Defend more than 11 million acres of wilderness study areas
Policy Review: BLM Manual 6330, Management of BLM Wilderness Study Areas
Bureau of Land ManagementFederal Register 2026-11952 ↗
The BLM may rewrite rules that shield more than 11 million acres of wild land from mining, drilling, and off-road vehicles.
What’s at risk
About more than 11 million acres of Wilderness Study Areas across the American West could lose existing protections against mining, drilling, grazing, and off-road vehicle use. A policy rewrite could open these undeveloped lands to industrial activity before Congress ever decides their fate.
If this goes through
Updated rules could permanently lower the bar for what is allowed in Wilderness Study Areas, making it harder to ever restore or designate them as protected wilderness.
Our plain-English read of the official notice ↗. Check it against the agency’s own words below.
4 holes in the agency’s own analysis
What the public could have raised, from the agency’s own document
- I oppose this action as proposed, and I ask the agency to weigh the specific harms below.
- BLM Manual 6330 is the policy guide that keeps mining, drilling, and off-road vehicles out of Wilderness Study Areas, and weakening it would open roughly more than 11 million acres of protected western lands to those uses.
- WSAs are supposed to stay protected until Congress makes a designation decision, and any revision to Manual 6330 that allows grazing expansion or mining activity undermines that congressional process.
- Tribes, conservation advocates, and permittees who depend on intact WSAs across the American West all have a stake in keeping Manual 6330's protections strong, not loosening them.
- Off-road vehicle activity in WSAs can cause irreversible damage, and any update to Manual 6330 that eases restrictions on ORV use before Congress acts would harm these lands permanently.
Show all 6 points from the document
- Say something only you can say. The law requires the agency to consider and respond to substantive comments, and specifics are what make a comment substantive.
In the agency’s own words
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is seeking public comment on potential updates to BLM Manual 6330--Management of Wilderness Study Areas and is interested in receiving information and recommendations regarding whether updates, clarifications, or other revisions to existing Manual 6330 may be appropriate.
The reporting behind this
From More Than Just ParksIt’s referred to as Unit 346 in the Twin Mountain II Timber Sale. On the ground, it’s some of the most spectacular old growth we’ve ever witnessed, and it’s marked for clearcutting.
To document and do our part to save America’s greatest old growth forest
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