The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior is the United States federal executive department of the U.S. government responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land and the administration of programs relating to Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians, and to insular areas of the United States which administers America's public lands In all modern states, some land is held by central or local governments. This is called public land. The system of tenure of public land, and the terminology used, varies between countries. The following examples illustrate some of the range, totaling approximately 264 million acres (1,070,000 km²) or one-eighth of the landmass of the country.[1] Most public lands are located in western states. With approximately 9,000 permanent employees, and over 1,000 more temporary, this works out to over 26,000 acres (105 km²) per employee. Its budget is nearly 1 billion dollars for 2007 ($3.50 per acre, $3.30 per person).[2]
The BLM's stated mission is to sustain the health, diversity and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.
Contents |
History
Horses crossing a plain near the Simpson Park Wilderness Study Area in central Nevada Nevada ( /nəˈvæːdə/ ) is a state located in the western region of the United States. The capital is Carson City, Nevada and the largest city is Las Vegas. The state's nickname is the "Silver State," due to the large number of silver deposits that were discovered and mined there. In 1864, Nevada became the 36th state to enter the, managed by the Battle Mountain BLM Field OfficeThe BLM's pure roots go back to the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance The Northwest Ordinance was an act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States. The Ordinance unanimously passed on July 13, 1787. The primary effect of the ordinance was the creation of the Northwest Territory as the first organized territory of the United States out of the region south of the Great Lakes, north and west of the Ohio of 1787. These laws provided for the survey and settlement of the lands that the original 13 colonies ceded to the Federal government after the War of Independence The American Revolutionary War , also known as the American War of Independence, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen united former British colonies on the North American continent, and ended in a global war between several European great powers. The war was the culmination of the political American Revolution, whereby. As additional lands were acquired by the United States from Spain Spain /ˈspeɪn/ (Spanish: España (help·info), Spanish pronunciation: [esˈpaɲa]) or the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.[note 6] Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar; to the north, France France ( /ˈfræns/ or /ˈfrɑːns/; French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃s]), officially the French Republic (French: République française, French pronunciation: [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean, and other countries, the United States Congress The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States of America, consisting of two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election directed that they be explored, surveyed, and made available for settlement. In 1812, Congress established the General Land Office The General Land Office was an independent agency of the United States government responsible for public domain lands in the United States. It was created in 1812 to take over functions previously conducted by the United States Department of the Treasury. (Starting in 1785, the Public Land Survey System had already surveyed the "Northwest in the Department of the Treasury to oversee the disposition of these Federal lands. As the nineteenth century progressed and the Nation's land base expanded further west, Congress encouraged the settlement of the land by enacting a wide variety of laws, including the Homesteading Currently the term 'homesteading' applies to anyone who is a limb of the back-to-the-land movement and who chooses to live a sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle. While land is no longer freely available in most areas of the world, homesteading remains as a way of life. A new movement, called 'urban homesteading', can be viewed as a simple Laws and the Mining Law of 1872.
These statutes served one of the major policy goals of the young country—settlement of the Western territories. With the exception of the Mining Law of 1872 and the Desert Land Act of 1877 (which was amended), all have since been repealed or superseded by other statutes.
The late nineteenth century marked a shift in Federal land management priorities with the creation of the first national parks, forests, and wildlife refuges. By withdrawing these lands from settlement, Congress signaled a shift in the policy goals served by the public lands. Instead of using them to promote settlement, Congress recognized that they should be held in public ownership because of their other resource values.
Snow covered cliffs of Snake River Canyon, Idaho The State of Idaho ( /ˈaɪdəhoʊ/ ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States of America. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans." Idaho was admitted to the Union on 3 July 1890 as the 43rd state, managed by the Boise District of the BLMIn the early twentieth century, Congress took additional steps toward recognizing the value of the assets on public lands and directed the Executive Branch In the study of political science the executive branch of government has sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state bureaucracy. The division of power into separate branches of government is central to the democratic idea of the separation of powers to manage activities on the remaining public lands. The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 allowed leasing, exploration, and production of selected commodities such as coal Coal is a readily combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure. It is composed primarily of carbon along with variable quantities of other elements, chiefly sulfur, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, oil Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid found in rock formations in the Earth consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights, plus other organic compounds, gas In physics, a gas is a state of matter, consisting of a collection of particles without a definite shape or volume that are in more or less random motion, and sodium Sodium is an element which has the symbol Na (Latin natrium, from Arabic natrun), atomic number 11, atomic mass 23 [g/mol], and a common oxidation number +1. Sodium is a soft, silvery white, highly reactive element and is a member of the alkali metals within "group 1" (formerly known as ‘group IA’). It has only one stable isotope, 23 to take place on public lands. The Taylor Grazing Act The Taylor Grazing Act is a United States federal law enacted in 1934 that regulates grazing on federal public land. The act was named for Edward T. Taylor, a congressman from Colorado. The Secretary of the Interior has the authority to handle all of the regulations, and he became responsible for establishing grazing districts. Before these of 1934 established the U.S. Grazing Service to manage the public rangelands. And the Oregon Oregon ( /ˈɒrɨɡən/ , OR-i-gən) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern boundaries respectively. The and California California ( /kælɪˈfɔrnjə/ ) is a state on the West Coast of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and, to the south, the Mexican state of Baja California. California is the most populous U.S. state. Its four largest cities are Los Angeles, San Diego, (O&C) Act of August 28, 1937, required sustained yield management Yield management, also known as revenue management, is the process of understanding, anticipating and influencing consumer behavior in order to maximize revenue or profits from a fixed, perishable resource . This process was first discovered by Dr. Matt H. Keller. The challenge is to sell the right resources to the right customer at the right time of the timberlands in western Oregon.
In 1946, the Grazing Service was merged with the General Land Office (a product of the country's territorial expansion and the federal government's nineteenth-century homesteading policies) to form the Bureau of Land Management within the Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior is the United States federal executive department of the U.S. government responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land and the administration of programs relating to Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians, and to insular areas of the United States. When the BLM was initially created, there were over 2,000 unrelated and often conflicting laws for managing the public lands. The BLM had no unified legislative mandate until Congress enacted the Federal Land Policy and Management Act Federal Land Policy Management Act, or FLPMA , is a United States federal law that governs the way in which the public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management are managed. The law was enacted in 1976 by the 94th Congress. In the FLPMA, Congress recognized the value of the public lands, declaring that these lands would remain in public of 1976 (FLPMA).
In FLPMA, Congress recognized the value of the remaining public lands by declaring that these lands would remain in public ownership. Congress used the term "multiple use" management, defined as "management of the public lands and their various resource values so that they are utilized in the combination that will best meet the present and future needs of the American The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the people."
The BLM today
Most of the public land held by the Bureau of Land Management is in the Western states. Alaska Alaska ( /əˈlæskə/ , Russian: Аляска Alyaska) is the largest state of the United States of America by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait ranks first in total BLM acreage at 87 million acres (352,000 km²), while Nevada Nevada ( /nəˈvæːdə/ ) is a state located in the western region of the United States. The capital is Carson City, Nevada and the largest city is Las Vegas. The state's nickname is the "Silver State," due to the large number of silver deposits that were discovered and mined there. In 1864, Nevada became the 36th state to enter the and Utah The State of Utah (pronounced /ˈjuːtɔː/ or /ˈjuːtɑː/ ) is a western state of the United States. It was the 45th state admitted to the Union on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80 percent of Utah's 2,736,424 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering around Salt Lake City. In contrast, vast expanses of the state are nearly uninhabited, have the highest percentage of their lands under BLM management.[3] The basin and ranges of central Nevada are seen in this photo, along with Walker Lake, Nevada, Mono Lake, California, and the Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada is a mountain range located in the U.S. state of California. In a few places, it overlaps into neighboring Nevada. The range is also known informally as the Sierra, the High Sierra, and the Sierras in the upper right of photographThe BLM offers visitors opportunities in the following areas: hunting Hunting is the practice of pursuing living animals for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to law. The species which are hunted are referred to as game and are usually large or small mammals or, fishing Fishing is the activity of catching fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping, camping Camping is an outdoor recreational activity. The participants, known as campers, leave urban areas, their home region, or civilization and enjoy nature while spending one or several nights, usually at a campsite, which may have cabins. Camping may involve the use of a tent, a primitive structure, or no shelter at all, hiking Hiking is an outdoor activity which consists of walking in natural environments, often on hiking trails. It is such a popular activity that there are numerous hiking organizations worldwide. The health benefits of different types of hiking have been confirmed in studies. The word hiking is understood in all English-speaking countries, but there, boating Boating the leisurely activity of traveling by boat typically refers to the recreational use of boats whether power boats, sail boats, or yachts , focused on the travel itself, as well as sports activities, such as fishing or waterskiing. Boating is an extremely popular activity, and there are millions of boaters worldwide, hang gliding Hang gliding is an air sport in which a pilot flies a light and unmotorized foot-launchable aircraft called a hang glider. Most modern hang gliders are made of an aluminum or composite frame with a fabric wing. Pilots usually control the aircraft by shifting body weight, but other devices, including modern aircraft flight control systems, may be, shooting Shooting is the act or process of firing rifles, shotguns or other projectile weapons such as bows or crossbows. Even the firing of artillery, rockets and missiles can be called shooting. A person who specializes in shooting is a marksman. Shooting can take place in a shooting range or in the field in hunting, in shooting sports or in combat, off-highway vehicle driving, mountain biking Mountain biking entails the sport of riding bicycles off-road, often over rough terrain, whether riding specially equipped mountain bikes or hybrid road bikes. Most mountain bikes share similar characteristics that underscore durability and performance in rough terrain: wide, knobby tires, large frame tubing, front fork or dual suspension shock, birding Birdwatching or birding is the observation and study of birds with the naked eye or through a visual enhancement device like binoculars. Birding often involves a significant auditory component, as many bird species are more readily detected and identified by ear than by eye. Most birdwatchers pursue this activity mainly for recreational or social, and visiting natural and cultural heritage sites.
The BLM administers 205,498 miles (330,717 km) of fishable streams, 2.2 million acres (8,900 km²) of lakes A lake is a terrain feature (or physical feature), a body of liquid on the surface of a world that is localized to the bottom of basin (another type of landform or terrain feature; that is, it is not global) and moves slowly if it moves at all. On Earth, a body of water is considered a lake when it is inland, not part of the ocean, is larger and and reservoirs A reservoir is, most broadly, a place or hollow vessel where fluid is kept in reserve, for later use. Most often, a reservoir refers to an artificial lake, used to store water for various uses. Reservoirs are often created by building a sturdy dam, usually out of concrete, earth, rock, or a mixture across a river or stream. Once the dam is, 6,600 miles (10,600 km) of floatable rivers, over 500 boating access points, 69 National Back Country Byways, and 300 Watchable Wildlife sites. The BLM also manages 4,500 miles (7,200 km) of National Scenic, Historic, and Recreational Trails, as well as thousands of miles of multiple use trails used by motorcyclists, hikers, equestrians Equestrianism refers to the skill of riding or driving horses. This broad description includes both use of horses for practical, working purposes as well as recreational activities and competitive sports, and mountain bikers.
Of BLM’s 261 million acres (1,060,000 km²), the Bureau manages 55 million acres (220,000 km²) of forests A forest is an area with a high density of trees. There are many definitions of a forest, based on the various criteria. These plant communities presently cover approximately 9.4% of the Earth's surface in many different regions and function as habitats for organisms, hydrologic flow modulators, and soil conservers, constituting one of the most and woodlands Ecologically, a woodland is an area covered in trees, usually at low density, forming an open habitat, allowing sunlight to penetrate between the trees, and limiting shade. Woodland may support an understory of shrubs and herbaceous plants including grasses. Woodland may form a transition to shrubland under drier conditions or during early stages, including 11 million acres (45,000 km²) of commercial forest and 44 million acres (180,000 km²) of woodlands within 11 western States and Alaska Alaska ( /əˈlæskə/ , Russian: Аляска Alyaska) is the largest state of the United States of America by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait. Fifty-three million acres (210,000 km²) are productive forests and woodlands on Public Domain lands and 2.4 million acres (9,700 km²) are on Oregon Oregon ( /ˈɒrɨɡən/ , OR-i-gən) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern boundaries respectively. The and California California ( /kælɪˈfɔrnjə/ ) is a state on the West Coast of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and, to the south, the Mexican state of Baja California. California is the most populous U.S. state. Its four largest cities are Los Angeles, San Diego, Grant lands in western Oregon. Additionally, as part of its trust responsibility, the BLM oversees minerals operations on 56 million acres (230,000 km²) of Indian lands. In addition, BLM also has a National Wild Horse and Burro Program in which it manages animals on public rangelands. Even though BLM manages one of the largest amount of public land in the United States, resource protection of the our BLM public lands is being done by an on-going reduced budget, with one uniformed law enforcement ranger patrolling an average of 1.45 millions acres per ranger.
BLM is a significant revenue producer to the United States budget. In 2009, public lands will generate an estimated $6.2 billion in revenues, mostly from energy development. Nearly 43.5 percent of these receipts are provided directly to States and counties to support roads, schools, and other community needs [4].
Increasingly, the BLM has had to address the needs of a growing and changing West. Ten of the 12 western States with significant proportions of BLM-managed lands have among the fastest rates of population growth in the United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the.
One of the BLM's goals is to recognize the demands of public land users while addressing the needs of traditional user groups and working within smaller budgets. Perhaps one of the Bureau's greatest challenges is to develop more effective land management practices, while becoming more efficient at the same time.
Kokopelli petroglyph Petroglyphs are images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, pecking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images. Petroglyphs are found world-wide, and are often (but not always) located on BLM land near Embudo, New MexicoThe BLM has a wide range of responsibilities, including collecting geographic information, maintaining records of land ownership and mineral rights, conserving wilderness areas while allocating other areas for grazing and agriculture, and protecting cultural heritage sites on public land. The BLM operates the National Landscape Conservation System The National Landscape Conservation System is a 27 million acres (110,000 km2) collection of the lands considered to be the “crown jewels” of the American west. These lands represent 10% of the 258 million acres (1,040,000 km2) managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The BLM is the largest federal public land manager and is responsible, which protects some U.S. National Monuments A National Monument in the United States is a protected area that is similar to a National Park except that the President of the United States can quickly declare an area of the United States to be a National Monument without the approval of Congress. National monuments receive less funding and afford fewer protections to wildlife than national, some National Wild and Scenic Rivers The National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act was an outgrowth of the recommendations of a Presidential commission, the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission . Among other things, the commission recommended that the nation protect wild rivers and scenic rivers from development that would substantially change their wild or scenic nature. The act, and some designated wildernesses among other types of areas including wilderness study areas A wilderness study area contains undeveloped United States federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, and managed to preserve its natural conditions. WSAs are not included in the National Wilderness Preservation System until the United States Congress passes wilderness.
BLM is a major employer of wildland firefighters, range conservationists, foresters, botanists, land specialists, geologists, archaeologists, biologists, outdoor recreation planners, and surveyors.
In 2008, around the month of November, the BLM announced that they can no longer afford to care for the wild horses and burros and that they will either release the animals back into the wild or euthanize them.[citation needed]
On December 19, 2008, a BLM land drilling auction was disrupted when a University of Utah student, Tim DeChristopher, successfully outbid other organizations for thousands of acres of land.[5]
Renewable Energy Coordination Offices
In one of his last official acts of office, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has helped pave the way for his replacement, Ken Salazar, by authorizing the BLM to establish offices that will expedite renewable energy development on the National System of Public Lands. The new Renewable Energy Coordination Offices will expedite the permitting of wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal projects on BLM-managed lands, along with the electrical transmission facilities needed to deliver the energy from those projects to power-thirsty cities [6].
The offices will initially be located in the four states where companies have shown the greatest interest in renewable energy development: Arizona, California, Nevada, and Wyoming. The new offices will also improve the BLM's coordination with state agencies and other federal agencies, including DOE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency[7].
Energy Transport Corridors
The BLM and the U.S. Forest Service issued Records of Decision in mid-January to amend 130 of their land use plans to support the designation of more than 6,000 miles (9,700 km) of energy transport corridors on federal lands in 11 Western States. The amendments were based on analyses presented in a Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) that was prepared by the BLM, DOE and the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Defense as part of their work to implement the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The PEIS, released late last year, identifies energy corridors in the West for transmission and distribution lines that will help facilitate the development of renewable energy resources. The energy corridors could also carry pipelines for oil, natural gas, and hydrogen. Approximately 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of energy corridors are located on BLM-managed lands, while nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of energy corridors are on U.S. Forest Service lands. Roughly 120 miles (190 km) of corridor segments are on lands managed by the Bureau of Reclamation, the National Park Service, and the Department of Defense [8].
In popular culture
In the first act of the motion picture Brokeback Mountain, the shepherds take their sheep into BLM lands.
References
- ^ Bureau of Land Management. This article incorporates text from this agency's website.
- ^ DOI 2007 Budget Key Numbers
- ^ Western States Data Public Land Acreage
- ^ Department of the Interior FY 2009 Budget
- ^ Salt Lake Tribune, Jan 4, 2009
- ^ http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/news_detail.cfm/news_id=12195
- ^ http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/news_detail.cfm/news_id=12195
- ^ http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/news_detail.cfm/news_id=12195
External links
- Official Bureau of Land Management Website
- Map of land managed by the BLM
- Cobell Indian Trust case
- BLM Careers
- BLM Law Enforcement Rangers
- Opportunity & Challenge:The Story of BLM - Official History
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Categories: United States public land law | Government agencies established in 1946 | Bureau of Land Management | United States Department of the Interior agencies | Organizations based in Washington, D.C. | Conservation in the United States | Wild and Scenic Rivers of the United States | Wildland fire suppression | Land management
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Kern Valley Sun
Approximately 100 firefighters responded to the incident, from Kern County Fire Department, US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management . ...
Fairview fire contained, held to 120 acres burned Kern Valley Sun
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A cone laden sequoia in this grove This grove unit is 69 5 acres in size It is located about a mile southeast of Case Mountain off the north side of Salt Creek Ridge and within the confines
See Also:
- Bureau of Land Management
- South Padre Island, Texas
- Federal Emergency Management Agency
- Regional: North America: United States: Texas: Localities: S: South Padre Island
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