by Victoria Brandon, Redwood Chapter Chair
This weekend the Bureau of Land Management threw a party to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the agency’s National Landscape Conservation System. Consisting of National Monuments, National Conservation Areas, Wilderness Areas, Wilderness Study Areas, Wild and Scenic Rivers, National Scenic and Historic Trails, and Desert Conservation Lands, these special places include mountain peaks, rockribbed coastlines, abyssal canyons and lush forests; some are remote and rugged, some easily accessible. Here in Redwood Chapter BLM conservation lands include the California Coastal National Monument, King Range National Conservation Area, Headwaters Forest Reserve, the Eel, Klamath, and Trinity Wild and Scenic Rivers, and all or part of eight designated Wilderness areas.
The 15th anniversary celebration started on Friday June 19 at the Headwaters Forest Reserve near Eureka, acquired in 1999 to preserve stands of old-growth redwoods that provide habitat for threatened marbled murrelet and coho salmon. Former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, national BLM Director Neil Kornze, California State Director Jim Kenna and other notables joined an enthusiastic crowd of adults and children to look towards the future by planting 50 infant redwood trees in a “Visionaries Grove” dedicated to the activists who worked to protect Headwaters, and to the “future generations who will help steward their legacy.”
Participants then strolled a half mile along the Elk River Trail through towering redwoods to the Education Center for socializing, refreshments and a “Conservation Conversation” that began with reminiscences about the events that led to Headwaters protection: events in which many Sierra Club activists were intimately involved, and which were instrumental in the formation of the BLM conservation lands system itself. Until its creation under President Bill Clinton in 2000, the BLM -- the nation’s largest landholder by far -- was charged solely with resource development such as grazing, logging, and mining. Wilderness areas and other lands with extraordinary conservation values were automatically removed from BLM jurisdiction and handed over to the National Park Service, Forest Service or Fish and Wildlife Service for management. Establishment of the National Landscape Conservation System gave the agency a massive new stewardship mandate that now includes 30 million acres of special status lands, more than half of them in California. Questions from the audience after the presentation touched on subjects such as climate change, both the challenges and the opportunities involved in building a constituency for nature in our increasingly diverse nation, problems caused by chronic funding deficiencies, and President Obama’s manifest commitment to building his own conservation legacy.
The following day the celebration moved south and west to Black Sands Beach at Shelter Cove, in the King Range National Conservation Area. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell arrived early for a hike on the beach, everyone reveled in the sunshine, wheeling gulls, lively music, and most excellent array of local edibles, and the conversation resumed. As on the previous day, every glance backwards -- for example, Secretary Jewell’s reminiscence of her two visits to Point Arena-Stornetta a bit more than a year ago -- was paired with a look towards the future, the most dramatic being Conservation Lands Foundation chairman Ed Norton’s exhortation to “keep the pressure up” on the president to continue using his Antiquities Act powers to designate national monuments -- a comment that elicited a particularly fervent cheer from the Berryessa Snow Mountain advocates in attendance.
In closing, Jim Kenna announced the release (that very moment) of a new online mapping tool to help the public use computers, smart phones and tablets to locate nearby recreational opportunities on BLM land; unvelied a stunning ceramic walkway evoking the varied character of the agency’s conservation lands in California and including a brick for each specially designated area (with plenty of room to add more!); and orchestrated a series of alternating cheers for “Lost Coast” and “King Range”.
Many happy returns to the BLM, and to the National Landscape Conservation System! It was a GREAT party.
