BLM Environmental Youth Program Wins National Award

The Bureau of Land Management's District of Columbia Wonderful Outdoor World Program (WOW), today received the Department of the Interior's 2001 Environmental Achievement Award in Washington, D.C., for its work with D.C.-area youth.

The award recognizes Department bureaus, offices, employees or contractors for their exceptional achievements or contributions in a broad range of environmental discipline areas, including pollution prevention, recycling, sustainable design, environmentally preferable purchasing, environmental stewardship, auditing and environmental management, and education and outreach.

The WOW program, managed by the BLM's Eastern States Office in Springfield, Virginia, provides opportunities for youth to learn about and participate in environmental stewardship through community camp outs and special activities and events . The program, now in its third year, has reached more than 5,000 8-to-12 year-olds in the D.C. area.

The BLM, an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior, manages more land — 264 million surface acres — than any other Federal agency. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), which gave the BLM its comprehensive mission to manage the public lands for a variety of uses so as to benefit present and future generations. The BLM accomplishes this by managing for such resources as outdoor recreation, livestock grazing and mineral development, and by conserving natural, historical, cultural, and other resources on the public lands. Most of the country's BLM-managed public land is located in 12 Western states, including Alaska. These lands, once remote, now provide the growing communities of the West with open space that gives the region much of its character. The Bureau, which has a budget of $1.8 billion and a workforce of about 9,000 employees, also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the Nation.