|
The Northern and Eastern Colorado Desert Coordinated Management Plan (NECO) is a landscape-scale
planning effort for most of the California portion of the Sonoran Desert ecosystem. The planning
area encompasses over five million acres. The planning are includes two entire desert tortoise
recovery units, and the need to promote desert tortoise conservation and recovery is the major
driving force.
The Federal Bureau of Land Management, the lead agency for NECO, released its Proposed Northern
and Eastern Colorado Desert Coordinated Management Plan and Final Environmental Impact Statement in
summer 2002, nine years after the planning effort commenced in March 1993.
The purpose of the NECO Plan is update the California Desert Conservation
Area (CDCA) Plan to make it compatible with desert tortoise conservation and
recovery.
Evidence for a significant decline in desert tortoise numbers since 1994
highlights the need for a strong, effective management plan. However, critics of
the Plan argue that it is less protective than the management that was already
in place. They maintain that the Plan reduces the amount of desert tortoise
critical habitat, allows unrestricted vehicle travel through washes used by
desert tortoises, allows cattle turnout in critical habitat at lower ephemeral
production levels, and facilitates the installation of over 100 new water
developments throughout the Chuckwalla critical habitat unit all without
analyzing the impacts to tortoise recovery.
A group of 10 concerned organizations, including the Desert Tortoise
Council and the Desert Tortoise Preserve Committee, filed a formal protest of
the NECO Plan with Director Clark on
September 3, 2002. The group NECO protest letter (in pdf format) is available for
download on this site. The NECO Plan is available for viewing at the BLM
website. In January 2005, Ninth Circuit Court Judge Susan Illston issued
an injunction ordering the BLM Desert District to restrict off-road
vehicle use to designated routes in the NECO planning area. This
required the BLM to close the "wash-open" areas to vehicles until the USFWS
issues a new Biological Opinion that addresses the recovery as well as the
survival of the regions desert tortoises. Read the
BLM's 01/04/05 press release for more
information and links to the Judge Illston's ruling. On January 9, 2006 the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) issued a new Biological Opinion for the California Desert Conservation Area including the NECO Plan amendments and the closures were cancelled. On August 14, a coalition of conservation groups filed suit in Federal court to overturn the BLM's West Mojave and NECO Plans and the new FWS Biological Opinion. The groups cite the failure of the plans to "protect private property, conservation lands and endangered wildlife from off-road vehicles across 7.1 million acres of the California Desert Conservation Area in Imperial, Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Kern and Inyo counties." The groups seek full implementation of the conservation measures required to preserve and recover the desert tortoise as outlined in the 1994 Desert Tortoise (Mojave Population) Recovery Plan.
| 
