There are other high-desert ecosystems in the U.S., but few are considered to be as rich as the Owyhee-Bruneau region in southwest Idaho. Taken together, the Owyhees encompass an area twice the size of Yellowstone National Park. They are wild, but they'll need our help to stay that way.
A Vast Network
The Owyhee-Bruneau Canyonlands region of southwest Idaho, southeast Oregon, and northern Nevada consist of a vast network of high desert rolling plateaus and juniper-covered mountains incised by spectacular sheer-walled river canyons. Taken together, the Canyonlands encompass an area twice the size of Yellowstone National Park.
Scientists consider the Owyhees to be one of the most biologically rich high desert ecosystems in the country. The area provides a home to peregrine falcons, golden eagles, sage grouse, California bighorn sheep, pronghorn, bobcats, mountain lions and the rare redband trout. There are few remaining places where native sagebrush and bunchgrass ecosystems have escaped agricultural conversion; this is one of them. In is the only area in the entire Columbia River Basin where biologists believe sage grouse can survive for the next 100 years.
The geology of the Canyonlands is unique and nationally significant. Carving through the heart of the region, the Owyhee, Bruneau and Jarbidge River systems twist through sheer-walled canyons that range from 400 to more than 1000 feet deep. Geologists cite the Owyhee-Bruneau Canyonlands as the largest concentration of sheer-walled volcanic-origin canyons in the western U.S., and know of no other so extensive a network of such canyons, with such excellent exposure, in the world.
Wilderness and Wild Rivers
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the federal agency responsible for the area, has identified more than 700,000 acres of potential wilderness areas in the Canyonlands, as well as 280 miles of rivers as candidates for protection under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Conservationists are advocating designation of 1.3 million acres of wilderness and 400 miles of Wild and Scenic Rivers in the region.
Recreational use of the Canyonlands grows every year as whitewater enthusiasts run the main rivers and tributaries and hikers seek the wide-open Western vistas of this country. Humans have been part of this desert landscape for over 15,000 years, resulting in the richest concentration of archaeological sites in Idaho.
At the end of the 1990s The Wilderness Society and other conservation groups launched an extensive effort to have the Owyhee-Bruneau Canyonlands designated as a National Monument. While the effort was ultimately unsuccessful, President Clinton acknowledged that the Canyonlands, along with the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, deserve permanent protection.
Wheels and Weeds
Threats to the Owyhee-Bruneau Canyonlands are serious and growing. Every year, irresponsible off-road vehicle users gouge two- and four-wheeled ruts into this fragile high desert landscape. These scars will exist for decades at least in this arid land; some may never heal but only worsen as erosion cuts them deeper into the land.
More and more species of invasive, exotic weeds-many carried into the Canyonlands by off-road vehicles and domestic livestock-threaten to crowd out the native plant communities vital for wildlife forage. Overgrazing by domestic livestock further forces native wildlife into desperate competition, as it damages streambanks, shading cover and water quality at the cost of fish populations. Military training activities, including the building of mock targets, and supersonic aircraft overflights have compromised the wildness of parts of this landscape.
The Wilderness Society's work to protect the Canyonlands centers on two efforts: advocacy for wilderness designation and land management planning efforts.
An Effort to Reach Consensus
The Society is involved in a precedent-setting effort to resolve some long-standing public land controversies in this region. At the invitation of the Owyhee County Commissioners, The Wilderness Society and other conservation groups are meeting with county officials, livestock permittees, motorized recreationists, military officials, outfitters, guides and congressional staff to see if a consensus solution is possible for some of the contentious natural resource issues. Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID), who has pledged to push legislation to enact such solutions as this diverse group can craft, sanctions the discussions.
One of the Society's principal goals in this effort is to achieve wilderness designation for the major wild regions in the Owyhee-Bruneau Canyonlands. Our Idaho staff is meeting, individually and collectively, with livestock operators, county representatives, and others to gain support for wilderness designation.
To support this effort we have produced fact sheets on how wilderness protects the landscape and its resources, and distributed that information to local interests. We've organized numerous aerial overflights of the Canyonlands for media representatives and congressional staff. As a result, we've achieved a strong endorsement for this process with the state's leading daily newspaper. Many are watching here to see if diverse interest groups can find consensus for public resource management in places like the Owyhee-Bruneau Canyonlands.
The second track for protection of the Owyhee-Bruneau Canyonlands is through participation in the BLM's process of writing-and later, implementing-management plans for the area. The Wilderness Society is a key participant in the development of a new resource management plan for the Bruneau region and a travel management plan for the Owyhee region.
Long-Term Implications
Both these plans have long-term implications for the Canyonlands. The Bruneau plan will set goals and objectives for resource management for decades to come, including protection of archaeological and cultural sites, critical areas of environmental concern, protection of candidate wilderness areas and candidate wild and scenic rivers, and critical wildlife habitat.
The Owyhee travel plan must address the worsening land damage that comes from both irresponsible off-road vehicle use and the sheer volume of that use, which grows annually. The Wilderness Society's goal, and the goal of environmentalists across the country, is to eliminate indiscriminate cross-country vehicle travel, to keep motorized recreation on existing, designated roads and trails and, most importantly, to ensure policing and enforcement of the restrictions.
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