28th Annual Meeting and Symposium of the
Desert Tortoise Council, February 21-23, 2003
Abstracts

Recovery of the Desert Tortoise in the California Desert Conservation Area

Linda Hansen
District Manager, Bureau of Land Management, California Desert District, 22835 Calle San Juan De Los Lagos, Moreno Valley, CA 92553

The Bureau of Land Management, California Desert District has recently completed three of five scheduled regional plan amendments for the California Desert Conservation Area. The plan amendments establish a suite of management actions to be followed in conserving and recovering desert tortoise on public lands under the administration of the BLM. Public lands within the planning area will be managed in accordance with applicable laws, regulations and policies that comprise the overall desert tortoise recovery strategy.

The discussion will address the basics of the regional plan amendments and their relationship to other planning efforts, the establishment of the Desert Wildlife Management Areas (DWMAs) and their locations, the management actions to be applied within the DWMAs, implementation goals and objectives, and assumptions about resource needs to be allocated to the implementation.