Many of you have been asking questions about the “HMAP.” We have been referencing this mandatory NEPA document in action items and articles for several years now, the Herd Management Area Plan (HMAP)

However, there still seems to be a lot of confusion. We present this article to try to break through.

In much the same way that BLM attempts to obfuscate the fact that they do not actually have an enforceable welfare policy, the same is done with management planning, the HMAP. (BLM took welfare standards into an entirely internal process where they claim a welfare “policy” that is not actually policy. Policy is enforceable; BLM has non-formalized internal standards that are not enforceable. BLM simply failed to take the path they would for any other policy. Read more HERE)

Simply stated: BLM is mandated to manage humanely. Removal and stockpiling is not management. Removal plans (Gather-Environmental Assessments) are not HMAP – Environmental Assessments). We need BLM to to stop skipping HMAPs.

BLM does not skip Allotment Management Plans (AMP) for livestock. The AMP is where all of the goals, objectives and options are outlined. The AMP is both guided by and informs the larger Land Use Plan for the district.

When an advocate says “Wild horses and burros are removed to suit planning for livestock and mining,” it is not rhetoric. The lack of equity in how BLM crafts management documents bears this out as a truth.

What is the HMAP and why is it important to understand

The HMAP is the most important management planning document for wild horse and burro herds. Herd management area plans are the only management document for wild horses noted in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). 

When a law is passed by Congress it is then codified (regulations) that mandate how a law will be carried out. 

§ 4710.4. The authorized officer shall prepare a herd management area plan, which may cover one or more herd management areas. (The “shall” is an important word. This removes what is called discretionary powers that would allow them to ignore the CFR. A “may” implies discretion. A “shall” is a mandate.)

BLM does not deny that they need to create HMAPs or how. They just claim the law does not say when they need to (specifically) do them. For the overwhelming vast majority of herds they never did them and jump right to roundup plans. What defines a need for removal should be outlined in the HMAP. Many people mistakenly think “excess” means a number over what BLM calls Appropriate Management Level (AML), and it doesn’t. Courts have ruled many times that a determination of “excess” requires analysis of factors beyond numbers (BLM does not disagree with this statement).

In the last BLM Report to Congress in 2020, BLM defines the HMAP this way:

Every major management activity that occurs on HMAs starts with the NEPA process. Herd Management Area Plans (HMAPs) summarize the management goals for an HMA and the anticipated actions required to achieve those goals… The process of developing and updating these plans would continue to provide the opportunity to inform and involve the public in determining the best actions to take on an HMA into the future.

Just as with surveys and monitoring, HMAP development is a key component in the decisionmaking process for BLM’s wild horse and burro management activities on the ground. In addition, these documents often include public involvement through the NEPA process.

In 2020, BLM claimed to be spending about $400,000. on HMAP development each year. Have you seen a bunch of HMAPs go out for scoping that would indicate BLM is spending that much money on HMAPs? We have not, because they have not.

In truth, of the 177 Herd Management Areas (HMAs) BLM manages, the overwhelming majority never had even a bare bones HMAP.  The few that did have HMAPs, those were written in the 70s and 80s and never followed through on or updated. Right now, there are less than a dozen (updated) HMAPs in the country.

Wild horses and burros are to be managed as integral to the system of public lands (that is the law). When we hear that phrase we often simply think about the physical landscape. But the system itself is basically a series of site and use-specific management plans (like puzzle pieces) fitted together into Land Use Planning (LUP). The LUP is seen as the existing blueprint that would guide approval of any new plans for each use/resource in the District.

§ 4700.0-6 Policy.

Example: A grazing allotment historically exists under terms and conditions outlined in a grazing permit. That area is noted in the LUP. If changes are proposed in the permit, does the LUP, informed by the existing permit, allow such changes? (more below, keep reading)

An HMAP would essentially create the “integral to the natural system” management piece of the planning puzzle for wild horses and burros. The piece that makes management practices “comparable.” Without side-by-side management plans to integrate, there is nothing to “compare” or balance in a multiple use system.

The HMAP would note all existing data, how boundaries are set, an actual equation that determined forage allocation, any studies that were needed or where data was deficient to determine a set goal, etc. Basically anything that was necessary to manage an area in a site-specific plan (things like foaling season, genetics, is fertility control something to consider and what kind, when would industry be limited in order to to protect habitat critical to the herd, triggers for removal, etc.).

The HMAP would then inform the LUP (like the livestock permit did or the mining plans, etc.). If an action were to be proposed such as a roundup, does the roundup comply with the HMAP and LUP?

After a law is codified, federal agencies create handbooks to guide employees to comply with law.

BLM handbook states:

Herd Management Area Plans (HMAPs) identify and set objectives for WH&B herds and their habitat. HMAPs are prepared with public involvement through a site-specific environmental analysis and decision process (NEPA). During the NEPA process, the environmental impacts associated with a range of alternative management strategies for the WH&B herd and its habitat is analyzed. The approved HMAP outlines the selected management actions, together with the management and monitoring objectives which, when implemented, would make progress toward achieving land health standards, LUP goals/objectives, and other relevant objectives.

Instead, BLM made temporary agreements about boundaries, stocking numbers, forage, etc., saying the HMAP would be done “later” because they did not have time to get them all done.

BLM simply stopped doing HMAPs, where the public would have a say in how wild horses and burros were actually managed. Instead, they started crafting bigger and bigger roundup plans and extended those one-year plans to ten-year plans. By doing this, BLM cut the public completely out of any conversation that involved actual management, placated the old agreements with industry and have kept wild horses and burros from ever becoming “integral” to the system itself.

BLM has basically created their own set of internal processes for wild horses. They follow the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and all standard NEPA practices for everything from huge open-pit mines to Christmas tree cutting. They do not do it for wild horses and burros.

Antelope Complex: Not one of the HMAs in the over 1 million acre complex has ever had a transparent HMAP process with public comment, just removal plans.

Example: BLM NV manages 83 HMAs. Only 1 has an active/updated HMAP that was crafted only after litigation in 2013.

The Pine Nut HMAP was finalized in 2017. That HMAP contains a provision that a small area BLM removed for horse use (Fish Springs) could be considered for management again if certain conditions are met (like the fertility control and keeping horses from going into encroaching housing developments). Without the HMAP, that area would have been zeroed out (all horses removed).

Without the public scoping period, that comes before the HMAP, the public never would have had a chance to propose the option for management of the Fish Springs area of the Pine Nut HMA.

Carter

In areas like Carter Reservoir, where incredibly old and distinct genetics dominate this tiny herd, scoping for an HMAP would (finally) formally open up the discussion to create a management plan to protect the herd. An HMAP would begin a conversation on genetics and what habitat also needs to be preserved to protect this herd. (Carter is a mess today. BLM only set aside 23,468 acres for the Carter horses, behind politically-set boundaries using zero data on herd movement, and set the Appropriate Management Level (AML), the number BLM says can be on the range, at only 25-35. That is not enough of any animal to protect genetic stability.)

Triple B

In areas like Triple B, massive amounts of territory designated for use by wild horses are being lost to mining that is expanding at breakneck speed. About 30% of one HMA will be lost to one mine expansion as another is planned that will directly impact over 10% this year. Because there is no HMAP that designates how horses use the HMA, what habitat is critical to their survival or seasonal migration, there is no legal leg to stand on as we try to mitigate the damages to the herd (nothing to push water improvements, corridors in fencing, nothing).

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In areas like Oatman, an HMAP could propose a viewing loop and kiosk to offer tourists an opportunity to easily see burros and help minimize vehicle collisions and habituation to towns. (more HERE)

We sincerely hope this article can clarify the HMAP is the place you would propose alternative after BLM discloses data. In other words, all of the things they prohibit you from commenting on in a “Gather-EA.”

By skipping the HMAP and going right to a roundup plan, BLM has made all of the actual “management” decisions already and all you can comment on is removal. If you comment on anything else, you are told it is outside the “scope” of the proposed decision (removal). If you want BLM to disclose how they created a forage allocation or AML? They simply state “affirmed in the LUP” and “outside the scope.” What they mean by “affirmed” is that they simply carried over the number they agreed on under political pressure from livestock after the Act was passed, not that they ever disclosed the data or allowed public comment in an HMAP… because there probably isn’t one.

Basically, the HMAP would be where you could raise all of the issues that frustrate you and you are denied, again and again, any place to engage.

Simplistic example: An HMAP does not “get the cows out.” But it is the place where the conversation would happen to determine factors that would limit or omit domestic livestock. It gives you a chance to make that comment in a document where the comment is relevant and BLM has to address it. Today, you don’t have the opportunity to have your comment addressed at all.

§ 4710.5 Closure to livestock grazing.

We need your help to continue to document, expose, work toward reform with lawmakers and litigate. Our wild ones deserve to live free on the range and free from abuse.

Thank you for keeping WHE on the frontline in the fight to protect and preserve our treasured wild ones.