by Senior Attorney Mac Lacy
Steens Mountain is an extraordinary place.
Known to the Northern Paiute as Tse’tse’ede, “the Cold One,” the mountain covers an ecologically distinctive, half-million acre landscape replete with specially protected public lands and rivers and a diversity of habitats essential to hundreds of species of fish and wildlife. Twenty years ago, in the Steens Act, Congress designated the first ever Cooperative Management and Protection Area to conserve the mountain for “future and present generations.” Managing the mountain under this innovative statute has not been without its challenges, but the law has kept its promise and continues to provide unique and important ways to protect and enjoy this inimitable landscape.
Here’s what I envision for Steens in the next twenty years.