|
Public Lands Foundation
Position Statement:
2010-06
Public Enjoyment of the BLM Public
Lands
June 21, 2010
Executive
Summary
The general public in the urban areas of the rapidly
growing West view the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administered
lands in the National System of Public Lands as their open space and
outdoor enjoyment areas. Over 57 million people now live within 25 miles
of these Public Lands. Managing outdoor recreation activities is a major
mission of the BLM. The recreating public is potentially a strong
advocate for the National System of Public Lands.
The Public Lands managed by the BLM have many times
been viewed as a storehouse of natural and cultural resources that need to
be protected from overuse by the public. Land use planning has often
focused on the impacts of public recreation uses, rather than promoting
public use and enjoyment as a value derived from the land. BLM now has a
new “public” who wants to enjoy their public lands. There are
opportunities for BLM to build partnerships with the broad spectrum of
public land users who want their public lands kept in public ownership,
and managed for the types and levels of uses that will sustain the
recreation attractions they want to enjoy. BLM, in its planning and
managing actions, should emphasize managing public lands for sustainable
public values, which include enjoyment of recreational activities, within
the land’s capability to maintain its natural life support functions.
Giving distinctive names and boundaries to the major
blocks of Public Lands would make it easier for the public to find, use,
and enjoy their public lands; it would strengthen the BLM’s ability to
manage the lands and the land uses; and it would help ensure the
permanence of this national outdoor recreation asset.
Background
The Public Lands administered by the Bureau of Land
Management are what is left of the “public domain lands” after 150 years
of land disposal policies and activities by the Congress and the federal
General Land Office. The land disposal era gradually came to a close in
the 1950s after most of the “developable” public domain lands had been
acquired by the homesteaders and miners who settled the West.
The passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management
Act of 1976 (FLPMA) revoked nearly all of the historic public land
disposal laws and set new policies for the “public lands.” Two key policy
statements in FLPMA provide that the public lands will:
“be retained in Federal ownership, unless as a result of the land use
planning procedure provided for in this Act, it is determined that
disposal of a particular parcel will serve the national interest;” and
“be managed in a manner that will protect the quality of scientific,
scenic, historical, ecological, environmental, air and atmospheric, water
resource, and archeological values; that, where appropriate, will preserve
and protect certain public lands in their natural conditions; that will
provide food and habitat for fish and wildlife and domestic animals; that
will provide for outdoor recreation and human occupancy and use.”
For much of the past 50 years, the BLM managed lands
have been the ranching, mining, and logging areas that supported the
economies of rural communities, and the sources of energy minerals for the
Nation. BLM has been preparing and updating Resource Management Plans (RMPs)
for these “public lands” to carry out the directives of FLPMA. These
RMPs focus on describing and evaluating the natural and cultural resources
on these public lands and prescribing the management actions that should
be taken to protect these resources from overuse by lessees, permittees,
and the general public.
In these RMPs, the natural and cultural resources on
the BLM lands are described and evaluated in great detail by individual
resource. Landscapes, scenery, open space, wilderness, wildlife
habitat, wild horses and burros, vegetation, cultural/historic resources,
and the special areas of the BLM’s National Landscape Conservation System
are discussed in terms of what they are, and what is needed to protect
them. Often, little is said about what they contribute to the public’s
outdoor recreation experiences.
Recreation is typically described in terms of the
impacts that the public recreation activities are having on natural and
cultural resources, the controls and facilities that are needed to protect
the individual resources from damage or overuse by the public, and the
areas that are designated for concentrated recreational uses like camping,
boat launching, and off highway vehicle activities.
BLM’s recreation programs have placed the most
emphasis on the sites where there is intensive recreational use. The
dispersed recreational activities like hunting, fishing, birding, wildlife
watching, hiking, camping, mountain biking, horseback riding, and the
enjoyment of landscapes, nature and the “back country experience” have not
been adequately addressed. The recent controversy over recreational
shooting is an example. BLM has been more inclined to close an entire
area to recreational shooting for reasons of “public safety and resource
damage” than to look for places within the area where recreational
shooting can be safely enjoyed.
Discussion
There are, of course, many areas where BLM has
recognized that recreation is a primary mission, and has done a remarkable
job in planning for and facilitating public recreation uses. The
California Desert Conservation Area, managed by the BLM in southern
California, offers a wide variety of outdoor enjoyment experiences ranging
from the Imperial Sand Dune Off Highway Vehicle (OHV) area to desert
Wilderness Areas. It is one of the most heavily visited outdoor
recreation areas in the Nation. Other examples include the concentrated
water-based recreation activities along the Lower Colorado River, the Long
Term Visitor Area campgrounds for winter visitors in the western Arizona
deserts, and the Slickrock Bike Trail and the intensive OHV activity areas
in Utah.
The BLM recreation management programs in southern
California, western Arizona, and Utah have been initiated to accommodate
the huge numbers of visitors from the urban areas who were already using
the BLM administered lands and waters. The same public recreation
pressures have grown tremendously on other BLM land areas in the West.
The recreating public is becoming BLM’s biggest user group. Recent BLM
estimates indicate that there are over 63 million visitor days of
recreation use annually on the BLM lands. Many outdoor recreation uses
have major impacts on the lands and resources. OHV use is a prime
example. Public education and cooperation, coordination, and partnerships
with user groups are excellent ways to deal with these kinds of public
land issues.
Today, most of the users of the BLM lands no longer
live in rural communities; they live in urban and suburban centers. Most
of the users of BLM lands no longer depend upon the BLM lands for their
livelihood; they use the BLM lands for outdoor recreation enjoyment.
There is a new generation of public land users who have been brought up on
a steady diet of entertainment and enjoyment activities. They are not
particularly interested in “natural resources,” but they love “nature” and
the “outdoors,” and they want to protect and enjoy them.
Changing social values in the West are placing more
and more value on the amenities of scenery, wildlife, and outdoor
recreation activities. Tourism activities and experiences depend upon the
attributes associated with natural and relatively undisturbed landscapes,
and tourists are concerned about the degradation of natural resource
attractions. The role of the public lands in the West is changing, and
the general public now views their public lands as the “outdoors.” More
trails need to be built because access to the “backcountry” is critical to
the public’s enjoyment of the “outdoors.” The public wants to experience
the natural ecosystems, and they want the BLM to provide more trails and
well managed trail systems so they can enjoy their public lands. Land in
its natural state, which provides sustainable access for visitors, has
economic value, and “destination tourism” on BLM lands is becoming the
economic base for many local communities in the West.
There are implications for future generations as
well. The “Last Child in the Woods” by Richard Louv describes how today’s
kids are increasingly becoming disconnected from the natural world. They
focus on computers and video games and are coming to think of nature as
more of an abstraction than a reality. Louv argues for a return to an
awareness of, and appreciation for, the natural world. He says that
nature needs its children, and asks where else will future stewards come
from?
FLPMA provided that individual parcels of the public
lands can be disposed of when the land use planning process determines
that it is in the national interest. In the past, BLM lands have been
sold or traded in many land transactions that were made to acquire
non-federal lands in National Parks, National Wildlife Refuges, and
National Forests. In such cases, the public benefits of the natural
resources, environmental and other values on the BLM lands often were
outweighed by the “need” to use these BLM Public Lands to acquire
non-federal lands inside the well known and “more important” National
Parks, Refuges and Forests. Protests by the recreating public can be an
effective way of stopping this method of privatizing their BLM-administered
outdoor enjoyment areas.
Lack of identity has been a major problem for the BLM.
The BLM manages about 253 million acres of Public Land, but most BLM land
areas have no name and no marked boundaries. It is difficult for the
recreating public to identify with the BLM lands and locate them in the
field. Names like the “Phoenix District” or the “Bradshaw-Harquahala
Area” mean little to the urban public who associate “public lands” with
names like “Tonto National Forest” and “Saguaro National Park.”
The 40 million acres in the National Monuments,
National Conservation Areas, Wilderness Areas and other units of the BLM’s
National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) illustrate how powerful
names and boundaries are in building public support for land management
programs. The remaining 213 million acres of BLM multiple use lands,
which are enjoyed by the recreating public, remain anonymous and largely
invisible to the recreating public.
On December 16, 2009, the Department of the Interior
took a major first step toward giving the BLM lands an identity when it
issued Secretarial Order 3280, which designated the Bureau of Land
Management Public Lands the “National System of Public Lands.”
Now, the major blocks of these BLM Public Lands need
to be given distinctive names and boundaries which can be shown on maps
and signage on the ground to make it easier for the public to find and use
their lands, and to strengthen BLM’s ability to manage public outdoor
enjoyment uses.
PLF Position
1. The BLM lands in the National System of Public
Lands are open space and outdoor enjoyment areas for the urban populations
in the rapidly growing West.
2. Much of the general public in the West now values
the BLM lands in terms of the outdoor recreation experiences these lands
provide for public enjoyment. The recreating public is potentially the
biggest supporter of, and advocate for, the BLM and the BLM lands, because
they want these BLM Public Lands kept in public ownership and managed in
ways that will sustain the recreation attractions that they enjoy.
3. The BLM’s Resource Management Planning process
needs to place greater emphasis on describing the public enjoyment
characteristics and outdoor recreation opportunities of the public lands
and landscapes covered by the RMPs.
4. Planned recreational uses must fit within the
land’s capacity to sustain them and other uses, and to provide ecosystem
services in perpetuity.
5. The way in which resource management proposals of
the RMPs are presented to the general public needs to be changed. The BLM
does not need to change the RMP process of describing the needs of the
individual natural/cultural/historic resources. The agency just needs to
do a better job of describing the outdoor recreation experiences that
these resources and landscapes provide for public enjoyment, and the
management actions that are needed to sustain the recreation attractions
that are provided by the natural and cultural resources of the BLM Public
Lands.
6. There should be a proactive recreation program for
the Public Lands in each BLM District and Field Office. There should be
brochures and maps available, and on-line, which provide a clear picture
of the outdoor enjoyment opportunities that are available, where they are
located, how the public can access them, and how they should be used.
7. The major blocks of BLM Public Lands within the
National System of Public Lands should be given distinctive names to
enhance their public identity, to make it easier for the public to find
and use the lands, to strengthen the BLM’s ability to manage public
outdoor enjoyment uses, and to gain public support for the permanence of
this national outdoor recreation asset.
********************************************
Updated from No. PLF 34-08, November 17, 2008. |