The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) designated the Badlands a Wilderness Study Area (WSA) on November 14, 1980.  In its 1991 statewide Wilderness Study Report, the BLM recommended that the Badlands be designated Wilderness.  Only Congress can change the WSA designation by either removing the WSA protection or further protecting the area by designating it Wilderness.   The Badlands will remain a Wilderness Study Area until Congress takes action.

Management of the Badlands

As a Wilderness Study Area, the Badlands is managed to protect wilderness suitability. In September 2005, the BLM created a management plan that closed the Badlands to motorized vehicle travel and limited mechanized travel (mountain bikes and the like) and stock use to designated routes.  The purpose of this closure was to provide non-motorized recreation opportunities, protect natural resources, and minimize user conflicts.  This was in response to increased levels of use in the area both by motorized and non-motorized users.

Included in the 2005 management plan is a policy that allows ranchers to voluntarily relinquish their grazing permits.  This innovative process was established by ONDA, worked with local ranchers and the BLM, to help resolve conservation and grazing issues on fragile BLM lands.  Using this process, rancher Ray Clarno relinquished his Badlands grazing permits to the BLM.  Ray's permits covered nearly two-thirds of the Badlands WSA.

ONDA has recognized how special the Badlands area is, and has been working for more than a decade to protect the area and its special resources.  ONDA has worked with local landowners to recommend land exchanges that would swap private land inholdings inside the WSA with BLM land in order to consolidate land ownership.

Local Support for Badlands Wilderness

Bend’s city council unanimously endorsed the Badlands Wilderness proposal in 2002.

In January 2005, the Deschutes County Commission held a hearing regarding potential Wilderness designation of the Badlands.  The conference room was packed, with Badlands Wilderness supporters outnumbering opponents, the majority of whom were off-road vehicle users.  At the hearing and during the subsequent public comment period, support for wilderness ran by more than four to one.  A poll conducted by American Viewpoint in January found that 69 % of Deschutes County voters supported wilderness designation for the Badlands and only 15 % were strongly opposed.  Despite this overwhelming public support, the Commissioners opted to remain neutral on the subject, failing to endorse the proposal.