Working at the Landscape Scale: Lessons from the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Planning Process

Abstract

The state of California has one of the most aggressive renewable energy portfolio standards in the

country with a goal of renewable energy sources supplying 50 percent of utility retail sales by 2030.

At the same time, the Department of Interior has a goal of producing 20,000 megawatts of clean

energy from public lands by 2020. The Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP) was a

22.5 million acre joint federal-state planning effort by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service, California Energy Commission, and California Department of Fish and

Wildlife to streamline the permitting process for renewable energy projects proposed in the

California desert while allowing for the conservation and improvement of ecological and social

resources. Due to its geographic scale and level of governmental and stakeholder collaboration, the

DRECP was one of the most ambitious attempts at landscape-scale planning to date.

As a requirement for the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment

(SNRE) Capstone Master’s Project, four SNRE students performed an evaluation of the six-year

planning process that created the Draft DRECP. Drawing from data collected from over 60

interviews of individuals involved, this report analyzes the six-year process by which the Draft

DRECP was created to produce a series of lessons learned. These lessons are categorized by major

elements of the process, including (1) Governance Structure, (2) Science and Analysis, (3) Public

and Stakeholder Engagement, and (4) Tribal Consultation. The report concludes by making a series

of recommendations for future landscape-scale planning processes.