In December 2024, the Bureau of Land Management issued the Record of Decision and approved the Resource Management Plan for the Rock Springs Field Office. This plan was the culmination of over a decade of work and incorporated feedback from a wide array of stakeholders across Wyoming and beyond. It also designates almost one million acres as Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC). These are public lands that are deemed to require special management to protect important resources and values.
Little Sandy is one of the ACEC’s included in the Rock Spring RMP and spans 367,362 acres. It houses an area referred to by wildlife managers as “the Golden Triangle”, recognized locally for its unparalleled biodiversity richness and important wildlife habitat, including big game migration corridors. Little Sandy is also within one of the last remaining high-elevation deserts in the United States and in the greater Red Desert area, which has been a sacred landscape for thousands of years to more than 49 Tribes with ancestral and maintained ties to the unique region. The area overlaps with the Little Sandy Landscape Important Bird Area, designated by Audubon because of the area’s importance to threatened bird species, as well as 350 other wildlife species.
In February 2025, the Department of the Interior put the Rock Springs RMP on hold, pending further review.
