This initiative is Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's brainchild. Nobody knew just how ambitious Salazar's proposal would be for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) until a whistleblower released part of a document indicating his initiative includes plans for new Wilderness areas, expanded National Parks and no less than 14 new or expanded National Monument designations across 9 states!
After reading the secret memo detailing the Obama administration's new vision for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), it's easy to understand why Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar worked so hard to keep it quiet.
The document, titled Our Vision - Our Values proposes a total abandonment of the Congressional mandate to manage public lands under the principles of multiple use and sustained yield. Beyond federally managed lands, Salazar's "Vision" expands the federal government's authority over adjacent state, tribal and private lands.
The document describes in detail the three "designate, rationalize, and "manage-at-scale" components of the new vision, and what that might mean to you and me. Designate, as you might imagine, is a plan to designate more Wilderness, National Parks, National Monuments or other suitable protectionist designations. Salazar's document identifies over 35 million acres of lands that are "worthy of special protection."
The BLM already manages some 130 million acres in protective designations. But 130 million acres isn't quite enough. Salazar's document identifies over 35 million acres of lands that are "worthy of special protection, should be considered for anew and/or heightened conservation designation."
When tabulating the 130 million acres it manages in "protective designations," the document includes lands currently in the National Landscape Conservation System. However, the Salazar document also throws Special Recreation Management Areas in the list of areas managed under NLCS. SRMAs definitely do not qualify as lands managed under the NLCS, but if the intent is to do so, motorized recreation on BLM lands is in for a very tough ride.
The second key component of the administration's new "vision," is something they are calling "Rationalization." Rationalization means buying private lands within and adjacent to BLM lands. They can't call it buying private land, expanding the federal estate and taking lands off the tax rolls. No, that wouldn't fly with the general public. The apparently think if they use some totally unrelated word, like, uh, "rationalization" it will all sound so awesome. Dude!
So we'll designate all the really scenic land as National Monuments, we'll buy up, er, I mean "rationalize" all of the private property in and adjacent to public land. What's next?
The third leg in this new Vision is a mandate for new land use plans across the board. The document explains:
The final aspect of the first component of BLM's Treasured Landscapes vision recognizes that new conservation designations should not be the only - nor, perhaps, even the primary - means of managing for conservation on BLM's public lands. To that end, BLM also recommends emphasizing conservation values in its land-use planning process, with particular attention focused on two considerations: (a) accounting for the, ecosystem-service values of BLM lands, and (b) the special legal context of conservation management in Wyoming and Alaska.
Sounds like BLM wants to be the National Park Service, doesn't it?
I mentioned above that it's obvious why Salazar didn't want this document released.
The document is a refreshingly honest admission of what the current staff in the Department of Interior and BLM have in mind for our public lands. I wrote recently that I doubt the "Vision" will be formally adopted into BLM's regulatory structure. It doesn't have to. Recent hyper-restrictive land use plans in Utah and Northern Arizona are putting massive restrictions on all recreational use, even non-motorized trail use and camping.
