased for oil and gas production, and to what degree. “BLM looks at these spaces based on potential allocation,” Riccio stated.
Wilderness Workshop reps argued that BLM continues to prioritize oil and gas despite all of the community vocalization against those uses.
“Climate change is an enormous threat,” Riccio asserted. And conservation groups have mixed feelings about the 2024 RMPs because historically, once finalized, the plans cannot be revised until the next cycle is released, which typically takes at least a decade. Wilderness Workshop Campaign Manager Michael Gorman elaborated, “Public lands can be really valuable for carbon sequestration in forests, wildlife refuges and more ecosystem services.”
“These planning processes lay the foundation for 10-20 years of management,” Riccio shared, which means that plans’ either positive and negative effects cannot be quickly shifted. If federal policy changes, however, Wilderness Workshop considers that the 2024 RMPs provide some insurance to protect public lands.
That said, just because RMP cycles are long does not mean the public should disregard them, and Wilderness Workshop encourages citizens to get involved with input processes.
“We try to keep track of these things to let the community know ways they can be helpful and advocate,” said Riccio. Gorman added, “It’s worth noting that having a really engaged community has been key to some of the successes we’ve seen conservation-wise.”
Riccio anticipates opportunities for the public to share input with the Forest Service in the coming months. “We track these processes for the National Forest as well. We expect a major revision to be announced in the next year or two,” she said.
Wilderness Workshop and partnered conservation organizations hope that local, state and federal institutions continue to prioritize conservation of the many ecosystems in Colorado and nationwide. “A diversity of landscapes protected is important to protect biodiversity,” Gorman stated. “We continue to face increasing pressures from climate change.”
Wilderness Workshop has been advocating for permanent protection of wild spaces since 1967, focusing on Colorado’s Western Slope. The organization is responsible for helping to secure congressional designation for the Hunter-Fryingpan, Collegiate Peaks, West Elks and Raggeds Wilderness Areas, and doubling the acreage of the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness Area. Its work also resulted in vehicle limitations in the Maroon Creek Valley starting in 1975.
“We think that our public lands should be part of the solution, not the problem,” concluded Riccio.

You can learn more about Wilderness Workshop at www.wildernessworkshop.org