The NEMO planning area is one of three major planning areas (others being WEMO & NECO) within the 12-million acre, 1976 congressionally-designated, California Desert Conservation Area (CDCA). The CDCA Plan is based on land-use management by geographic zones, i.e. the types of uses that are appropriate in light of existing resource values. Since 1976, the listing of federal and state endangered species within the CDCA, and the passage of the 1994 California Desert Protection Act (CDPA), has affected the land management of millions of acres of public lands in the CDCA.

The purpose of the NEMO Plan is to:

What is "NEMO"? The NEMO planning area encompasses 3.3 million acres of land of which 2.7 million acres are public lands within the CDCA. This spectacularly diverse area is located in the Mojave Desert in southeastern California adjacent to Nevada. It is characterized by several north-south trending, parallel mountain ranges separated by narrow valleys in the north and by wide valleys in the south. The planning area is considered to contain parts of both the Great Basin and Mojave Deserts. BLM-managed public lands in the planning area exist in three distinct and geographically separated regions. The public lands in the NEMO planning area are intermingled with private and state holdings, but exist generally in three large blocks split by two large National Park Service Units: Death Valley National Park and the Mojave National Preserve. The NEMO borders Nevada on the east, Fort Irwin and the West Mojave planning area on the west, and I-40 and the Northern and Eastern Colorado planning area on the south. The northern planning area boundary is the CDCA boundary, formed along the northern end of the Inyo Mountains and its adjacent valleys. The Bureau of Land Management, under the jurisdiction of the Las Vegas Field Office, also manages most of the adjacent land in Nevada. © 2003 NPLnews

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1. Adopt standards for public land health and guidelines for grazing management;

2. Recover one federally threatened species, the desert tortoise;

3. Conserve one federally endangered, endemic species, the Amargosa vole;

4. Conserve two plants, the federally endangered Amargosa niterwort and the federally threatened Ash Meadows gumplant;

5. Conserve approximately 15 special status plants and animals and natural communities;

6. Incorporate designations and address unresolved issues from the 1994 California Desert Protection Act, including Multiple Use Class (MUC) zoning of released lands and a strategy for the Barstow-to-Vegas (B to V) race course;

7. Designate routes of travel;

8. Adopt zoning adjustments for landfills on public lands;

9. Identify eligible rivers for the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System


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The NEMO planning effort has been developed in response to U.S Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) recovery plans for the federally and state listed desert tortoise and Amargosa vole, and taking into account changes made to the CDCA Plan in light of the legislative provisions of the 1994 CDPA.

More Dox: Decision: NEMO Route Designation Project Federal Register Notice: August 23, 2002. Decision: Northern & Eastern Mojave Plan/EIS Index: Final Northern & Eastern Mojave Plan/EIS Index: Draft Northern & Eastern Mojave Plan/EIS

BENEFITS OF THE NEMO PLAN

• Adopt public land health standards for all resources and uses on the public lands in the Northern and Eastern Mojave planning area and grazing guidelines to be consistent with Departmental guidance and provide a landscape basis for resource management.
• Achieve recovery of the desert tortoise in the Eastern Mojave Recovery Unit 6 and comply with the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
• Recover the locally endemic Amargosa vole, preserve its remaining habitat, and comply with the ESA.
• Protect listed and other sensitive plant species and comply with the ESA.
• Protect sensitive bat species and habitat in the Silurian Hills area, particularly during times when roosting and reproduction is occurring.
• Provide multiple-use zoning of the public lands that have previously been under interim management for wilderness review, and have now been released from wilderness consideration.

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