Have you examined the ruts left more than 100 years ago by wagons heading west across Wyoming? Have you hiked sections of the Continental Divide Trail across the Red Desert? Or maybe you’ve camped or hunted in one of 42 Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Wilderness Study Areas in Wyoming? Then you’ve been in part of the National Landscape Conservation System, whether you knew it or not.

The NLCS is comprised of 26-million acres of some of BLM’s most valuable landscapes around the West: National Monuments, National Conservation Areas, National Recreation Areas, Scenic and Historic Trails, Wilderness, Wilderness Study Areas, and Wild and Scenic Rivers.

This June marks the 5th anniversary of the system, but it’s a birthday that could go largely unnoticed by many Americans, even those who know and love these places. The system, which was created by Bruce Babbitt during his last year as secretary of the interior under President Clinton, has struggled with obscurity. Now, as it turns five, the entire NLCS has been named one of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

You can blame the Bush administration’s anti-environmental record for the system’s tepid support, but in some ways the lack of attention harkens back to the Bureau of Land Management’s origins. This is an agency that doesn’t have much conservation in its history.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Please take a few minutes to write a letter to BLM Director Kathleen Clarke to let her know that you support the National Landscape Conservation System and want the BLM to put energy and money into it to ensure its long-term success. The BLM rarely hears from individuals or groups on this issue, so we need to make sure they know we care. You can send copies of this letter to your BLM state director, as well as to your congressional delegation.

Kathleen Clarke, Director
Bureau of Land Management
Department of the Interior
1849 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20240

Bob Bennett, State Dir., Wyoming BLM
5353 Yellowstone Road
P.O. Box 1828
Cheyenne, Wyoming 82003
Phone: (307) 775-6001
Fax: (307) 775-6003

The Bureau of Land Management, originally the Division of Grazing, was created in 1934 under the Taylor Grazing Act to manage a half-billion acres of “leftover” land. These vast expanses of territory were largely ignored by the public because much of it was dry, inaccessible and in many ways defied the standard definition of beauty. As a result, few people cared how they were managed besides the ranchers using them for grazing their cattle. Therefore, the division operated with relative freedom and very little oversight for years. In 1939, it became known as the Grazing Service and five years later, the BLM.

This shift in nomenclature did little to affect policy until 1976, when the Federal Land Policy and Management Act mandated that the BLM, like the National Forest Service, manage its lands for “multiple use.” But the BLM’s history was hard to shake. For years, the agency was jokingly referred to by many as the “Bureau of Livestock and Mining”— a reflection of its reputation for favoring resource exploitation over other uses, particularly conservation.

Babbitt’s decision to create a system within the BLM that was focused on the sound management of its most sensitive cultural, ecological and aesthetic sites, seemed to be an attempt to give the agency’s conservation efforts clout and prestige. After all, the BLM does manage the most land of any federal agency, and many of these acres are well worth special consideration. But lack of funding and Congressional support has meant the existing units in the National Landscape Conservation System have struggled. These extraordinary lands face threats from road building, habitat fragmentation, energy exploration, urban encroachment, increased recreation, exploding off-road vehicle use, and most importantly, inadequate funding.

The recent inclusion of the National Landscape Conservation System among America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places was triggered, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, by the BLM’s chronic understaffing and under funding, which jeopardize the system’s long-term viability. Listing does not ensure protection or guarantee increased funding, but designation can be a powerful tool for raising awareness. For the NLCS, such knowledge and public support could prove to be what it takes to bring the system out of obscurity and into the realm of public discourse.