Development and Revision of Land Health Standards
Bureau of Land Management
National Headquarters
Washington, DC 20240
United States
6103 (HQ-200) P
The Conservation and Landscape Health Rule (commonly known as the “Public Lands Rule”), effective as of June 10, 2024, advances the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) multiple use and sustained yield mission by prioritizing the health and resilience of public lands. Conservation1 is a use of public lands on equal footing with other uses and is necessary for the protection and restoration of important resources. The Public Lands Rule will help safeguard the health of our public lands for current and future generations by ensuring we:
- Protect the most intact, functioning landscapes;
- Restore degraded habitats and ecosystems; and
- Use science and data, including Indigenous Knowledge, as the foundation for management decisions across all plans and programs.
This Instruction Memorandum (IM) provides guidance to implement 43 CFR Subpart 6103.1 (Land Health Standards) and develop national land health standards and indicators that consistently address land health fundamentals, habitat condition, connectivity, intactness, and changing environmental conditions. Emphasis shall be placed on landscape scale assessment of these standards, relying upon existing data whenever possible. In accordance with the Public Lands Rule, the BLM will develop national land health standards and supporting indicators.
Existing rangeland health standards will continue to apply as they presently do until national standards are adopted and supplant them.
Land health standards provide descriptions of desirable resource conditions on public lands, thereby helping the BLM work with partners, the public, and others to make progress toward achieving land health. Standards will allow for the BLM to develop and implement management actions with an understanding of the health of the land and an overall focus on working to achieve the fundamentals of land health. Consistent standards and supporting indicators are needed to efficiently evaluate land health, to effectively manage data, and to report land health status and actions taken to achieve land health standards.2 These efforts will build on existing land health standards, indicators, and monitoring protocols.
Mission Related.
The BLM must develop national land health standards that facilitate progress toward maintaining or achieving the fundamentals of land health across all ecosystems on lands managed by the BLM (§ 6103.1). Through this process, the BLM will develop a framework of national indicators that will be used to conduct watershed condition assessments3 and evaluate land health standards at landscape scales building on existing national protocols and datasets (e.g. Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring (AIM) field data and available remote sensing products). States will use the national land health standards to enable the BLM to consistently evaluate land health across administrative boundaries. If a State Director determines it is necessary, they may supplement the national land health standards with the minimum additional state or regional standards to address unique habitats, ecosystem dynamics, or unique resources of concern, such as permafrost. Through these processes, the BLM will amend or replace the currently established rangeland health standards, which are found in 18 geographically distinct sets of Standards and Guidelines.
Developing national land health standards and indicators:
- It shall be the responsibility of the Directorate of Resources and Planning (HQ 200) to establish a steering committee and interdisciplinary team to guide development of national land health standards that address the fundamentals of land health and additional requirements included at 6103.1, including indicators that can be used to evaluate each standard. The steering committee and interdisciplinary team will include representatives from BLM Headquarters, the National Operations Center, and State and Field Offices. The interdisciplinary team will consist of resource specialists possessing a broad range of knowledge and expertise and may include subject matter experts from partner agencies and institutions, subject to legal requirements imposed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act, 5 U.S.C. § 1001, et seq.
- Six national standards will be developed to address the following resources and values as required by 6103.1(b):
- Upland hydrologic function.
- Riparian, wetland, and aquatic hydrologic function.
- Upland ecological processes and biotic communities, including connectivity and intactness of native plant and animal habitats.
- Riparian, wetland, and aquatic ecological processes and biotic communities, including condition, connectivity, and intactness of native plant and animal habitats.
- Water quality, including compliance with State water quality standards and BLM management objectives (e.g., wildlife needs).
- Habitat condition, connectivity, and intactness for Federally threatened and endangered species, Federally proposed or candidate threatened and endangered species, and other special status species.
- The steering committee and interdisciplinary team will coordinate as appropriate to ensure that the national standards include indicators that are consistent with and relevant to completing watershed condition assessments and incorporate established standardized indicators.
- The steering committee and interdisciplinary team will coordinate with BLM subject matter experts to identify additional nationally consistent “ecosystem indicators,” which are indicators that are appropriate for evaluating each standard in major ecosystem types and habitats managed by the BLM.
- In the course of developing and issuing nationally consistent standards and indicators, the steering committee, in coordination with BLM leadership, will consult and coordinate with Federal, Tribal, and State agencies, Resource Advisory Councils, other partners, stakeholders, and the public, and will ensure transparency for the public.
- The national standards and indicators will be submitted to the BLM Director for approval within 18 months of the enactment of this policy.
Developing state or regional standards and indicators:
Following approval and publication of the national standards, State Directors will either adopt the national standards or notify the Assistant Director of Resources and Planning of their intent to develop or amend one or more standards, including amendment of standards developed pursuant to Subpart 4180. Each state or regional standard will incorporate the national standards and indicators and may supplement the national land health standards with the minimum additional state or regional standards necessary to address unique habitats, ecosystem dynamics, or unique resources of concern, such as permafrost.
- States choosing to supplement the national standards must do so in a way that maintains the relationship to the fundamentals, as shown in Attachment 1, and should specifically address:
- Characteristics of rare habitats or ecologically unique areas that would not be adequately addressed using national standards.
- Establishment of supplemental land health standards and relevant indicators to evaluate such resources.
- Where regional conditions warrant development of unique standards and ecosystem indicators, all affected BLM states should coordinate to develop a single regional standard and indicators.
- Development of state or regional standards and indicators will follow a similar process as the one described for development of the national standards. State Directors will appoint appropriate interdisciplinary teams and maintain consistency with the national standards as appropriate.
- New or amended state or regional land health standards may be approved and issued by the State Director following review and concurrence from the Directorate of Resources and Planning.
- For any geographic areas where new or amended state or regional standards are not approved by June 10, 2027, BLM will use the national land health standards and indicators to evaluate land health.
Developing new indicators and reviewing existing indicators:
All offices and centers, when developing new ecological indicators or reviewing existing indicators, shall considering the following direction:
- Use current, relevant science and information to ensure scientifically sound, ecologically relevant measures for maintaining resilient, functional landscapes and habitats.
- Consult and coordinate with experts; science partners; Federal, Tribal, and State agencies; Resource Advisory Councils; and others to ensure consistency and scientific integrity of indicators and provide transparency to the public.
- Include a title, a narrative description of the resource conditions and ecological functions required to achieve each standard, and a list of indicators that may be used as measures when evaluating achievement of the standard.
- Ensure that standards incorporate quantitative indicators available from existing standardized datasets, including the core indicators supported by the AIM program.
- Ensure each set of standards is approved prior to implementation.
- Review standards and indicators sufficiency at least every 10 years and revise or amend as necessary to incorporate current science and data sources.
Application of Existing Sets of Standards
Prior to approval of new or amended land health standards, authorized officers will apply existing standards as appropriate to ecological conditions, including those prepared pursuant to subpart 4180, when evaluating the health of lands the BLM manages, both within and outside of grazing allotments (43 CFR § 6103.1.1(b)(1)). Following approval, new or amended sets of standards prepared pursuant to section 6103.1 will be used to evaluate the health of all lands the BLM manages, including those within grazing allotments. Additional guidance will be forthcoming to address developing management guidelines, implementing land health standards across all lands, and determining causal factors for areas not achieving land health standards.
Effective immediately.
Implementing these aspects of the Public Lands Rule will likely require some shift in focus, work and priorities. The BLM will coordinate across offices to determine the best allocation of staff capacity and financial resources within the agency’s existing budget to meet this priority. Implementation of the Public Lands Rule is expected to yield long-term efficiencies and cost savings (for example, by completing land health evaluations at landscape scales and managing resource data in a nationally consistent manner).
The BLM manages approximately 245 million acres of public lands, roughly one-tenth of the country. Invasive species, increased extreme wildfire events, prolonged drought, habitat fragmentation, climate change, and other factors have caused increased habitat degradation on our public lands. It is the BLM’s responsibility to restore degraded habitats and ensure land health on the public lands consistent with managing under the principles of multiple use and sustained yield, consistent with the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA). To support these activities, the Public Lands Rule applies land health standards to all BLM-managed public lands and uses, codifies conservation tools to be used within FLPMA’s multiple-use and sustained-yield framework, and revises existing regulations to better meet FLPMA’s direction that the BLM prioritize designating and protecting Areas of Critical Environmental Concern. The Public Lands Rule also provides an overarching framework for multiple BLM programs to promote ecosystem resilience on public lands. Subpart 6103 of the Public Lands Rule adopts the land health fundamentals from the Fundamentals of Rangeland Health found in 43 CFR § 4180.1 and requires development of national standards to evaluate the health of all BLM-managed lands.
The Fundamentals and Standards for Rangeland Health and Guidelines for Grazing Management were introduced with the 1995 grazing regulations. Pursuant to these regulations, seventeen sets of rangeland health standards and guidelines for grazing management were developed between 1997 and 2001. Since that time, the BLM has used the rangeland health standards (RHS) to evaluate the health of lands managed for livestock grazing. An 18th set of land health standards and management guidelines was issued by the BLM Alaska State Director in 2004 and is used in land use planning in Alaska. Areas without an approved set of standards evaluate land health use the “Fallback Standards” described in 43 CFR § 4180.2(f).
Each set of RHS and the Alaska standards contains three to eight individual standards; collectively, each set addresses the fundamentals, and in some cases includes additional standards that do not correspond to the fundamentals (e.g., some standards address air quality). Each standard has a suite of indicators that serve as measures for evaluating whether the standard is achieved.
Differences in numbers of standards across states and accompanying variability in the relationships between each RHS and the Alaska standards and the four land health fundamentals have complicated the process for land health evaluations and limited the BLM’s ability to combine results of land health evaluations for analysis, reporting, and coordination of resource management. Variability across sets of standards also creates challenges for providing implementation support such as training and centralized data management. Use of national standards and indicators will create efficiencies in land health evaluation workflows, and provide for integration with watershed condition assessments, and responsive and meaningful reporting and use of evaluation results across programs and spatial scales.
MS-4180, Land Health (Rel. 4-110); H-4180, Rangeland Health Standards (Rel. 4-107); MS-5000, Forest Management (Rel. 5-139); MS-6500 Wildlife and Fisheries Management (Rel. 6-114); MS-6720, Aquatic Resource Management (Rel. 6-118); MS-6840, Special Status Species Management (Rel. 6-125); and 7240, Water Quality Manual (Rel. 7-111).
If you have questions about this Instruction Memorandum, please contact Nika Lepak, Senior Planning & Environmental Analyst, at dlepak@blm.gov or (208) 373-3810.
The IM was developed by an intra-agency team from Field Offices, District Offices, State Offices, the National Operations Center, and Headquarters. The IM was coordinated with the Resources and Minerals Committee and the Field Committee