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BLM issues wilderness planning guidance for field managers New policy seeks to conserve wilderness areas; Alaska officials concerned about potential land closures Alan Bailey Petroleum News
As part of a new wild lands policy ordered by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar in December, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has now issued guidance to its field managers on how to use the agency’s land planning process to enable the management of lands with wilderness characteristics. The guidance will ensure that public lands with wilderness characteristics are inventoried, described and managed in accordance with Secretary Salazar’s order, BLM said Feb. 25.
Protect wilderness values In announcing the new wild lands policy in December, Salazar said that the purpose of the policy was to wisely protect the wilderness values of the “wild places” that Americans value for recreational pursuits.
And, in announcing the new wilderness guidance, BLM Director Bob Abbey stressed that the guidance would enable all stakeholders in federal land to help determine how to manage wilderness areas.
“The wild lands policy describes the open process for taking a good look at these lands and hearing from the public, states, local officials, and tribes on how they should be used to meet our multiple-use mission responsibilities,” Abbey said. “This is a common sense approach that also makes sound economic sense. Last year, hunting, fishing and other recreational uses of BLM lands generated $7.4 billion for local economies throughout the West.”
In Alaska there is concern about the potential for the wild lands policy to impede resource development, especially in the remote lands of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska — areas designated as wild lands would be managed to conserve wilderness values.
Violation of ANILCA? Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Rep. Don Young and Gov. Sean Parnell have questioned whether Interior is trying to find a way around a prohibition on further Alaska land closures to development, in violation of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. Only Congress has the authority to designate land as wilderness, said Young on March 2.
BLM insists that its new policy merely provides a new tool, to help the agency implement its multiple-use mandate for public land.
“It’s important to know that this (wild lands) order doesn’t change the management of a single acre of public land, but simply broadens the management tools available through the public land-use planning process,” Abbey said.
In February Bud Cribley, BLM’s new Alaska state director, told Petroleum News that he recognizes that the perspective on wild lands is very different in Alaska than elsewhere in the United States. BLM is in the process of developing a new integrated activity plan for NPR-A and has expressed a commitment to promoting oil and gas development in the reserve.
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