The Bureau of Land Management NEWS |
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The Bureau of Land Management NEWS |
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Last updated: 04/04/03
Release date: April 23, 1996
Contact: Tom Gorey, 202/452-5031
Appearing at a conference of Western land commissioners and natural resource experts, Bureau of Land Management Acting Director Mike Dombeck said the BLM is working hard with diverse interests at the local level to resolve issues that will otherwise end up in litigation. "The most important thing is to collaborate with the public, knowing that there will always be disagreements," Dombeck said. "There is no alternative."
Dombeck also denounced anti-Federal violence as "unacceptable" and said he hoped that such violence had "reached the high-water mark" and was receding.
Dombeck made his comments as part of a panel at a joint conference of the Eastern Lands and Resources Council and the Western States Land Commissioners Association. The other members of the panel, who spoke on the topic of conflict resolution, were Assistant U.S. Attorney General Lois J. Schiffer and U.S. Forest Service official Tom Mainwaring. The conference, titled "Refocusing Government," was held at a hotel in downtown Washington, D.C.
Dombeck pointed to the BLM's recent creation of 24 Resource Advisory Councils as an example of the kind of success that can be achieved when Federal land managers work closely with diverse interests at the local level.
Dombeck said the BLM has been "pleasantly surprised" with the work of the councils, which include ranchers, environmentalists, recreationists, local officials, and others. The councils were created under the agency's new rangeland management rules that took effect last August.
"There are lots of issues we can build coalitions around," Dombeck said, citing as examples the need to stop the spread of noxious weeds and the need to better manage wildland fire on the public lands.
Land-management issues, Dombeck told the conference, fall into three categories or "zones" -- a "green zone" in which nearly everyone can agree on how to resolve a particular problem, a "yellow zone" in which some parties disagree on a proposed solution, and a "red zone" in which several parties strongly disagree on a proposed solution. "It's critical that we don't spend all our time in the red zone," Dombeck said.
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