I know a lot has already been said about the great victory in Congress this week – our elected officials stepping up and doing the right thing by passing the omnibus public lands legislation that unites the 26-million-acre National Landscape Conservation System. But I wanted to add one thing for those of us who hold BLM lands dear to our hearts.

Last week, the Senate passed the Omnibus Public Land Management Act with the overwhelming support of 77 senators; it’s a tremendous victory for our public lands. The House will consider the bill on Wednesday. The bill, now attached to H.R. 147, a proposal to protect Revolutionary War battlefields, makes permanent the National Landscape Conservation System.

I was reading some news yesterday and was pleased to run into an article by Jon Shumaker about the Sonoran Desert. It’s an informative and well-written article that summarizes the spectacular beauty of our protected public lands in southern Arizona, and the significant threats to those lands. The National Landscape Conservation System includes amazing areas in that desert, protected by the Sonoran Desert National Monument and Ironwood Forest National Monument; there are a bunch of other outstanding Conservation System units in that part of the country as well.

My recent trip to Canyons of the Ancients National Monument and Mesa Verde National Park in southwestern Colorado highlighted the unique differences between the National Landscape Conservation System and the National Park Service. Both of these areas are truly national treasures, but if I could get my two days back, I’d spend them both at Canyons of the Ancients. 

Just about an hour north of Taos, New Mexico, and nearly on the Colorado border, is the wild heart of the Wild and Scenic Rio Grande. I was working for The National Wildlife Federation at the time and we took a trip out there to check out the wildlife and recreation opportunities along the river and the adjacent lands of the BLM’s Ute Mountain. We drove up from Taos, and just off the highway, we turned on a deeply rutted dirt road running south of Ute Mountain. 

When Congress approves The National Landscape Conservation Act and sends it to President Obama for his signature, we will have the opportunity to spend more time thinking about what how we can all make the Conservation System better. This includes adding spectacular new landscapes to the System, providing for better management of the System and getting an appropriate budget that meets the System’s needs.  All this involves Congress to some extent or other.
 
Figure out how to get requests through Congress can be a daunting task.

Help has arrived.

What would be a great way for the Barack Obama Administration to get off to a great green start? According to The San Francisco Chronicle in a Jan. 2 editorial, the answer rests with signing legislation that would provide permanent recognition for the National Landscape Conservation System.

Even a few years later, memories of a very special trip linger in my mind … images of the time my good friend Mike and his son Eric joined me on my Steens Mountain Pronghorn hunt. We spent the mornings and evenings searching for Pronghorn and the rest of the day exploring the mountain and fishing the Donner und Blitzen Wild and Scenic River.

The Missouri River Breaks National Monument in Central Montana contains an array of exciting experiences. A 149-mile journey downriver from historic Ft. Benton to Kipp campground is a remote floating adventure with no cell phone service but plenty of dramatic landscape. On the sides of the river are the uplands of the monument, a landscape of glacier, water, heat and wind-carved “Breaks”.