Perspective: Diverse groups worked together on a plan to save the greater sage grouse. The U.S. should leave the plan alone.

In Colorado and the West we know how to solve problems. It takes hard, face-to-face work, sitting down together to hash out compromises.

I had a front row seat to one of the country’s largest conservation efforts ever completed. I was a member and then the chairwoman of the Northwest Colorado Resource Advisory Council, one of three citizen advisory councils working with the Bureau of Land Management in Colorado. The council, along with other Westerners from a wide array of backgrounds, weighed in on how to restore greater sage grouse populations while keeping public lands open to multiple uses.

We were faced with the unpalatable possibility that the greater sage grouse was headed toward a listing as an endangered species, so Western states kicked it into high gear and got to work. Hunters, ranchers, energy industry representatives, local and state government officials and conservation organizations sat down with federal land management agencies to develop a plan to avoid the need to list greater sage grouse as an endangered species. This was a gargantuan task and resulted in a hard-won compromise in 2015 when state plans across the West were completed and we got ready to implement those plans.

Then the current administration pulled the rug out from under this ground-up plan, betraying all those hours of hard work by the stakeholders.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke directed the Bureau of Land Management to review the greater-sage-grouse conservation plans and quickly finalize alternative plans for each state. The BLM is taking public comments until Aug. 2 on a proposed overhaul of the plans.

Since the review began it has been clear this administration wants to make major changes that will weaken safeguards for the bird and its habitat. In particular, the changes would eliminate requirements to make science-based decisions. This can only drive us backward towards a listing. An ironic move, given the main purpose of the conservation plans was to avoid the need to list the greater-sage- grouse.

Many Coloradans might wonder why all the hubbub for this chicken-sized bird. One answer is that it’s an iconic Western species that is in great peril. Greater sage grouse used to number in the millions across the West, but energy development, fire, invasive species like cheatgrass and urbanization have diminished its habitat as well as its numbers, now somewhere below a half million total. Another answer is that greater sage grouse are a bellwether species whose fate is intertwined with the more than 350 species that rely on sagebrush lands. These lands provide crucial winter range and migration corridors for big game, including pronghorn, elk and mule deer.

All these species would benefit from the greater sage grouse conservation plans and stand to lose if the plans are weakened. Indeed, many around the West see sage grouse as the canary in the coal mine for the health of these iconic lands. One other possibility is that by weakening the sage grouse protections, the Department of Interior is intentionally courting lawsuits which in turn could provide a political platform to weaken or eliminate the Endangered Species Act.

Over the last year, Interior has asked members of the public for their thoughts on these conservation plans. Time and again people in Colorado and around the West have made their wishes known through hundreds of thousands of written comments and during open houses: they want to see these plans given a chance to work. If they need to be adjusted, fine, we’ll come back together and do the hard work after we see them in action.

This was the deal made by the Interior with the West and we’d like to see the deal honored. The public and stakeholders who participated in the process for several years wonder how many times we need to say we want to give the plans a chance. The question I have for the Department of Interior is: Are you listening? Can you hear us now?