| Description |
In Utah, it is no secret that there exists a large disconnect between stakeholders at the local, county, state, and federal levels in how our federal public lands should be managed. Activities that occur on these huge swaths of land have a direct impact on the well-being of adjacent communities, and the significant federal presence in Utah has historically led to conflict over things like the designation of wilderness areas and endangered species, oil, gas, coal, and uranium development, and grazing rights, to name just a few. At the root of the problem, state legislators cannot agree on how to most effectively gain more local influence over the management of federal lands, and are currently carrying out two very different approaches in an attempt to do so. The first involves suing the federal government for ownership rights of about 30 million federal surface acres in Utah, and the second implements a mandate that counties prepare resource management plans for use during Congressionally-provided opportunities to coordinate with federal land management agencies. This report analyzes the extent to which Utah counties are already utilizing the latter approach and participating in collaborative planning processes with federal land managers, as well as the extent to which the new mandate is set up to better facilitate those types of interactions. |
