According to a settlement made, the Bureau of Land Management will halt oil and gas leasing on 2.2 million acres of land in Colorado after being criticised by environmental activists and groups for not taking climate change into account. All new leasing in the area is currently halted.
The agreement demands the government carry out a fresh assessment of the effects of oil and gas leasing in the southwest area of Colorado.
Earlier, in the August 2020 lawsuit, the Sierra Club, Centre for Biological Diversity, and other parties claimed that the BLM violated the National Policy Act when the government approved its 20-year plan before taking a close look at the environmental aspects.
The groups further claimed that allowing leasing on certain lands would worsen the climate catastrophe and that later it’d be impossible to deal with its effects. Additionally, the groups also said that the government had not given enough thought to leasing and its effects.
The environmental organisations claim that BLM’s plan threatens the local way of life revolving around small-scale family farms, wineries, and leisure, and wildlife activities.
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A representative for the environmental organisation in conversation with Reuters said, “It’s absolutely crazy for the BLM to be considering a management plan that opens up 95 per cent of the available mineral estate in the area … without really confronting the issue of where we are in the climate crisis.”
The Gunnison sage-grouse, a huge bird with a small head and chunky body, is one of the least two endangered species that have prompted legal disputes over oil and gas production in the American West in the past.
There have been important legal triumphs made by the conservation groups in prior cases when they claimed that leasing endangered the birds.
(With inputs from agencies)
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