Ecos Want Military
Training Land Back

Environmental activists have turned their sights from ranchers to the military.

In 1986, Congress withdrew about seven million acres of public lands in Alaska, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico from the public lands for military training activities.

Environmental activists complain that the withdrawn areas — larger than the state of New Jersey — include public lands of spectacular beauty, designated wilderness, national wildlife refuges, habitat for endangered species and cultural resources thousands of years old.

The withdrawal expires in 2001.

While the Department of Defense trains on these lands, the natural resources are managed largely by the Bureau of Land Management.

The administration is rumored to be planning to turn the lands over to the Pentagon for another 50 to 100 years without Congressional review.

Environmental activists claim that DOD wants to control the management of public natural and cultural resources on all non-refuge lands within the withdrawal areas.

The DOD proposal would affect the Goldwater Range in southwest Arizona, located in the Sonoran desert. It includes the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and Wilderness, which, at more than 800,000 acres, is the largest wilderness refuge in the continental United States. It also includes habitat for the officially "endangered" Sonoran pronghorn antelope.

The DOD proposal would also affect the McGregor Range in southeastern New Mexico, which is a desert grassland on Otero Mesa and habitat for the "endangered" aplomado falcon and mountain plover.

In southern Nevada, the Nellis Range provides habitat for desert tortoise and bighorn sheep.

The environmentalists opposing such a move complain that the Department of Defense puts military training first and protection of public lands second.

The activists want the land under the control of the Department of Interior.