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Bureau of Land Management
Bureau of Land Management Triangle
Agency overview
Formed	1946
Preceding agencies	US Grazing Service General Land Office
Jurisdiction	Federal Government of the United States
Headquarters	1849 C Street NW, Rm. 5665 Washington DC 20240
Employees	10,000 Permanent (FY2010)
Annual budget	$960,000,000 (FY2010 operating)
Agency executives	Robert Abbey, Director Bureau of Land Management Marcilynn Burke, Deputy Director (Policy) Mike Pool, Deputy Director (Operations)
Parent agency	US Department of the Interior
Website
blm.gov

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior which administers America's public lands, totaling approximately 253 million acres (1,020,000 km²), or one-eighth of the landmass of the country.^[1] The BLM also manages 700 million acres (2,800,000 km²) of subsurface mineral estate underlying federal, state and private lands. Most public lands are located in western states, including Alaska. With approximately 10,000 permanent employees and close to 2,000 seasonal employees, this works out to over 21,000 acres (85 km²) per employee. Its budget was US$960,000,000 for 2010 ($3.79 per surface acre, $9.38 per hectare).^[2]

The BLM's stated mission is to sustain the health, diversity and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.

History[link]

Horses crossing a plain near the Simpson Park Wilderness Study Area in central Nevada, managed by the Battle Mountain BLM Field Office

Snow covered cliffs of Snake River Canyon, Idaho, managed by the Boise District of the BLM

The BLM's pure roots go back to the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. These laws provided for the survey and settlement of the lands that the original 13 colonies ceded to the federal government after the War of Independence. As additional lands were acquired by the United States from Spain, France and other countries, the United States Congress directed that they be explored, surveyed, and made available for settlement. In 1812, Congress established the General Land Office in the Department of the Treasury to oversee the disposition of these federal lands. As the 19th century progressed and the nation's land base expanded further west, Congress encouraged the settlement of the land by enacting a wide variety of laws, including the Homestead Act and the Mining Law of 1872.

These statutes served one of the major policy goals of the young country—settlement of the Western territories. With the exception of the Mining Law of 1872 and the Desert Land Act of 1877 (which was amended), all have since been repealed or superseded by other statutes.

The late 19th century marked a shift in federal land management priorities with the creation of the first national parks, forests, and wildlife refuges. By withdrawing these lands from settlement, Congress signaled a shift in the policy goals served by the public lands. Instead of using them to promote settlement, Congress decided that they should be held in public ownership because of their other resource values.

Sheep graze on BLM land in Snake Valley, Utah.

In the early 20th century, Congress took additional steps toward recognizing the value of the assets on public lands and directed the Executive Branch to manage activities on the remaining public lands. The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 allowed leasing, exploration, and production of selected commodities, such as coal, oil, gas, and sodium to take place on public lands. The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 established the U.S. Grazing Service to manage the public rangelands. The Oregon and California (O&C) Act of August 28, 1937, required sustained yield management of the timberlands in western Oregon.

In 1946, the Grazing Service was merged with the General Land Office (a product of the country's territorial expansion and the federal government's nineteenth-century homesteading policies) to form the Bureau of Land Management within the Department of the Interior. When the BLM was initially created, there were over 2,000 unrelated and often conflicting laws for managing the public lands. The BLM had no unified legislative mandate until Congress enacted the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA).

In FLPMA, Congress recognized the value of the remaining public lands by declaring that these lands would remain in public ownership. Congress used the term "multiple use" management, defined as "management of the public lands and their various resource values so that they are utilized in the combination that will best meet the present and future needs of the American people."

The BLM today[link]

Kokopelli petroglyph located on BLM land near Embudo, New Mexico

Most of the public lands held by the Bureau of Land Management are in the Western states. Alaska ranks first in total BLM acreage at 87 million acres (350,000 km²), while Nevada and Utah have the highest percentage of their lands under BLM management.^[3]

BLM geodetic control point from 1950 in Colorado

The BLM regulates activities in hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, boating, hang gliding, shooting, off-highway vehicle driving, mountain biking, birding, and visiting natural and cultural heritage sites.

The BLM administers 205,498 miles (330,717 km) of fishable streams, 2.2 million acres (8,900 km²) of lakes and reservoirs, 6,600 miles (10,600 km) of floatable rivers, over 500 boating access points, 69 National Back Country Byways, and 300 Watchable Wildlife sites. The BLM also manages 4,500 miles (7,200 km) of National Scenic, Historic, and Recreational Trails, as well as thousands of miles of multiple use trails used by motorcyclists, hikers, equestrians, and mountain bikers.

Of the BLM’s 253 million acres (1,020,000 km²), the Bureau manages 55 million acres (220,000 km²) of forests and woodlands, including 11 million acres (45,000 km²) of commercial forest and 44 million acres (180,000 km²) of woodlands within 11 western States and Alaska. 53 million acres (210,000 km²) are productive forests and woodlands on Public Domain lands and 2.4 million acres (9,700 km²) are on Oregon and California Grant lands in western Oregon. Additionally, as part of its trust responsibility, the BLM oversees minerals operations on 56 million acres (230,000 km²) of Indian lands. In addition, the BLM also has a National Wild Horse and Burro Program in which it manages animals on public rangelands. Even though the BLM manages one of the largest amount of public land in the United States, resource protection of BLM public lands is being done on an on-going reduced budget, with uniformed law enforcement rangers patrolling an average of 1.45 million acres (5,900 km²) per ranger.

The BLM is a significant revenue producer to the United States budget. In 2009, public lands were expected to generate an estimated $6.2 billion in revenues, mostly from energy development. Nearly 43.5 percent of these receipts are provided directly to states and counties to support roads, schools, and other community needs.^[4]

Increasingly, the BLM has had to address the needs of a growing and changing West. Ten of the 12 western states with significant proportions of BLM-managed lands have among the fastest rates of population growth in the United States.

One of the BLM's goals is to recognize the demands of public land users while addressing the needs of traditional user groups and working within smaller budgets. Perhaps one of the Bureau's greatest challenges is to develop more effective land management practices, while becoming more efficient at the same time.

The BLM has a wide range of responsibilities, including collecting geographic information, maintaining records of land ownership and mineral rights, conserving wilderness areas while allocating other areas for grazing and agriculture, and protecting cultural heritage sites on public land. The BLM operates the National Landscape Conservation System, which protects some U.S. National Monuments, some National Wild and Scenic Rivers, and some designated wildernesses among other types of areas including wilderness study areas.

The BLM is a major employer of wildland firefighters, range conservationists, foresters, botanists, land specialists, geologists, archaeologists, biologists, outdoor recreation planners, and surveyors.

Law enforcement and security[link]

The BLM Office of Law Enforcement & Security, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a federal law enforcement agency of the U.S. government. All Law Enforcement Rangers and Special Agents receive their training through Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC). Law Enforcement Rangers attend the Land Management Police Training (LMPT) academy at FLTEC. While BLM Special Agents attend the Criminal Investigator Training Program (CITP) at FLETC.

BLM Law Enforcement Rangers and Special Agents make up the law enforcement capability of the BLM. Rangers and Special Agents are located in each of the western states that have BLM lands. Law Enforcement Rangers make up the uniformed high visibility enforcement of laws. Special Agents investigate crimes against property, visitors and employees.

Uniformed Law Enforcement Rangers enforce Federal laws and regulations governing BLM lands and resources. As part of that mission Law Enforcement Rangers carry firearms, defensive equipment, make arrests, execute search warrants, complete reports and testify in court. They establish a regular and recurring presence on a vast amount of public lands, roads, and recreation sites. The primary focus of their jobs is the protection of natural resources, protection of BLM employees and the protection of visitors. They use K-9s, helicopters, snowmobiles, dirt bikes and boats to perform their duties.

Special Agents are criminal investigators who plan and conduct investigations concerning possible violations of criminal and administrative provisions of the BLM and other statutes under the United States Code. Special agents are normally plain clothes officers who carry concealed firearms, and other defensive equipment, make arrests, carry out complex criminal investigations, present cases for prosecution to U.S. Attorneys, and prepare investigative reports. Criminal investigators occasionally conduct internal and civil claim investigations.

Horses and burros[link]

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Mustangs run across Tule Valley, Utah

The BLM manages free-roaming horses and burros on public lands in 10 western states. They classify these animals as feral, but are also obligated to protect them under the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971. As horses have few natural predators, populations have grown substantially. BLM estimates that as of 2009, there were nearly 37,000 horses and burros on BLM-managed rangelands. The BLM claims that that is 10,000 more animals than can exist in balance with other public rangeland resources and uses.^{[citation needed]} BLM holds about 32,000 additional animals in long-and short term holding facilities and adopts out several thousand each year.^[5]

The BLM conducts environmental assessments, detailed scientific documents designed to examine land and animal health, before each gather. After conducting these assessments, BLM determines how many horses it will remove from the range. In most cases, environmental assessments determine that horses must be removed because increasing herd numbers are damaging rangeland health, stream and river areas, and native wildlife habitat. In most Herd Management Areas throughout the arid West, food for horses quickly becomes scarce, especially during drought or long winters. Scientists^[who?] have found that one horse can require up to 20 acres (81,000 m²) of rangeland to sustain nutritional health for one month.^{[citation needed]}

The Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, as amended, authorizes BLM to humanely put down horses for which no adoption demand exists.^[6]

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar proposed on October 7, 2009, a new approach to restore the health of America’s wild horse herds and the public rangelands that support them.^[7] His proposal includes the possible creation of "wild" horse preserves on the productive grasslands of the Midwest and East. Salazar also proposed showcasing certain herds on public lands in the West that warrant distinct recognition with Secretarial or possibly congressional designations and applying new strategies to balance population growth rates with adoption demand (such as the use of fertility control). The Salazar proposal, which is subject to congressional approval, includes making adoptions more flexible where appropriate to encourage more people to adopt horses.

Renewable Energy Coordination Offices[link]

In one of his last official acts of office, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has helped pave the way for his replacement, Ken Salazar, by authorizing the BLM to establish offices that will expedite renewable energy development on the National System of Public Lands. The new Renewable Energy Coordination Offices will expedite the permitting of wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal projects on BLM-managed lands, along with the electrical transmission facilities needed to deliver the energy from those projects to power-thirsty cities.^[8]

The offices will initially be located in the four states where companies have shown the greatest interest in renewable energy development: Arizona, California, Nevada, and Wyoming. The new offices will also improve the BLM's coordination with state agencies and other federal agencies, including DOE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.^[8]

In October, 2009, Interior Secretary Salazar and BLM Director Bob Abbey officially opened the California Renewable Energy Coordination Office and are staffing additional offices in Arizona, Nevada and Wyoming. To lead the overall initiative, Secretary Salazar has established a National Renewable Energy Office at BLM’s Headquarters in Washington D.C.^[9]

The four Renewable Energy Coordinating Offices have 62 positions to support the processing of renewable energy and transmission applications. Thirty-five additional renewable energy support staff have been identified for BLM renewable permitting teams in the western states of Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, and Utah.

Energy transport corridors[link]

The BLM and the U.S. Forest Service issued Records of Decision in mid-January to amend 130 of their land use plans to support the designation of more than 6,000 miles (9,700 km) of energy transport corridors on federal lands in 11 Western States. The amendments were based on analyses presented in a Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) that was prepared by the BLM, DOE and the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Defense as part of their work to implement the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The PEIS, released late last year, identifies energy corridors in the West for transmission and distribution lines that will help facilitate the development of renewable energy resources. The energy corridors could also carry pipelines for oil, natural gas, and hydrogen. Approximately 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of energy corridors are located on BLM-managed lands, while nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of energy corridors are on U.S. Forest Service lands. Roughly 120 miles (190 km) of corridor segments are on lands managed by the Bureau of Reclamation, the National Park Service, and the Department of Defense.^[8]

On December 19, 2008, a BLM land drilling auction was disrupted when a University of Utah student, Tim DeChristopher, successfully outbid other organizations for thousands of acres of land.^[10]

Oil Shale Leases[link]

The BLM is currently reviewing its policies for leasing land for oil shale development. In March, 2011, the BLM issued the following statement:

"As there are no economically viable ways yet known to extract and process oil shale for commercial purposes, and Utah tar sands deposits are not at present a proven commercially-viable energy source, the BLM, through its planning process, intends to take a hard look at whether it is appropriate for approximately 2,000,000 acres to remain available for potential development of oil shale, and approximately 431,224 acres of public land to remain available for potential development of tar sands."^[11]

References[link]

This article incorporates text from this agency's website.^[specify]

Further reading[link]

• James R. Skillen. The Nation's Largest Landlord: The Bureau of Land Management in the American West (University Press of Kansas, 2009) 320 pp.

External links[link]

• Former BLM Official Pleads Guilty to Public Corruption Charges
• Official Bureau of Land Management Website
• Map of land managed by the BLM
• Cobell Indian Trust case
• BLM Careers
• BLM Cadastral Survey
• Digital Bureau of Land Management- Surface & Mineral Management Maps
• BLM Law Enforcement Rangers
• Opportunity & Challenge:The Story of BLM - Official History
• Proposed and finalized federal regulations from the Bureau of Land Management
• www.usa-reporter-com Latest road conditions of 23 back roads at the GSENM (german, e-book in english)

v t e United States Department of the Interior Secretary of the Interior Deputy Secretary of the Interior Main Interior Building Washington, D.C. Bureau of Indian Affairs Bureau of Land Management Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Bureau of Reclamation Fish and Wildlife Service Geological Survey Office of Surface Mining National Business Center National Park Service Office of Insular Affairs

Land management is the process of managing the use and development (in both urban and rural settings) of land resources. Land resources are used for a variety of purposes which may include organic agriculture, reforestation, water resource management and eco-tourism projects.

See also[link]

References[link]

• Dale P.D. and McLaughlin, J.D. 1988. Land Information Management, Clarendon Press: Oxford. ISBN 0-19-858404-0
• Larsson G. 2010. Land Management as Public Policy, University Press of America. ISBN 978-0-7618-5248-3. [1]
• United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Agenda 21 [2]

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This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (June 2011)

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This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in the Turkish Wikipedia. (May 2011) Don't speak Turkish? Click here to read a machine-translated version of the Turkish article. Click [show] on the right to review important translation instructions before translating. Google's machine translation is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. After translating, {{Translated|tr|Ahmet Ümit}} must be added to the talk page to ensure copyright compliance. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Ahmet Ümit (born in 1960, in Gaziantep, and raised there) is a Turkish author and poet best known for his work in thrillers.^[1]

Biography[link]

Born in Gaziantep in 1960. Finished his Primary, Middle and High School there. In 1983, he graduated in Public Administration from Marmara University, and he wrote his first story in the same year. Between 1985 and 1986, he was educated at the Moscow Social Sciences Academy. Ahmet Ümit started his literary life with short stories but his first work about literature was a poetry book named “Sokağın Zulası”, published in 1989.

In 1990, with a group of literature lovers, he published an artificial (Mannerist?) magazine named “Hişt”. He published his poems, stories and works in some artificial magazines and newspapers such as Adam Sanat, Hişt, Öküz ve Cumhuriyet Kitap and Yeni Yüzyıl

His first book of short stories,“Çıplak Ayaklıydı Gece“, was published in 1992. That year, he won the Ferit Oğuz Bayır Art Award for that book. Çıplak Ayaklıydı Gece was the book that introduced Ahmet Ümit to the public and also made thrillers popular.^{[citation needed]}

In 1994 he wrote the script for "Çakalların İzinde", broadcast on ATV. Then in 1995 he wrote some criticism and other articles about authors such as Franz Kafka, Dostoyevski, Patricia Highsmith, Edgar Allan Poe and thriller writers in various newspapers and magazines. His novel "Sis ve Gece" was very exciting and one of his best books. "Sis ve Gece" was extremely popular in Turkey but also became controversial. It was published in Greece and it was the first Turkish Thriller to be translated into any foreign language.^{[citation needed]} Also TV series were made from his stories "Karanlıkta Koşanlar" and "Şeytan Ayrıntıda Gizlidir" by well-known producers and a film was made from "Sis ve Gece" by Turgut Yasalar.

"İstanbul Hatırası" was published on 4 June 2010.

Bibliography[link]

• Sokağın Zulası (1989)
• Çıplak Ayaklıydı Gece (1992)
• Bir Ses Böler Geceyi (1994)
• Masal Masal İçinde (1995)
• Sis ve Gece (1996)
• Agatha'nın Anahtarı (1999)
• Kar Kokusu (1998)
• Patasana (2000)
• Şeytan Ayrıntıda Gizlidir (2002)
• Kukla (2002)
• Beyoğlu Rapsodisi (2003)
• Aşk Köpekliktir (2004)
• Başkomser Nevzat, Çiçekçinin Ölümü (2005)
• Kavim (2006)
• Ninatta'nın Bileziği (2006)
• İnsan Ruhunun Haritası (2007)
• Olmayan Ülke (2008)
• Bab-ı Esrar (2008)
• İstanbul Hatırası (2010)

References[link]