General Conservation Plan for the Desert Tortoise in California

Environmental Impact Statements; Notice of Availability

This is an EPA Notice of Availability for the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS No. 20250094) for the General Conservation Plan for the Desert Tortoise in California, prepared by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The notice was filed between June 27 and July 7, 2025, and the public review period closes August 11, 2025. The document is a one-paragraph Federal Register listing; substantive impact analysis, alternatives, and mitigation commitments are in the underlying Final EIS, not in this notice.

Draft Environmental Impact Statement for a General Conservation Plan for the Desert Tortoise in California

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released a Draft Environmental Impact Statement analyzing its proposal to approve and use a General Conservation Plan (GCP) for the federally threatened Mojave desert tortoise across a 15.2-million-acre planning area in southern California. The GCP would streamline the ESA section 10(a)(1)(B) incidental take permitting process, replacing a case-by-case review that typically takes 12 to 24 months. Three alternatives are analyzed, including no action and two action variants differing primarily in the scope of the 8.6-million-acre versus 7.7-million-acre mitigation area. The Bureau of Land Management is a cooperating agency. Public comments are due December 10, 2024; a final EIS is expected by May 2025 and a record of decision by July 2025.