Author: Bill Marlett | Published: October 30, 2025 | Category: In the News
This guest column originally appeared in The Bulletin on October 24, 2025.
Looking Back on a Landmark Achievement
Twenty-five years ago this month, something remarkable happened in Oregon’s high desert. On October 30, 2000, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Act, safeguarding the crown jewel of Oregon’s sagebrush sea.
In a region often marked by conflict over public lands management, the Steens Act stands out as a rare success in the West. Ranchers, landowners, tribal members, and conservationists united to protect a place we all respect and cherish, thanks to local collaboration and bipartisan leadership.
Rising a mile above the Alvord Desert, Steens Mountain is the largest fault-block mountain in the northern Great Basin—a landscape of dramatic geology and exceptional biodiversity, where mule deer, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, sage-grouse, and redband trout depend on an intricate web of thriving ecosystems.
For generations, this extraordinary place has inspired Oregonians to explore, reflect, and create lasting memories. Yet long before those journeys, it was—and remains—the ancestral homeland of the Burns Paiute Tribe, shaped by thousands of years of culture and tradition.
A Landmark Act
The Steens Act withdrew over one million acres of public lands from mining and created the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area on nearly 500,000 acres. Within this area, Congress designated 175,000 acres as the Steens Mountain Wilderness—98,000 of which are “cow-free,” the first and only legislated cow-free wilderness in the nation—plus 29 miles of Wild and Scenic Rivers and a Redband Trout Reserve on the Donner und Blitzen River.
What truly set the Steens Act apart, however, wasn’t just the lands, waters and wildlife it protected—it was how it happened. The catalyst came from Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who announced he would recommend that President Clinton use the Antiquities Act to create a national monument as part of the administration’s conservation legacy.
In response, Oregon’s political leaders, landowners, ranchers, tribal members, and conservationists came together to craft a homegrown legislative solution. At the 11th hour, we reached an agreement, and Congress passed the Steens Act in a moment of bipartisan unity.
A Work in Progress
Protecting the landscape on paper was only the beginning. While the Act’s cooperative approach was innovative, management has often been challenging. Conflicts over unnecessary two-track routes, inappropriate livestock grazing and energy development continue to spark controversy.
Although the Act halted geothermal development in the Alvord Desert, conservationists had to fight to stop a massive wind farm from being sited atop Steens Mountain—a reminder that protections on paper require ongoing vigilance on the ground.
By design, the Act was intended to be a starting point, not the finish line. Nearly 130,000 acres of wilderness-quality lands are waiting for permanent protection. Private lands continue to block public access to parts of the mountain or face potential development threats.
Finishing the Job
The legislative vision embedded in the Steens Act is to conserve, protect, and manage the long-term ecological integrity of Steens Mountain for present and future generations—whether by restoring natural fire regimes, controlling expanding juniper, or protecting wilderness values.
The Act authorized $25 million for cooperative agreements and land acquisitions to link public and private lands, yet not a single dollar has been appropriated—an abdication that has stalled critical collaborative work.
On this 25th anniversary, Oregon’s congressional delegation has a chance to honor this vision by securing funding and advancing protection for the remaining wildlands on Steens. They can help finish the work we began.
Steens Mountain is more than a spectacular landscape. It reflects the “Oregon Way,” our ability to bridge political, cultural, and economic divides—and our shared promise to those who follow to rewild and protect a place of cultural and ecological significance.
From the days of Governor Tom McCall to today, Oregonians have stood up for the places we love—our wildlife, wildlands, and the freedom of open spaces. Let’s carry that legacy forward on Steens Mountain, ensuring it endures for generations to come.
—Bill Marlett, was a lead negotiator and co-author of the Steens Act during his tenure as Executive Director of the Oregon Natural Desert Association, and continues to serve as ONDA’s Senior Conservation Advisor.
