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Many rural communities in the western United States are surrounded by public lands and are dependent on these landscapes for their livelihoods. Climate change threatens to affect land-based livelihoods through both direct impacts and public land agency decision-making in response to impacts. This project was designed to understand how Bureau of Land Management (BLM) permittees, including ranching and recreation-based businesses in Colorado, are vulnerable to both climate change and management responses and how permittees and the BLM are adapting and could adapt to these changes. We conducted 60 interviews in two BLM field offices to gather permittee and agency employees’ observations of change, impacts, responses, and suggestions for adaptive actions. Data suggested that permittees are dependent on BLM lands and are sensitive to ecological and management changes and that …