Seven year ago, former Interior Secretary Gale Norton used an unprecedented interpretation of federal law (dubbed the “no more wilderness” policy) to remove federal protections from 500,000 acres of BLM lands in Colorado, and millions more across the West, under consideration for wilderness designation, making them vulnerable to activities such as mining and drilling. These generally low-elevation public lands are important winter range for mule deer, elk, bighorn sheep, and other species.

Recently, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar reversed Norton's flawed policy. Sportsmen's groups such as the Backcountry Hunters and Anglers (BHA), the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and others, support Secretary Salazar's action, because it will help protect dwindling big game and other wildlife habitat that's being decimated by oil and gas drilling on public lands across the West.

The BLM oversees about 8.4 million acres in Colorado, so there are plenty of other public lands that could be leased for mining, oil and gas drilling, or used for off-road recreation. The same is true of other states, where the proportion of land available for such uses far outstrips the acreage that could be protected.

BLM holdings are often considered the “land that nobody wanted.” During the great homestead period, settlers took choice valley bottoms and ignored the ridges and mountain slopes. Today these ridges and slopes are superb big game country. Let's keep it that way.