Bureau of Land Management

Essay by joa50University, Bachelor'sA+, January 2004

download word file, 7 pages 2.5

Bureau of Land Management or Bureau of Land Destruction

This paper will look at some of the problems and possible solutions of the antiquated laws of the Bureau of land management. Some of the problems that need changing are overcrowding, disposal of garbage, public land protection, wildlife habitat, mining laws, restoration of mined land, range land protection. These are just a few of the problems that the BLM needs to solve.

The government has control of over one third of the nation's land and 398 million acres is controlled by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM 1999: 6). This land holds a wide variety of resources, from timber, grazing lands found on the surface to a mass of oil, natural gases, and minerals lying below the earth's surface. The history of these lands is rich is stories of the taming of the Wild West. Should the BLM be allowed to control these lands under the same laws that where put in affect to establish the "Western Frontier" or is there a need to reevaluate these laws in order to adapt them to the changing demographic and technological environment of our society.

However, the laws that remain are allowing companies to hurt the land, which is against the mission statement of the BLM (Kusler 1990: 226-228).

The mission statement clearly states that the Bureau is responsible for the balanced management of the public lands; resources and their values so that they are considered in a combination that will best serve the American people. Management is based upon the principles of multiple uses and sustained yield, a combination of uses that takes into account the long-term needs of future generations for the renewable and nonrenewable resources. These resources include recreation, land, timber, minerals, watershed, fish and

wild life. Also included are the...