Stand · Find your defenders

Who’s defending the Bodie Hills?

2 groups have it in their care

BLM land in California, 123,000 acres, managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service.

The defenders

The groups doing the most work here

2 groups are on the record for Bodie Hills, each tied to it by a source our editors read, in the order they carry the weight. Give directly; nothing routes through us.

On the ground

Also in the fight

17 more work nearby but are not tied to Bodie Hills on the record

The situation

What’s happening to Bodie Hills

High desert where the Great Basin meets the Sierra Nevada, the Bodie Hills hold some of the most ecologically intact unprotected BLM land left in California. The bi-state sage grouse, a distinct population already in serious decline, nests and breeds here. Now Hecla Mining and others are pushing at least four gold exploration projects across the hills. The Polaris project alone would put up to 250 drill pads across thousands of acres, rip out pinyon pines that Indigenous communities depend on for pine nut harvest, and carve 52 miles of new roads through inventoried roadless areas and sage grouse breeding grounds.

Polaris gold exploration project approved

Source: Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter · July 18, 2025

Burnt Rock and additional exploration projects advancing

Source: Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter

No public comment window is open on Bodie Hills right now. A call script is ready on the Public Lands Action Network, and the groups above are how the fight gets funded and argued in the meantime.

Your move

How to stand for the Bodie Hills

Build my lineup around Bodie Hills: the leading group here opens it, and the other seats fill from this record.

Bodie Hills has defenders. It needs more.

2 groups on the record, Friends of the Inyo with 15 staff + 300 volunteers. That is who is holding it. Find your way in.

Sources and methodThe situation, timeline, and threats: the MTJP threatened-lands record for Bodie Hills, with per-item sources. Group crews and program ratios: IRS Form 990 via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, latest filed year, EINs on each group’s profile. Which groups are on the record for this place: MTJP editors tie a group to a fight only with a source link they have read, one link at a time. A group without one is shown as likely to care, a guess from the federal court record and the group’s own mission and footprint. Org-reported figures are always labeled. Data verified as of 2026-09-30. Nothing on this page is pay-to-play.