Colorado’s Northwest Region Resource Advisory Council (RAC) gathered at North Sand Hills. Photo Courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management.
As of Tuesday, August 8, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is officially seeking nominations for the resource advisory councils (RAC) in the state’s Northwest, Southwest and Rocky Mountain regions. Nominees, if selected, would fill existing and upcoming vacancies on the advisory councils in January of 2024.
Chaffee County sits on the far west edge of Colorado’s Rocky Mountain region. Each resource advisory council consists of 15 citizens, representative of the wide range of stakeholders in land usage, from ranchers to farmers, local legislators to outdoors recreation enthusiasts. Advisory council members are responsible for advising the BLM on public land usage.
Interested parties can nominate themselves or others for the vacant council positions.
According to the official statewide call for nominees on the Federal Register, “The BLM will evaluate nominees based on their education, training, experience, and knowledge of the geographic area of the RAC. Nominees should demonstrate a commitment to collaborative resource decision-making.”
All nominations must be sent into the proper BLM regional representatives no later than September 8. The necessary contact information can be found at the above linked Federal Register notice webpage, or at the bottom of this article.
A map of Colorado’s four BLM districts. Photo courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management.
Resource advisory groups like these are vital to providing a federal agency—the BLM is a part of the U.S. Department of the Interior—with local perspectives on land usage that impacts, first and foremost, its current residents and stakeholders.
There are three types of positions open, applicant’s eligibility for which is determined by what sort of stakeholding interest a nominee holds.
Category one positions are available to citizens with grazing permits and leases within a given region, citizens involved with energy and mineral development interests, the commercial timber industry, or those associated with transportation, rights-of-way, off-highway vehicle usage, or commercial recreation.
Category two positions are available for representatives of national or regional environmental organizations, archaeological and historical outfits, dispersed recreation activities and national/regional horse and burro groups.
Those eligible for Category three positions on the council are individuals who hold an elected position at the state, county or local level, are employed by a state resource (land, mineral, water, etc.) management organization, represent Indian Tribes, are academics in the field of natural resource management or the natural sciences and, finally, representatives of the public-at-large.
Those interested in the available positions in Colorado’s Northwest District, contact Elijah Waters at 970-570-0042 or ewaters@blm.gov.
Those interested in the available positions in Colorado’s Southwest District, contact D. Maggie Magee at 970-240-5323 or dmagee@blm.gov.
Those interested in the available positions in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain District, contact Levi Spellman at 719-269-8553 or lspellman@blm.gov.
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