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Public Lands Foundation
Position Statement:
2010-16
The National System of Public Lands
September 9, 2010
Executive Summary
The
designation of the BLM Public Lands as the “National System of Public
Lands” will substantially enhance public support for the BLM’s multiple
use mission and will help keep these public lands in public ownership.
The Department of the Interior, by September 30, 2013, needs to complete
the internal actions required by Secretarial Order 3280, which made this
designation, to make the designation permanent. Congress should be asked
to give legislative authorization to the National System of Public Lands.
Locally, the major blocks of BLM 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, and
to strengthen the BLM’s ability to manage public uses on these National
Public Lands.
Background
On December 16, 2008,
the Secretary of the Interior issued Order No. 3280 officially designating
the Bureau of Land Management Public Lands as the “National System of
Public Lands.”
In making the
designation, the Secretary stated, “These lands constitute an invaluable
recreational, cultural, economic, and environmental legacy for the
nation. And yet, those who own the lands – the American people – remain
largely unaware of their critical importance to our quality of life, their
value to present and future generations, or even the purpose for which
these lands are preserved in public ownership.”
BLM Director Jim
Caswell said “It’s time these great lands and resources, whose historical
roots date back to the earliest days of our nation, are given their due by
recognizing them officially. This official designation will ultimately
make it easier for the public to identify these lands and more readily
understand the multiple-use mission that Congress has given to the BLM.”
The Order also
provided that:
“The Assistant Secretary - Land and
Minerals Management is responsible for implementing the requirements of
the Order. Implementation will coincide with a modification to the BLM
emblem to include the designation “National System of Public Lands.” A
communication plan has been developed to convey the new designation to the
public, interested parties, other interested Federal agencies, and
Congress.
The Order is effective immediately. It
will remain in effect until its provisions are converted to the
Departmental Manual or until it is amended, superseded, or revoked,
whichever occurs first. In the absence of any of the foregoing actions,
the provisions of this Order will terminate and be considered obsolete on
September 30, 2013. The termination of this Order will not nullify
implementation of the name change effected herein.”
This National System
of Public Lands (NSPL) designation covers 258 million acres of public
lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). These BLM
lands are what remain of the nation’s original 1.8 billion acres of public
domain land. The federal homestead, sale and mining laws facilitated the
western expansion of the nation. In the first 200 years of our nation’s
history, most of the public domain in the Midwestern States passed into
private ownership, along with the arable lands in the valleys of the
West. And Congress set aside large blocks of the public domain in the
Western States for National Forests, Parks, Monuments, Wildlife Refuges,
military reservations, and other special management purposes. The BLM was
established in 1946 to manage the remaining public domain lands, most of
which are located in the more arid parts of the Western States and in
Alaska.
The Federal Land
Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA) designated these public domain
lands as “public lands” and directed the BLM to manage them for multiple
use purposes. While FLPMA gave no official name to the public lands
administered by the BLM, a large number and variety of designations were
subsequently assigned to individual BLM land areas by the Administration
and Congress. These include a multitude of Wilderness Areas, National
Conservation Areas, National Monuments, Outstanding Natural Areas,
National Wild and Scenic Rivers, National Scenic Byways, National Historic
Trails, and Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC). These special
area designations, which include over 42 million acres of BLM public
land, were named the BLM’s National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS),
a designation which was approved by Congress in 2009.
Discussion
Meaningful naming has
been a traditional practice used in Government programs to gain public
attention and support for public issues, initiatives, and programs.
Meaningful names in Federal natural resource programs include the National
Forest System, the National Parks System, and the National Wildlife Refuge
System. The names have served to connote to the American people a level
of protection and management, which their property deserves. Names have
influenced the public’s attitude toward the resources and resource uses
that the lands support. Names have put the National Forest, National
Parks, and National Wildlife Refuges on atlases and road maps that enable
the public to identify with the lands and more strongly support land
management and protection programs.
The names on the 42
million acres in the NLCS areas of BLM lands have proved effective in
gaining public support for protection and management of the special
environmental and scenic resources, but there have been drawbacks as
well. BLM program management resources were diverted to meet the
management needs of the special areas, and the emphasis on special areas
has created a public perception that BLM public lands would not be
retained and managed in public ownership unless they were given some
special area designation.
The other 216 million
acres of BLM multiple use public lands outside of the BLM’s National
Landscape Conservation System are the outdoor recreation areas for the
urban populations of the West. They are the habitat of many wildlife
species, including over 50% of the remaining sage-grouse habitat. They
include the ranges of wild horses and burros, open space and scenic
landscapes, valuable stands of timber, range lands for livestock and
wildlife, energy mineral reserves, and potential sites for solar and wind
energy generation. These other resources and resource uses are as
important as the NLCS values, but they don’t have the visibility which
names have given to the NLCS lands.
The PLF has long
advocated for a National Land System for the BLM public lands. The
advantages include:
- Greater assurance
that these public lands will continue to be retained in public ownership.
- Greater public
understanding and acceptance of the vital role that these public lands
play in the environment and local economies of the West.
- Greater
appreciation by the Congress and the general public that the special
designation areas are parts of larger management units that need to
continue to be managed for multiple uses.
- Greater
appreciation by the Congress and the general public of the need for
reasonable continuity of management programs on the BLM lands to meet
public needs and to protect the resources.
- Greater assurance
to cooperators and other volunteers working with the BLM that their
contributions of lands, time, money and efforts will not be wasted.
- Notice to other
agencies that the BLM lands have a purpose and mission and that the public
interest may best be served by cooperative management of related lands and
resources rather than struggles over “turf.”
- Facilitation of BLM
recruitment of top-notch professionals in the great variety of scientific
and management positions required to manage the lands and resources.
- Better
understanding of the significant multiple use and other provisions of
FLPMA and better focus for the administrative and legislative efforts that
will be needed to deal with the current and future issues involving
BLM-administered lands.
- Greater sense of
permanence for the resources and resource uses that the American people
expect the BLM lands to provide for economic, recreational, cultural,
wildlife, scenic, open space and environmental protection purposes.
- Greater visibility
to the recreating public who are becoming major users of the BLM
administered lands.
Now the major blocks
of these BLM National 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 outdoor enjoyment uses of the National System of Public
Lands.
PLF Position
1. The PLF strongly
supports the designation of the BLM Public Lands as the National System of
Public Lands as provided by Secretarial Order 3280 of December 16, 2008.
An official name for the BLM Public Lands will substantially enhance
public support of the BLM’s multiple use mission and will help keep these
public lands in public ownership.
2. The Department of
the Interior, by September 30, 2013, needs to complete the internal
actions required by the Order to make the designation permanent.
3. Congress should
be asked to give legislative authorization to the National System of
Public Lands.
4. Locally, the
major blocks of BLM 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, and to strengthen
BLM’s ability to manage public uses of these National Public Lands.
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Updated from PLF No. 02-00, dated October 2000 |