May 15, 2026 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SUWA Statement on proposed changes to the San Rafael Swell Recreation Area – 5.15.26
Amendments to Plan reduce conservation in favor of extractive development and off-road vehicle dominance
Contacts:
Grant Stevens, Communications Director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA); (319) 427-0260; grant@suwa.org
Salt Lake City, UT – Yesterday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released the final environmental assessment and proposed resource management plan (RMP) amendment for the San Rafael Swell Recreation Area and surrounding region. As a result of the 2019 Dingell Act, which included new land management designations and established the Recreation Area, the BLM was required to update its management plan for each of the affected areas. Below is a statement from SUWA Wildlands Director Neal Clark and additional information.
“We’re disappointed that BLM, at the behest of the Trump administration, squandered this opportunity to set out a proactive, comprehensive vision for resource protection and recreation management in the incredible San Rafael Swell and instead focused its energy and limited resources on rolling back existing protections to allow for more development and off-road vehicle abuse,” said Neal Clark, Wildlands Director at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “What’s more, instead of meaningfully engaging the public throughout the process, the BLM instead held a general scoping period more than 4 years ago and then jumped to a final decision that cuts out any opportunity for the public to weigh in on the specifics of its plan. The Trump administration practice of intentionally avoiding meaningful input and scrutiny is undemocratic and a disservice to public land users and this world-class landscape”
Additional information:
The John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, which was signed into law on March 12, 2019, designated 663,000 acres of BLM-managed wilderness within 17 new wilderness areas. In addition, the legislation established the 117,000-acre San Rafael Swell Recreation Area, added 63 miles of the Green River to the National Wild and Scenic River System, and designated the John Wesley Powell National Conservation Area and the Jurassic National Monument. Additional information can found here. SUWA members and supporters submitted comments to the BLM in late 2021 and early 2022 regarding the proposed RMP amendments.
In part, BLM’s RMP amendments:
- Remove over 12,000 acres of natural areas —wilderness quality lands managed to protect their wilderness values—located outside of designated wilderness to allow increased development and off-road vehicle use.
- Eliminate the San Rafael Swell Special Recreation Management Area (SRMA) and instead designate four new Extensive Recreation Management Areas (ERMAs), a less meaningful designation where recreation is not the primary management focus but instead is integrated into other land uses such as grazing and mineral development.
- Eliminate commonsense recreation management and resource protection requirements to pack out human waste, use fire pans, and not collect firewood at dispersed campsites
- Reduce or eliminate Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACECs) outside of designated wilderness that will allow for increased development and associated impacts in those areas, even after noting in their scoping document that they would “prioritize the protection and designation of ACECs”
- Reduce protections for visual resources in some areas to allow development that conflicts with maintaining scenic viewsheds.
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The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is a nonprofit organization with members and supporters from around the country dedicated to protecting America’s redrock wilderness. From offices in Moab, Salt Lake City, and Washington, DC, our team of professionals defends the redrock, organizes support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, and stewards a world-renowned landscape. Learn more at www.suwa.org.
