Comment Now! Help Land Management Agencies Open Access to Your Public Lands

BLM, USFS, and USFWS seek nominations from the public for high-priority landlocked or hard-to-reach parcels.

Last spring, the Boone and Crockett Club supported the passage of S. 47 – the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act.  Congress tasked the federal public land management agencies with (1) identifying parcels of public ground with no recreational access or restricted access, and (2) developing priority lists for opening access to those lands.

Now, the US Forest Service, BLM, and US Fish and Wildlife Service are asking the public for help to identify pieces of public land that should be on the priority lists. This is your chance to get involved and make a difference.

Once parcels are added to an agency’s priority list, land managers can then coordinate with state and local governments, conservation groups, land trusts, and landowners to open access through voluntary acquisitions of land, road or trail easements, or various other measures.

The Boone and Crockett Club works hard to open access to public land, which can be a huge challenge for hunters and anglers. Mapping shows that millions acres of federally managed public lands in the West have no permanent, legal public access.

See below for details on how to nominate a public land parcel or area, including rivers, but time is running out. Speak up today to strengthen our public lands legacy!

Lawmakers have outlined the below requirements for the agencies:

• Parcels nominated must encompass at least 640 contiguous acres with either no public access (i.e. it is unreachable by foot, horseback, and motorized/non-motorized vehicles) or the access is severely restricted (i.e. a large block of public land with only one access point).
• In order to be considered, nominations must be sent to the appropriate agency (i.e. the agency responsible for managing the lands in question).
• Nominations must include the location of the land or parcel, the total affected acreage (if known), a description or narrative about the barriers to access, and any other information that should be considered by the agency.

BLM: Comment period open through Sunday, Feb. 29

Use the BLM’s mapping tool to nominate parcels:

https://eplanning.blm.gov/EPLCommentMap/?itemId=af9f2d47678244738e90b47786169be4

Forest Service: Comment period open through March 11

To nominate a parcel of national forest land for consideration, email SM.FS.nominations@usda.gov

Instructions can be found here.

Fish and Wildlife Service: Comment period open through March 11

Nominations are being accepted by email at PriorityList@fws.gov

Instructions can be found here.