Nathaniel Pyron on Integrated Natural Resources Management Plans: Planning the Land the Mission Stands On

Some of the best-managed wildlife habitat in the United States sits inside military fence lines — not by accident, but by plan. Under the Sikes Act, every installation with significant natural resources must maintain an Integrated Natural Resources Management Plan, or INRMP: a living document that reconciles the training mission with the legal duty to protect the land, the water, and the species that live on it. Nathaniel Pyron has spent his planning career at the intersection where the mission meets the map, and the INRMP is one of the documents where that intersection is drawn most literally.

The legal frame

The Sikes Act requires installations to prepare INRMPs in cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the relevant state fish and wildlife agency. The plan is not a wish list; it is a binding commitment covering five-year management actions for fish, wildlife, wetlands, forests, and listed species. When a new mission arrives or a training range expands, the INRMP is one of the first documents a planner reaches for, because it states — in writing — what the land can give and what it must not lose.

This is where military planning differs from civilian practice. A county planner manages growth against a comprehensive plan; an installation planner manages training against an ecosystem. The training lands are the habitat, and the habitat is the training land. Neither can be planned in isolation.

Training lands are habitat

The reason installations hold so much biodiversity is simple: for decades, large parts of them were closed to development, farming, and sprawl while the surrounding landscape was not. Artillery impact areas became de facto preserves. Buffer lands bought for noise and safety became forests, grasslands, and wetlands. Listed species found refuge there precisely because the military needed the land to stay open, unlit, and undisturbed.

Nathaniel Pyron's rule of thumb for planners new to the job: the endangered species on your installation are not a constraint to be worked around — they are evidence that the mission has been a good steward, and the plan should keep it that way.

How the planner uses the INRMP

A working INRMP gives the planner a toolkit, and the best ones are written to be used, not shelved:

• Training intensity zoning. The plan maps where maneuver, live fire, and bivouac can occur at full tempo, where they are restricted seasonally, and where they are off-limits. Planners fold these zones into the installation development plan's constraints map so every siting decision starts from the same facts.
• Seasonal restrictions. Nesting seasons, migration windows, and breeding periods become planning inputs — a range that is fully available in January may be limited in April, and the master schedule has to carry that truth.
• Prescribed fire programs. Many military landscapes are fire-dependent ecosystems. Managed burns reduce wildfire risk to facilities and training while restoring habitat — a rare case where the readiness action and the conservation action are the same action.
• Wetland and water management. Training areas drain into real watersheds. The INRMP's water-quality commitments shape how planners site ranges, roads, and support facilities near streams and wetlands.

Coordination is the plan

The INRMP is built through consultation — with the Fish and Wildlife Service, state agencies, and, where applicable, tribal partners. Planners who treat consultation as a box-checking exercise get slow answers; planners who bring agencies into the room early, with maps and honest training requirements, get workable plans. Nathaniel Pyron's experience with encroachment partnering taught him the same lesson the INRMP teaches: neighboring landowners, regulators, and mission planners all respond to being shown the full picture early.

For listed species, the formal mechanism is Section 7 consultation under the Endangered Species Act, but the practical mechanism is the relationship. A planner who understands both the training requirement and the species' needs can propose mitigations — relocated training, restored habitat elsewhere on the installation, timing shifts — that satisfy the biologists without grounding the mission.

The master plan connection

The INRMP does not replace the installation development plan; it informs it. The master plan's natural-resources constraints layer should mirror the INRMP's management zones, and land-use decisions should be checked against both. When a new facility is proposed, the planner's first question is whether the INRMP anticipated it — and if not, whether the plan needs an update before the project advances. This is planning as stewardship: the document protects the mission from the legal risk of noncompliance, and protects the land from the mission's heaviest footprint.

The principle

An installation is a working landscape, and the INRMP is how the military proves it can train hard and manage well at the same time. The planner's job is to hold both truths in one plan — the range must fire, and the habitat must persist. Nathaniel Pyron's rule of thumb: if the master plan and the natural resources plan disagree, you do not have two plans — you have a project about to stall. Reconcile them first, and the mission keeps moving.

About the author

Nathaniel Pyron is a military urban planner specializing in military master planning with an airport/airfield focus. A U.S. Navy veteran who served in 1995, he later spent three years as a civilian community planner working with the U.S. Marine Corps at Camp Blaz and Darwin, Australia. He studied at the Arizona State University School of Urban Planning, and is an active LEED AP BD+C. Based in Honolulu, Hawaii, he writes about installation planning, airfield land use, and where military readiness meets community design. His LinkedIn title is Urban Planner (Land Use & Airspace).