MOAB, Utah — Conservation groups are calling on the Bureau of Land Management to halt work on massive "vegetation treatment" programs inside Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance said an analysis of existing scientific literature finds little evidence to support the BLM’s assertion that mechanical vegetation removal benefits western public lands. Kya Marienfeld, an attorney with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said the BLM is scheduled to use aggressive treatments such as chaining, mastication, and mulching to strip natural vegetation from more than 135,000 acres of the monument.

"The science really doesn't conclusively show that these treatments - in the way that they're being done, how they're being done and where - are even accomplishing a fraction of what the agency, when they propose them and fund them, are saying that they do,” Marienfeld said.

She said the BLM annually spends tens of millions of taxpayer dollars destroying native pinyon pine, juniper forests and sagebrush stands.

The BLM asserted its vegetation treatment projects improve forage or habitat for wildlife and reduce stream erosion and runoff. Scientific evidence has shown landscape-level vegetation projects rarely benefit wildlife or lessen stream runoff.

Marienfeld said the BLM has been stripping vegetation in the national monument for years, but seems to assign a different purpose to it each year.

"Sometimes you get from the agency, 'Oh, we can go into this treatment and it will restore the area's natural character,' and then 10 years later it's, 'Well, no, this isn't wilderness quality anymore because we did one of these treatments,’” Marienfeld said.

She said the BLM's vegetation-removal process can change a beautiful stand of forest into a stretch of useless land.

"When you bring heavy machinery into an area that has really nice, thick, old healthy biocrust in the desert, you couldn't have vegetation unless you have that crust. And when you're dragging an anchor chain over it, it completely scalps the whole thing,” she said.

The Alliance and its conservation partners have appealed the project to the Interior Department's Board of Land Appeals.


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State and federal agencies are collaborating to increase the use of prescribed fires in the Northwest.

Prescribed fire is the controlled use of burns to minimize the larger risks of wildfires and smoke. It is seen as an increasingly important strategy as wildfire seasons pose greater threats to the Northwest.

Casey Sixkiller, Northwest regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said authorities want to work together to maintain forest habitats.

"Prescribed burn is one of the best tools we have for making our forests more resilient against catastrophic wildfires and they help to manage and target hazardous fuels and make for healthier forests," Sixkiller explained.

Sixkiller pointed out the EPA is involved because wildfire smoke poses risks to people's health. The collaboration is between federal agencies, departments in Oregon and Washington, and tribal governments.

Sixkiller noted the collaboration needed a formal agreement to move forward.

"That is what we've been able to do here with this agreement," Sixkiller emphasized. "To get federal land managers and states and us all in the same room, making sure that we're all on the same page about what success looks like."

Sixkiller added the collaboration has another advantage: It helps drive engagement with communities potentially in the path of prescribed burns.

"They have the confidence that the effort that's gone into planning that activity has been thought out from soup to nuts," Sixkiller acknowledged. "And that they have a seat at the table and are being engaged and their concerns are being addressed as we go forward with that activity."


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A new study in the journal Nature Communications by Montana researchers said suppressing small wildfires is leading to larger, more intense and damaging blazes.

According to the U.S. Forest Service, about 98% of wildfires are fully suppressed before they grow to 100 acres; most of them within 72 hours. In Montana, the latest data show crews kept 95% of wildfires in Montana to no more than 10 acres in 2022.

Mark Kreider, a doctoral candidate in forest and conservation science at the University of Montana and co-author of the report, said the strategy leads to what is known as fire "suppression bias."

"Removing more of one type of fire than the other, what we're left with is bias towards the higher intensity fires, these more extreme fires," Kreider explained.

Montana state policy calls for crews to extinguish fires as quickly as possible, even small ones. Kreider pointed out researchers recommend letting low-intensity fires burn where possible to reduce the risk and damage potential for larger, hotter-burning and more catastrophic blazes.

Kreider acknowledged as the population grows along the urban-wildland interface, letting fires burn is not always possible, but argued it might be the best strategy for heading off catastrophic fires later.

"Especially in the western U.S. where people live close to forests, fire suppression is very important and we still must do it," Kreider noted. "But this research helps to show when possible in places where it's safe to do so, we really may benefit from allowing more low and moderate intensity fire to burn."

The National Interagency Fire Center said the number of acres scorched by wildfire has doubled since the 1980s, and the cost to battle the fires has risen to nearly $3 billion a year.


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The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation has awarded $3.1 million for 13 projects to reduce wildfire risk to communities and improve forest health.

The funding money is part of the $15 million Montana Forest Action Plan, which takes a big-picture approach to reducing the risk of wildfires.

Wyatt Frampton, deputy division administrator of forestry and trust lands for the Montana Department of Natural Resources, said the money will be used to foster fire-management cooperation between state and private landowners across 3,200 acres of forest.

"Through a variety of activities, such as prescribed fire, logging, mechanical thinning, hand activities as well as tree planting," Frampton outlined.

The 13 most recent restoration projects are spread across the state, including in Lewis and Clark County, the Bitterroot and the South Swan Valley.

Frampton said the DNR is aiming to create a cohesive fire-reduction plan across Montana's landscape, which has until now been inconsistent because of different sets of land-management practices.

"Right now when we see a patchwork of treatments across some of the landscapes in the state, from a fire-management perspective, it doesn't create a clean or effective barrier for trying to stop the fire in that area," Frampton explained. "Where, if we had a cohesive landscape-level treatment, that would help."

Frampton added having a statewide cohesive fire-management plan would also allow the DNR and other agencies to slow the spread of potentially destructive insects in Montana's forests.


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