The Nation's Largest Landlord:The Bureau of Land Management in the American West, and: The Governance of Western Public Lands: Mapping Its Present and Future (review)

2012 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-109
Author(s):  
Debbie Lee
Keyword(s):  
Land Management ◽  
American West ◽  
Public Lands ◽  
Bureau Of Land Management

Use of Public Rangelands in the American West

1979 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-62
Author(s):  
Thomas R. Vale
Keyword(s):  
Land Management ◽  
American West ◽  
Recent Trend ◽  
Land Policy ◽  
Multiple Use ◽  
Bureau Of Land Management ◽  
The Public ◽  
Poor Condition ◽  
Federal Land ◽  
Land Policies

The Bureau of Land Management, the land agency that administers much of the federal rangeland in the American West, has frequently been characterized as excessively responsive to the desires of ranchers, with resulting land deterioration and loss of resource values. Both the generally poor condition of the public domain, and the Bureau's attempt to maintain stocking levels while improving the range, support this characterization.Several policies and programmes over the last decade, however, suggest that the Bureau today is less strongly tied to the livestock industry, and certainly its lands are being increasingly coveted by groups other than grazers. This recent trend towards a more ‘multiple use’ agency has been strengthened by Congressional passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act in 1976. Whether or not diversification of land policies will continue into the future is, however, at present unclear.

Tragedy of the Playground

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard G. Wilshire ◽  
Richard W. Hazlett ◽  
Jane E. Nielson
Keyword(s):  
Land Management ◽  
Public Lands ◽  
Bureau Of Land Management ◽  
Mass Gatherings ◽  
Erosion Rates ◽  
Federal Land ◽  
Desert Areas ◽  
Natural Settings ◽  
Federal Land Management ◽  
Grazing Pressures

“Recreation” connotes revitalization, the re-creation of spirit. In an increasingly urbanized culture, people recreate in natural settings to lift their spirits and revitalize their outlook and motivation. Public lands in the western United States, which embrace much of the nation’s remaining natural and wild areas, are especially attractive—and most are open for recreation. We authors certainly have found solace from camping, hiking, climbing, and skiing in backcountry areas. But latetwentieth- century American affluence has created a massive and unprecedented invasion of these lands, and particularly an invasion of motorized recreation. All human uses of natural areas can, and generally do, degrade soils, kill plants, and increase erosion rates, with resultant water pollution and ecosystem damage. In small numbers, and spread out widely, recreational disturbances can be minor, but millions of people regularly play on western public lands in mass gatherings that have large cumulative impacts. More now drive vehicles across forested or desert areas than pursue the less-damaging activities of hiking and small-group camping. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service (USFS) oversee the largest amount of western land available for recreation. By law, the agencies must manage public lands for multiple uses and “sustained yield.” Instead, federal land-management agencies are partitioning them to separate incompatible pursuits, including many that consume land. For example, as logging, mining, and grazing pressures ease, recreational pressures are exploding in Colorado’s White River National Forest, a short 50 miles west of Denver on Interstate Highway 70. Along with Denver’s increasing population, snowmobile registrations jumped 70% in Colorado since 1985. Off-road vehicles (ORVs) are everywhere, and mountain bike use has jumped more than 200%. Between 1990 and 2004, all ORV registrations in Colorado increased more than 650%. Ski facilities also burgeoned, along with hiker and equestrian demands for greater backcountry access. The USFS’s efforts to bring the conflicting uses under control is losing ground rapidly.

Brandishing Guns: Performing Race and Belonging in the American West

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay Livingston
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Land Management ◽  
American West ◽  
The United States ◽  
Civic Life ◽  
Bureau Of Land Management ◽  
White Supremacist ◽  
The Us ◽  
Gun Culture

This article examines the racial dynamics and performative nature of US gun culture by analyzing the 2014 standoff between Cliven Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management. The standoff followed discernible scripts of white masculine privilege and drew on scenarios of conquest in the US American West, as Bundy’s supporters gathered at his ranch and brandished their weapons in open defiance of the federal government. The act of brandishing their guns was a ‘performance of belonging’, a public, theatrical gesture that marks the bearer as a full participant in civic life and all its attendant rights and privileges. This belonging, however, is predicated on histories of white supremacist laws and settler colonialist violence. By reading gun culture in the United States through the lens of performance, this article traces the profound discrepancies between legal and practical gun rights and illuminates one of the most intractable debates at the center of US American life.

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