BLM unveils new wilderness push

THE DAILY SENTINAL, 12/23/2010 by Dennis Webb - "The Bureau of Land Management will launch a new effort to identify and protect lands with wilderness characteristics under an initiative announced by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar today. ∴ The effort comes in response to a 2003 settlement between former Interior Secretary Gale Norton and other parties including the state of Utah that left the BLM without a national wilderness policy. 'That is simply unacceptable,' Salazar said in a news conference in Denver. ∴ Salazar said the Norton agreement “frankly should never have happened and was wrong in the first place.” The new initiative won’t disavow that agreement by the Bush administration, but will make use of existing BLM authority to evaluate its lands for designation as “wild lands” following a public process. Such lands would be managed to protect their wilderness characteristics unless a new public management process results in a modified designation. ∴ Wild lands would differ from wilderness areas, which Congress designates and can be modified by legislation, and from wilderness study areas, which the BLM typically must manage as wilderness until Congress decides whether they merit wilderness designation. ∴ Salazar said the wild land designation provides more flexibility for multiple uses of land, such as for alternative energy development. But it would give lands with wilderness characteristics “a significant place at the table,” whereas in the past such characteristics weren’t valued, he said."