BLM asks for wilderness nominations

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar wants to build a bipartisan wilderness agenda that can be enacted by Congress. In support of that effort, Bureau of Land Management state offices have been asked to solicit suggestions and recommendations from state and local elected officials, tribes and other federal land managers “on areas that deserve wilderness protection and that have broad support for congressional designation,” BLM said July 19.

BLM Director Bob Abbey said in a statement that: “The best ideas for conservation come from the ground up, and we hope this effort will help lay a foundation for a bipartisan wilderness agenda in this Congress.”

BLM said the effort is an extension of Salazar’s June 10 letter to members of Congress requesting their ideas on “crown jewel” areas of public lands that have strong local support for permanent wilderness protection.

The Department of the Interior will submit a list of “crown jewels” that it believes are ready for wilderness designation to Congress this fall, based on input from congressional, state, local and tribal partners.

BLM will also issue updated guidance to its offices affirming Salazar’s June 1 secretarial memo stating that BLM will not designate any lands as “wild lands.”

—Petroleum News