public lands

Wildfires are growing larger and more destructive across the West due to climate change. Yet more people than ever are moving to fire-prone spaces near forests and grasslands. Some of the fastest housing growth in these areas is happening in the Mountain West.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is launching an Indian Youth Service Corps with new guidelines. The corps was established in 2019 as part of an amendment to the Public Lands Corps Act. Now, Haaland has published actual guidelines. One of its goals is fostering natural resource and land stewardship skills for young tribal members aged 16 to 30, or 35 if you’re a veteran.

The Interior Department announced the distribution of $279 million to outdoor recreation and conservation projects across the U.S., with tens of millions of dollars going to states in the Mountain West.

In Las Vegas, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Tuesday announced new efforts to facilitate more renewable energy development, including cutting by 50% rent and fees charged for wind and solar projects on public lands.

A housing crunch in the West has some looking to public lands as a solution…and a place to live.

A new report shows that Western states vary widely in how much federal public lands within their borders have been protected from extractive uses over the last decade – with some surprising discrepancies.

The Interior Department is reopening lease sales on public lands. However, the agency announced that it was 80% less acreage than the oil and gas industry nominated for leasing. The Interior also increased royalty rates.

Read or listen to the news headlines for Tuesday, April 19, 2022.

A Wyoming court case involving public land access may soon head to federal court. Landowners there want damages from four Missouri men who went over a corner where four pieces of land meet: two private, two public. They didn’t touch the private land, but landowners argue they still went over it and, therefore, trespassed.

The Bureau of Land Management is in the process of capturing and removing more wild horses and burros from the West than ever before, and climate change might factor into its decision.