In September 2007, the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Bishop Field Office entered into a cooperative agreement with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to develop a Conservation Action Plan (CAP) for approximately 200,000 acres in California’s Bodie Hills and northern Mono Basin.

The two organizations, and many other stakeholders, aimed to conserve and restore the Bodie Hills by protecting and enhancing its unique and important ecological integrity. The Bodie Hills project area is a largely unfragmented landscape that includes a diversity of Great Basin ecosystems. Other than remnant buildings in Bodie State Historic Park, this tract of land has no major development. Moreover, major fires and invasive species have not yet overtaken the dominant sagebrush ecosystems, as they have done elsewhere in the Great Basin. BLM is the primary federal steward of western shrub and grasslands.

These intensely valuable eco-systems are under continuing pressure from both man-made and natural influences, making the BLM mission more and more difficult to attain. However, new resources are available to help the BLM achieve its goals and objectives related to the conservation and restoration of ecosystems. The CAP’s purpose was to inform and guide the formulation of future site-specific vegetation management projects to protect and enhance the ecological integrity of the area.

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