The BLM has not traditionally been enemies of the people using the land. The antagonism is a very new phenomenon.
>The monument designations maintain currently authorized uses of the land that do not harm the resources protected by the monument, including tribal access and traditional collection of plants and firewood, off-highway vehicle recreation, hunting and fishing and authorized grazing.
It's apparently also an important deal for tribal sovereignty[2]:
> Under the Bears Ears Monument designation, an intertribal coalition will partner with the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to manage the area — which is slightly bigger than the state of Delaware — ensuring that tribes have access to food supplies and firewood.
This[3] says that existing grazing is usually grandfathered in, but that new grazing is limited. I get the impression that there's a lot of disinformation out there.
[1] https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/secretaries-jewell-vilsack... [2] http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/01/09/508586040/bea... [3] http://www.npr.org/2017/02/05/513492389/utah-representative-...
Creating a national park requires an act of congres, creating a national monument only takes an executive order[1]. I can imagine states are much more worried about executive orders as opposed to acts of congress.
[1] https://vault.sierraclub.org/planet/199611/nationalpark.asp
They have gotten a lot of guns pointed at them by people who are upset that they can't ride ATVs in an area with lots of sensitive Anasazi artifacts, though.
The BLM gets along just fine with many ranchers. There are a few bad apples out there that think that because they were the only ones using the public land for a while that they should keep it. Ranchers in general get a pretty sweet deal from the feds. Be skeptical of claims that they are getting screwed. The prices they have paid are extremely low.
See, this is the problem mindset, and the reason people are protesting. The mindset should not be "oh, it's all owned by the federal government, and everything they choose to give you you should be grateful for"
The land is literally supposed to be held in trust for the public, and free to use. The BLM prevents abuse, but it's not supposed to be making a profit from the public. For the vast majority of the country's history, fees to use public lands were token, because it was land owned _collectively by the people_
Now that a small minority of the country actually uses the land, because people have moved to the cities, nobody notices that this contract is being slowly changed, to the detriment of people who have relied on this public access for a long time.
The BLM doesn't make a profit. Actually they (rather, the Dept. of the Interior) don't charge enough for things like mineral extraction. Think of it this way. You and I and everyone else owns those minerals. The US should make sure that we as taxpayers are getting our fair share of their value. It is the same thought process behind the FCC and spectrum auctions. When there is a public good involved, the government needs to make sure it is being put to the best use for all of the citizens. Not just the first people in the door or the well connected.
>Now that a small minority of the country actually uses the land, because people have moved to the cities, nobody notices that this contract is being slowly changed, to the detriment of people who have relied on this public access for a long time.
This is an erroneous statement. Where did you read this?
More people are using BLM land, especially in the Bears Ears area than ever before. This is because of population growth and increased awareness of BLM land. In the past, it was just ranchers and hunters using the land. Now people go hiking, ride ATVs, ride horses (for fun, not work like in the past), etc.
For renewable resources, all that needs to be done is preventing a 'tragedy of the commons' and keeping the land open to most people.
However, for non-renewable resources, whomever gets it is effectively taking it from the public. It is then important that the public is compensated for this loss.
I'm not sure where it says it has to be free to use. In fact, the Supreme Court has stated numerous times that the authority of the Federal government over public lands is "without limitations."
https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-and-forest-service-ann...
I have seen significant preservation efforts regarding a name scratched on a hillside near the Grand Canyon. The author was still living down the street from me, but the scratching was 50 years old.
The abandoned houses across town are blight, but the one in Yosemite is a national treasure. My child's mud hut is a safety hazard, but the one up the cliff is a sacred Anasazi artifact.
On the other hand, I have seen a small local wilderness area turn from a fun spot for a family Easter egg hunt to a regional ATV attraction so crowded the local Boy Scouts could no longer camp there.
Balancing the past, present, and future is always a subjective thing. When the BLM actually does its job, it does land management. But that is a hard job. It is often easier to just close everything down and not let anyone in. That is not management. But when pressure on a wilderness grows from a couple hundred visitors a year to a couple hundred visitors a day, a policy of "anything goes" is also not management. Management can be expensive.
The people in the best position to observe and propose solutions are always local. But BLM struggles to build local partnerships. They try to manage through a multi-layered bureaucracy that ultimately makes decisions from Washington, D.C. The result can often look like the United Airlines video--constructing and enforcing a policy in a manner that doesn't fit the local situation. There are any number of ideas that could get the job done cheaper and with more sensibility.
That boardwalk is called the "Petroglyphs Trail", and it's there for ancient Native American art. Fixing the names of some people that carved their names near it would cause harm to the petroglyphs, so they opted to leave them instead of repair them. I feel like you're being intentionally misleading in completely omitting the fact that the boardwalk is there specifically for Anasazi Petroglpyhs.
> The abandoned houses across town are blight, but the one in Yosemite is a national treasure.
Care to share which house this is? Only information I could find was on the Bodie Ghost town, which is a historic mining town. Again, there's obvious cultural significance to an old gold rush town that is not present in some abandoned craftsmen in the inner city.
> My child's mud hut is a safety hazard, but the one up the cliff is a sacred Anasazi artifact
Really? Do you really not see the difference?
> On the other hand, I have seen a small local wilderness area turn from a fun spot for a family Easter egg hunt to a regional ATV attraction so crowded the local Boy Scouts could no longer camp there.
Which is exactly what a National Monument designation protects.
> Balancing the past, present, and future is always a subjective thing. When the BLM actually does its job, it does land management. But that is a hard job. It is often easier to just close everything down and not let anyone in. That is not management. But when pressure on a wilderness grows from a couple hundred visitors a year to a couple hundred visitors a day, a policy of "anything goes" is also not management. Management can be expensive.
This is literally the opposite of what National Monument land does. They're not "closed down." They're actually far more accessible for generations, just not by way of vehicles that cause massive destruction.
> The people in the best position to observe and propose solutions are always local. But BLM struggles to build local partnerships. They try to manage through a multi-layered bureaucracy that ultimately makes decisions from Washington, D.C. The result can often look like the United Airlines video--constructing and enforcing a policy in a manner that doesn't fit the local situation. There are any number of ideas that could get the job done cheaper and with more sensibility.
Can you cite some sources for that? Let's look at Utah, which is at the center of the National Monument controversy. Yuba Lake, a state park, is an absolute disaster of motorhomes, ATVs, and speedboats. Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, Arches and Zion, all federal land, have all maintained a large percentage of their natural beauty and cultural significance. What exactly would the state do better with those lands?
Edit: I also want to bring up Goblin Valley, one of the more popular state parks in Utah. It's $13 for day-use access to 3500 acres. Grand Staircase, on the other hand, is 1.8 MILLION acres, free day use, and arguably far more fragile and spectacular.