This Week at Interior October 18, 2024

Hello, I’m BLM Colorado State Director Doug Vilsack, here at Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, and you’re watching This Week at Interior!

This Week at Interior  

Secretary Haaland was in New Mexico and Colorado this week to highlight how President Biden’s Investing in America agenda is restoring public lands and waters, strengthening Indian Country and the use of Indigenous Knowledge, and building a next-generation conservation workforce through the Indian Youth Service Corps–part of the President’s new American Climate Corps. In New Mexico's Acoma Pueblo, she highlighted a $480,000 grant to advance the Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps – or ALCC’s - food sovereignty and historic preservation projects in collaboration with its partners. Later, the Secretary traveled to Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in Colorado to meet with their ALCC trail crew. The Monument, managed by the Bureau of Land Management, contains the highest known cultural site density in the country. And at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, she joined another ALCC team to learn how the park has been connecting Indian Youth Service Corps members with their ancestral lands through work in different aspects of preservation and interpretation.

Interior, the California Natural Resource Agency and other stakeholders this week broke ground on the latest phase of the Salton Sea Species Conservation Habitat Project, funded in part through the President’s Investing in America agenda. The Bureau of Reclamation is investing $250 million through the Inflation Reduction Act over 5 years to fast-track implementation of the state’s 10-year plan for dust suppression and aquatic restoration, while enabling urgent water conservation.

Interior this week announced significant strides in expanding geothermal energy on public lands, an abundant clean energy resource with tremendous potential to help the country meet the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035. Among the progressed announced, the Bureau of Land Management approved the Fervo Cape Geothermal Power Project in Beaver County, Utah, which will use innovative technology to generate up to 2 gigawatts, enough to power 2 million homes.  

Interior this week signed three landmark agreements with Alaska Native Tribes and Corporations to advance co-stewardship and safeguard salmon within the Yukon, Kuskokwim, and Norton Sound regions through the Department’s Gravel to Gravel Keystone Initiative. The move also improves management of easements that provide access to public lands and waters across privately owned Ahtna lands.  

Interior and the Department of Agriculture this week announced a final rule to strengthen Alaska Tribal representation on the Federal Subsistence Board or FSB, which manages subsistence use on federal lands and waters in Alaska. The final changes to the FSB reflect the meaningful role of Tribal consultation and the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to engaging directly with Tribal leaders when making decisions that impact their communities.  

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week awarded more than $6.4 million to federally recognized Tribes to benefit fish and wildlife resources and their habitats. This year’s funding will support 35 Tribes for conservation projects across 15 states, benefiting a wide range of wildlife and habitat, including species of cultural or traditional importance to Indigenous communities.  

It’s National Wildlife Refuge Week -- a time for Americans coast-to-coast to get outdoors and enjoy the nation’s largest network of public lands dedicated to wildlife conservation and managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Since 1903, national wildlife refuges have offered access to a host of popular activities while providing vital habitat for thousands of wildlife species.

And our social media Picture of the Week, this big hairy fellow at Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It's a muskox, or "oomingmak" in the Iñupiat language, which means "the bearded one." It's a name that honors their long, flowing fur, perfect for offering protection against the relentless Arctic cold.

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That's This Week at Interior!