Page 6 - Summer 2012 magazine-2

In the beginning, there was the land…

by Pat Williams

The legislation of public lands began with the Land Ordinance Act of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.
These laws were enacted to provide for surveys and settlement of the original 13 colonies and were used in later land
acquisitions from France, Spain and other countries. Congress directed that the new federal lands be explored,
surveyed and made available for settlement. The General Land Office, a division of the Department of the Treasury,
was established in 1812 to survey and then sell federal wilderness land for agricultural use and to generate revenue to
pay war debts. The Homestead Act of 1862 added another task to the General Land Office through the allocation of
free government lands for agricultural settlement in approximately 30 states and territories

There was a shift in federal land management policies and priorities
in the late 19th century with the creation of the first national parks,
forests and wildlife refuges. By protecting these special places,
congress sent the signal that certain lands should be owned by the
public for their resource value. Congress also enacted additional
legislation regarding the value, real and intrinsic, of public lands.
The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 allowed production of marketable
subsurface resources such as coal, oil and gas.The U.S. Grazing
Service, formed in 1934, established standards for livestock grazing
on public lands.

Homesteaders crossing the prairie circa 1800s
Then came the need to effectively manage the land…
The General Land Office and the U.S. Grazing Service merged in 1946
to form the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) within the Department
of Interior. In 1976, the BLM received its legislated mandate, the
Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), which superseded
With the BLM’s budget limita-
over 2,000 unrelated and sometimes conflicting laws for managing the
tions, it’s easy to see why part-
public lands. The preamble for FLPMA states: To establish public land
nerships are crucial to the health
policy; to establish guidelines for its administration; to provide for the
of the public lands.
management, protection, development, and enhancement of the public
lands; and for other purposes. As a result of FLPMA, homesteading
ended in 1976 in the continental United States and in 1986 in Alaska.
General Lands Office Survey Crew circa 1920

The BLM is responsible for managing and protecting more than 253 million surface acres, or one-eighth of the
United States, plus 700 million subsurface mineral estate acres. They do this with approximately 10,000 employees
on a budget (2009 data) of less than $3.80 per acre. Compare this information with the National Park Service: the
NPS manages and protects approximately 84.4 million acres of National Parks, Monuments and Memorials (for
reference: Nevada has 70.7 million total acres) with over 20,000 employees with a budget (2009) of slightly less than
$33 per acre.

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