| OCR Text |
Show Public Comment Asked On Management Needs The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is inviting public comment on proposed guidelines for identifying and designating areas of the public lands where special management is needed. The proposed guidelines were published in the June 6 Federal Register. "The Organic Act mandates us to protect our most environmentally significant and most vulnerable resources within a framework of multiple use," BLM Director Frank Gregg said. "We have a dual responsibility: to protect those .genuinely important and critical natural, historic, cultural or scenic values that make the places where they are located special places, and to protect the public from natural hazards, and to do this without unnecessarily restricting these lands from any compatible uses," he said. The kinds of areas that would be involved are those where special management Is required to (1) protect Important and critical historic, cultural, or scenic values, fish and wildlife resources, or other natural systems or processes, or (2) provHe protection to 'he public from natural hazards. Recognition of such areas is not new to the public lands or to BLM. In the past, however, such designations as "research areas" or "natural areas" have not necessarily included commitment to providing special management on a continuing basis'. In the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 Congress directed BLM to give special management attention to "areas of critical environmental concern" (ACECs) on such a continuing basis. BLM Director Frank Gregg said the ACEC process will provide BLM resource managers with a multiple-use planning and management tool that will be useful in special situations. Uses such as the production of food, timber or minerals, and recreational or other development, when wisely planned and properly managed, may take place In ACECs, and will be controlled to ensure that the significant and critical environmental resources within these creai are not damaged or endangered, Gregg said. The draft guidelines include the following proposals: - ACE3 identification and designation will be done through BLM's on- the-ground resource management planning process with opportunities for broad public participatioa Each ACECs management prescription will be site-specific, individually "handcrafted" to fit each area's particular resources or hazards. An ACEC designation will constitute a commitment that future actions within that area will be limited to those that are consistent with the area's particular special management requirements. To the extent that any otherwise appropriate use can take place within an ACEC without endangering an Important environmental resource, or human life or property, the use will be permitted. Involvement by local and State governments, private organizations and individual citizens will be provided for at each phase of the process. ACEC designations may be made or revised only through an open public process inc jding environmental analysis. " Responsibility for designating ACECs rests with BLM District Managers, after con currence by BLM State Directors. |
