You could look up the original Bureau of Land Management charter by congress, which does in fact mandate that the BLM's charter[1] is to manage federal lands with the goals of sustained resource yield:
> The Congress declares that it is the policy of the United States that goals and objectives be established by law as guidelines for public land use planning, and that management be on the basis of multiple use and sustained yield unless otherwise specified by law.[4]
They are managed to balance interests to ensure long-term needs, not cannot simply declare that timber, minerals, etc are off-limits:
> The government must consider "a combination of balanced and diverse resource uses that takes into account the long-term needs of future generations for renewable and nonrenewable resources, including, but not limited to, recreation, range, timber, minerals, watershed, wildlife and fish, and natural scenic, scientific and historical values."
The deal was very explicitly that federal land was to be managed to avoid a tragedy of the commons with regards to resource extraction. Resource extraction was one of the primary goals mandated by congress and no, they cannot simply decide they don't want to.
Thank you for the response and the reference information to root this conversation.
I appreciate this statement, and have one question to ask:
> The deal was very explicitly that federal land was to be managed to avoid a tragedy of the commons with regards to resource extraction. Resource extraction was one of the primary goals mandated by congress and no, they cannot simply decide they don't want to.
Question: if we are going to avoid a tragedy of the commons, wouldn't that mean in some cases you have to say "no"?
In the OP article, the BLM is criticized for being too in the pocket of industry and allowing unsustainable resource extraction. Which brings up the point of old growth forests - there are not a lot of them. It makes sense to say "no" here? There are very few old growth forests around, yet they would be very profitable to chop down (let's recall Paul Bunyon chopping down the redwoods, that activity generated piles of cash). Thus the tension.
I would want us to focus most on the question that whether to have sustainability, at times you have to say no. For example, you can't go on a diet and then say yes to everything you want to eat - there has to be a time to say no.
With regards to how well the BLM has been run, how true it has been to its mission, and particularly over the years as it transitions from various leaders (flip-flopping from conservationist types to industry executives).. (A) I don't know how a coherent policy can be kept when leadership changes like that. (B) Yeah, BLM has a long history that is not great. The National Parks service at Yosemite used to have a bear feeding show that they did daily - where they would have a group of people in an amphitheater watch as they dumped out a bunch of food for bears to come and eat.. I mention that to say that government services/policy do not have a great track record and that I share your feelings that BLM is kinda all over the place and that we both share a lack of love for it.
None of the timber mills that closed down were setup to accommodate old growth forest. These isn't enough of it left around here to be viably logged. It was all used up long ago to build Seattle and San Francisco.
> The Congress declares that it is the policy of the United States that goals and objectives be established by law as guidelines for public land use planning, and that management be on the basis of multiple use and sustained yield unless otherwise specified by law.[4]
They are managed to balance interests to ensure long-term needs, not cannot simply declare that timber, minerals, etc are off-limits:
> The government must consider "a combination of balanced and diverse resource uses that takes into account the long-term needs of future generations for renewable and nonrenewable resources, including, but not limited to, recreation, range, timber, minerals, watershed, wildlife and fish, and natural scenic, scientific and historical values."
The deal was very explicitly that federal land was to be managed to avoid a tragedy of the commons with regards to resource extraction. Resource extraction was one of the primary goals mandated by congress and no, they cannot simply decide they don't want to.
[1] https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_Land_Policy_and_Management_A...