Long before dams were constructed on the Owyhee River, the current carved a series of deep canyons and ravines through the southeastern corner of Oregon, carrying salmon all the way to Nevada. Greater sage grouse, pronghorn, redband trout and more than 200 other species of wildlife live in the Owyhee Canyonlands today, as do 28 species of rare and endemic plants. The canyonlands’ rock spires and rolling sagebrush hills are also the ancestral homelands of the Northern Paiute, Shoshone and Bannock tribes. “That land is significant to us,” said Gary McKinney (Duck Valley Shoshone-Paiute) of the People of Red Mountain, a committee of traditional knowledge keepers and descendants of the Fort McDermitt Paiute, Shoshone and Bannock tribes.
Though the region has been under consideration for broad, permanent protection for nearly a century, much of it is currently managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) under a patchwork of designations, including wilderness study areas and areas of critical environmental concern. “For a long time, the remoteness of it has protected it,” said Tim Davis, a lifelong resident of Malheur County who runs Friends of the Owyhee, a conservation group. “But it’s not that way really anymore.”
“For a long time, the remoteness of it has protected it, but it’s not that way really anymore.”
Invasive weeds that fuel wildfires are spreading. Mining and solar projects are taking shape nearby. And the fast growth of nearby Boise, Idaho, and the Treasure Valley area has sparked a recreation boom in the Owyhee, which lacks the infrastructure to support that kind of visitation. “People think that public land across the United States is available for more settlement, and in doing so, they destroy the natural beauty of those few remaining lands that are wild and scenic,” said Wilson Wewa (Northern Paiute), a spiritual leader and member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Council.
Advocates are pursuing two possible routes to protect the area: a national monument and a wilderness designation, each of which would cover about 1.1 million acres. The Owyhee is one of the largest wilderness proposal now before Congress and the largest national monument currently proposed nationwide. But the slow stop-and-start progress of both proposals reflects the complex reality of large landscape conservation in the 21st century.
IN LATE FEBRUARY 2024, an amendment to a BLM resource management plan for the Owyhee region designated over 417,000 acres as “protected lands with wilderness characteristics,” or LWCs. While LWCs have no nationwide management standard, off-road vehicles, roads and energy facilities will be prohibited in the Owyhee LWCs. Many of these lands share a border with or connect existing wilderness study areas managed under the same guidelines, comprising 1.7 million acres of almost-wilderness. “Even if everything stops right now, we would be thrilled to see that the BLM has stepped up in this way,” said Ryan Houston, the executive director of the Oregon Natural Desert Association.
But this expansion of protections isn’t a forever fix. Resource management plans generally last only 20 to 30 years, and managing for “wilderness characteristics” isn’t the same as a formal wilderness designation; mining, for example, is not prohibited in the Owyhee LWCs.
The proposed Malheur Community Empowerment for the Owyhee Act legislation, first introduced by Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, both Democrats, in 2019, would designate over 1.1 million acres of wilderness, much of which is already a WSA. It would transfer a separate 27,000 acres into a trust for the Burns Paiute Tribe and establish co-management by the tribe and the BLM on roughly 10,000 additional acres nearby. In exchange, it would release about 175,000 acres of land from WSA protections, meaning that the BLM could consider other uses, including energy development or recreation, in those areas. Wyden and Merkley gathered broad support for the bill by arranging meetings with ranchers, members of the Burns Paiute Tribe, representatives of recreational, hunting and conservation groups, and local business owners.
The national monument coalition includes most of the same legislative players and organizations. The proposal is based on the wilderness legislation, with similar acreage. It would take mineral development off the table but not transfer treaty trust lands to the Burns Paiute. (Trust lands cannot be transferred through a monument designation, although a similar transfer could be arranged through separate legislation.) Hunting and fishing, the use of existing roads and livestock grazing would all continue in the monument, but though existing grazing leases, hunting and fishing would also be grandfathered into wilderness, motorized vehicles would not be allowed.
Support for comprehensive and permanent protection of the Owyhee Canyonlands is nothing new; area tribes have known of the land’s importance for over 100,000 years. Federal employees discussed the idea of protecting what was deemed to be “a region of outstanding recreational importance” at a national outdoor recreation conference back in 1928, and Bob Marshall’s 1936 inventory of large roadless areas, many of which are protected as wilderness today, included the Owyhee region.
The Clinton administration considered establishing a 2.7 million-acre national monument in the ’90s, and wilderness areas and national monuments of varying sizes were proposed with some local support in 2012, 2014 and 2015. Community conversations about protecting the Owyhee stalled after the occupation of the nearby Malheur National Wildlife Refuge by armed protesters in 2016, but wilderness legislation re-emerged in 2019, and Wyden and Merkley’s bill finally got a committee hearing in December 2023. “I think people just want a voice,” Wewa said. “And when people have a voice, I think wonderful things can happen.”
“I think people just want a voice. And when people have a voice, I think wonderful things can happen.”
THE PROBLEM WITH locally led campaigns for public-land protections is that they can only get so far without help from Washington, D.C. “A beautiful landscape like this is always in the hands of (federal) policymakers and decisionmakers,” McKinney said. Only the president can designate a monument, and only Congress can create a formal wilderness area. Dan Smuts, The Wilderness Society’s Pacific Region director, says there are alternatives to these two paths: Land can be withdrawn from development by the secretary of the Interior, while changes to agency rules and state-level initiatives can help protect large landscapes. But none of these options offers the same permanence, or prominence, as a monument or wilderness area.
Support for permanent federal protection is not universal in southeastern Oregon: the “Our Land Our Voice” group, for example, opposes a federally designated monument or wilderness area. But other locals say they like both options as an alternative to the current hodgepodge of temporary protections.
When asked his opinion, Davis called it a “trick question” — each choice is better than the status quo. McKinney sees the wilderness legislation as the best way to protect water, but the monument as the best opportunity for tribes to have additional input. Wewa has traveled to D.C. from the Warm Springs Reservation to lobby senators and congresspeople to support a monument designation. He’d like to see a monument established with a tribal co-management agreement similar to the agreement for Bears Ears National Monument.
Wilderness faces a divided Congress: While the Owyhee legislation passed the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in December with bipartisan support, it now awaits action on the Senate floor. Passage through the House of Representatives appears unlikely. “Wilderness with a capital W is such a buzzword that people have knee-jerk reactions to it,” said Houston. “It’s challenging politically.”
“Wilderness with a capital W is such a buzzword that people have knee-jerk reactions to it. It’s challenging politically.”
A national monument might have a better chance. “That’s why we’re running that parallel path,” Davis said. President Joe Biden has designated five new national monuments so far, protecting a total of 1.5 million acres of public land, but numerous monument proposals are jostling for approval now, in the final months of his term.
Owyhee advocates say it’s urgent to establish permanent protection before the end of the year, when Congress adjourns and when a new president may take office. “Things change, and then you have to take a step back and gain momentum again,” Davis said. “It’s been going that way for years and years in this landscape. I feel it’s got stronger potential right now than it ever has.”
Note: This story was updated to correct when the Owyhee legislation passed the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources as well as the amount of acreage released from WSA protection.
This story is part of High Country News’ Conservation Beyond Boundaries project, which is supported by the BAND Foundation.
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