Bureau of Land Management, Annual Report FY 1999: Open Spaces, Special Places.

摘要

As the Acting Director of the Bureau of Land Management, I am pleased to present this Annual Report of our accomplishments for 1999. All of us in the BLM are aware of the responsibilities that go along with being the principal steward of our Nation's public lands and resources, as well as being mindful of our accountability for sound financial management. As caretakers for 264 million acres, we accommodate multiple uses of the land: livestock grazing, outdoor recreation, and interpretive activities for cultural and heritage values, to name just a few. We have done our best to exercise wise and effective stewardship for America's vast legacy of public lands, with their wide-open landscapes and wealth of resources. Protecting open spaces in the Western landscape is an inherent part of our mission; it is essential to virtually every program and project we undertake. We manage and conserve more open space than any other Federal agency, including 5.2 million acres of designated wilderness, the 1.9-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and well over 700 Areas of Critical Environmental Concern. We in the BLM take a 'big picture' or landscape management approach that sees the ecological connections between soil, water, vegetation, animals, and people, and that seeks to restore or maintain the health and productivity of entire landscapes. This requires us to transcend political boundaries and work with various partners - individuals, agencies, and private organizations - to do what's right for the land and the people who depend on it.