Policy Corner: The Public Lands Rule: The Significance of Conservation

Bryan Pride • June 5, 2025

Since April 2024, America's public lands had something they'd never had before: a rule that treated conservation as equal to all other land uses. The Public Lands Rule, introduced by the Biden Administration, formally recognized conservation as a legitimate practice of multiple use, putting conservation on equal footing with recreation, grazing, and resource extraction. Built on decades of management experience and guided by science, data, and Indigenous knowledge, it gives land managers tools to maintain healthy ecosystems while supporting all the diverse ways we depend on public lands. It acknowledges a simple truth: conservation must be valued equally to all other land uses. 


Now there is growing pressure to rescind it.


Why This Matters


The environment around us is free-flowing, it's not confined to state borders or county lines. When mining operations contaminate watersheds in Northern California, it impacts the local businesses who depend on healthy rivers downstream, the agricultural communities that rely on clean water, and the families who've been camping along those waterways for generations. The Public Lands Rule recognized this interconnected reality and gave land managers agency to address problems before they spread across California's diverse landscapes, protecting the long-term viability of grazing allotments, recreation areas, and rural livelihoods that all depend on healthy public lands.


This interconnected reality is exactly why the Public Lands Rule matters. The Rule is designed to ensure that the places we depend on, whether for weekend camping trips, or cattle grazing, stay healthy enough to support these uses long-term. When an area becomes overgrazed and doesn't recover, access to those grazing allotments is permanently lost, reducing ranchers' ability to maintain their livelihoods and harming local food production. Poor use or overuse of our public lands creates ripples of negative impact that hurt all communities. 


The Rule's main objective is simple but revolutionary: make sure our public lands stay productive for everyone who depends on them, rather than degrade them. The Rule created practical tools that built in accountability and prioritized future generations' access to healthy public lands. 


Restoration Leases: 10-year agreements allowing a variety of entities such as, conservation groups, tribes, and nonprofits to restore damaged landscapes—fires restoration, restoring wildlife habitats and cleaning up abandoned mining sites that currently scar some of our most beautiful public lands.


Mitigation Leases: A tool that allows land users or other entities to offset impacts from their activities over specified time periods, creating partnerships between different land users and conservation groups to address environmental impacts on public lands. 


Strengthened Protection for Critical Areas: Clearer guidelines for protecting Areas of Critical Environmental Concern—the most special and fragile places that often provide the best wildlife viewing, the cleanest water sources, the most pristine camping experiences and the richest biodiversity.


The False Dichotomy: Multiple Use vs. Conservation 


The main argument being used to encourage the rollback of the Public Lands Rule is "multiple use", the legal principle requiring Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands to serve many different purposes. The current Administration claims the Public Lands Rule hinders multiple uses of public lands. Why? The Rule calls for restoring degraded areas and making science based decisions. Contrary to their actual meaning, the current Administration interprets "restoring" and "science based decisions" as "locking up land". Land locking, where access gets completely cut off, is a real concern in some areas—it prevents both recreation and grazing. However, land locking is not what the Public Lands Rule promotes. In reality, it is promoting land healing. 


Take grazing for example. The Rule empowers BLM to use restoration leases in conjunction with existing grazing permittees to restore degraded rangeland. Monitoring who is grazing where and the number of permits issued for specific areas is a means to ensure sustainable grazing and prevent overuse. Many ranchers and land managers supported the Rule because they understand that healthy land is productive land. Overgrazing and environmental damage hurt their livelihoods too. 


The same principle applies to fire recovery. When public lands are damaged by sweeping wildfires, there is a need for active restoration: replanting native vegetation, stabilizing soils, removing hazardous debris. Restoration has to take place before safe recreation, grazing and other uses can resume. At times, restoration requires temporarily limiting access to burned areas as they recover. The goal is to allow for our lands to recover and heal before we start depending on them again with our multiple uses. Land restoration is not just limited to grazing or extraction; it is essential for recovering from wildfires. 


Whether it's grazing, recreation, or extraction, the Public Lands Rule isn't about stopping these uses, it's about understanding that healthy ecosystems are prerequisites for multiple use, not obstacles to it. You can't have sustainable grazing on degraded rangeland, quality recreation in fire damaged landscapes, or responsible extraction without considering long-term impacts


We Are Public Stewards


The Public Lands Rule represents a historic shift in how we value conservation, its potential rollback is a setback. But the vision it represents, conservation as a form of legitimate multiple use, remains essential and is not gone. As stewards of these 245 million acres, we have the power to practice conservation in our own actions and advocacy. Every time we practice Leave No Trace, support local businesses that operate responsibly on public lands, and make our voices heard in land management decisions, we're building the foundation for balanced stewardship that benefits everyone. 


Our public lands belong to all of us, which means we each have the power, and responsibility, to be good stewards of the lands we love. 


-Bryan Pride (bpride@tuleyome.org)

Certified California Naturalist

Policy Director

RECENT ARTICLES

By Nate Lillge October 2, 2025
Tuleyome was excited to be back in the field at Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve. Volunteers installed a Chronolog station that will help monitor restoration efforts on the Blue Ridge Trail. This station - a post next to the trail that encourages hikers to take a photo - will help UC Reserve System document the changes at the site without large amounts of resources and time dedicated to monitoring. You can be a part of restoration efforts by taking a photo at the station. Thanks to our volunteers who joined us! Photos from the day are available on Flickr . Check out our website for more chances to help Tuleyome maintain trails! More information about Chronolog can be found on their website . There are currently two cameras at Stebbins - one monitoring big leaf maples and this one on the Blue Ridge Trail . Head to Stebbins and be a part of the restoration efforts!
By Geoff Benn October 2, 2025
Interns Diego, Ellen, and Rithika on the Rotary Pavilion at the Preserve Tuleyome is excited to welcome three new Horticultural Interns for Fall 2025! This is our second year offering this internship, where we pair college students with mentors at Woodland Regional Park Preserve to assist with projects including invasive plant removal, native plantings, and native species monitoring. This year’s cohort includes three UC Davis Environmental Science and Management majors – senior Diego Barraza and sophomores Ellen Jenkins and Rithika Warrier. They will be mentored by longtime Preserve volunteers Jennifer Hogan and Teri Barry. Over the course of the Fall Quarter, the interns will join volunteer crews for work days at the Preserve, providing opportunities for both skill development and networking. The Preserve, which opened to the public in May 2025, is a restored former landfill site that was developed into nature preserve to provide outdoor education opportunities and to protect the rare and endangered plants found on the site. The Preserve is a collaborative effort by the City of Woodland, Tuleyome, Yolo Habitat Conservancy, Rotary clubs, and other local organizations and volunteers. If you have any questions about the internship program or Tuleyome’s work at the Preserve, please contact Geoff Benn at gbenn@tuleyome.org.
By Bryan Pride October 2, 2025
Thank you to everyone who submitted comments on the proposed rescission of the Roadless Rule and the USDA reorganization. We've cycled through several comment periods over the recent months, including the current open comment period for the rescission of the Public Lands Rule . Your voices joined half a million people who participated in the Roadless Rule comment period with 99% of comments supporting protection of our forest by keeping them roadless. This level of engagement shows the administration that we the people are paying attention. But our work isn’t done. Even though we defeated Senator Lee’s amendment to sell off public lands in the Big Beautiful Bill, the administration is still pursuing that same goal through a more coordinated attack. The mass firing of federal employees, efforts to rescind the Roadless Rule , the Public Lands Rule , and the proposed reorganization of USDA create the conditions necessary for unprecedented extraction from and eventual sale of our public lands. What we're witnessing isn't a series of isolated policy changes, it's a coordinated strategy with the "Big Beautiful Bill" connecting each attack on our public lands. The Strategy The sale of public lands started with DOGE’s mass firing of thousands of experienced Forest Service rangers, BLM land managers, and National Park employees, dedicated public servants who had built expertise from boots-on-the-ground field work to policy development roles. The loss of these public servants also means the elimination of institutional knowledge of what sustainable land management looks like in practice. The administration then moved to make these cuts permanent by closing and selling federal office buildings. The Ukiah BLM office , which manages the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument was initially threatened with closure but was eventually removed from the list. Removing the land managers was only one part of the plan. The Big Beautiful Bill passed through Congress with devastating budgetary cuts and protocol mandates for public lands and national forests. The bill, now signed into law, mandates destructive logging quotas : 250 million board feet annually from National Forests and 20 million board feet from BLM lands, with annual quota increases through 2034. The bill also requires agencies to award 20-year logging contracts to private companies, locking in extraction commitments through 2046. Logging levels this high haven't been seen since the 1900s. While the Big Beautiful Bill is now law, agencies cannot implement these logging and extraction mandates unless existing protective regulations, the Roadless Rule and the Public Lands Rule, are rescinded. These rules prevent the Big Beautiful Bill’s quotas from being implemented, which strongly suggests why the administration is moving to eliminate them. The Roadless Rule has coexisted with national forest logging for 25 years. The Rule protects 58.5 million acres of sensitive forest by preventing new road construction in designated roadless areas, while allowing logging to continue in areas with existing roads. However, the mandatory extraction quotas in the Big Beautiful Bill require access to previously untouched, sensitive areas. Meeting these dramatically increased quotas means building roads through currently protected roadless areas. Rescinding the Roadless Rule is a prerequisite for implementing the Big Beautiful Bill’s mandates. The Public Lands Rule recognizes conservation as a legitimate form of multiple use alongside grazing, mining, logging and recreation. The Public Lands Rule hasn’t stopped these uses, it requires that these activities be managed sustainably to protect long-term land health. However, the mandatory extraction minimum in the Big Beautiful Bill prioritizes meeting quotas over sustainable management. Rescinding the Public Lands Rule removes the requirement to balance extraction with conservation, making it possible to prioritize extraction regardless of long-term impacts on public lands. The USDA reorganization completes the strategy by eliminating local expertise, moving California’s forest management out of state. With no local forester position to resist unsustainable quotas or provide expertise about our unique ecosystems, implementation of new extraction protocols becomes inevitable. The sequence reveals the coordination: eliminate the people who understand sustainable management, pass legislation mandating unprecedented extraction, then remove the regulatory barriers that would prevent implementation. Why This Matters Now The Big Beautiful Bill's extraction mandates are already law, but they cannot be implemented while protective rules remain in place. These rules alone make it nearly impossible for the administration to enforce the newly set and unprecedented logging quotas. The protective rules that would prevent devastating extraction practices are under attack. Without these regulatory protections, the already-passed mandates will transform our public lands in ways that may be irreversible. Help speak for our public lands and take action to protect conservation by signing on to Tuleyome’s petition opposing the rescission of the Public Lands Rule, and/or submit comments directly on the Federal Register , you have until November 10th. For more information on how to participate in the public comment process or other advocacy opportunities, contact Bryan Pride Breaking News: Federal Government Shutdown The federal government shut down at 12:01 AM on Wednesday, October 1, 2025. National Parks and public lands will remain open to the public, though each location will vary in the number of staff present. USFS and BLM will have reduced staff at both field offices and regional offices. Some staff will be furloughed, while others may be working without pay. Offices such as the Bureau of Reclamation have the ability to run and operate Lake Berryessa activities for at least two weeks due to their access to discretionary funds, this is not a reality for all agencies. It is fire season. The Department of Interior and Department of Agriculture both released contingency plans for the lapse in federal funding. Both plans state that personnel directly related to wildfire response will largely be exempt from furloughs. The DOI's plan said National Park Service employees involved in fire suppression or fire monitoring activities will not be furloughed. USDA's plan said that employees who respond to and prepare for wildland fires will not be furloughed. Furloughs will still affect employees who are red-carded, or have wildland fire incident qualifications, but whose wildfire duties are secondary to their primary duties . During the government shutdown, some services may not be available or will be delayed. With reduced ranger presence on public lands, take extra precautions: don't hike alone, let someone know your plans, and be sure to pack out what you pack in.