Come Lend a Hand at BLM National Public Lands Day Event
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Coeur d’Alene, ID – Come lend a hand and celebrate public lands on Thursday, Sept. 22 during National Public Lands Day (NPLD)! The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will hold this year’s event at the Blue Creek Bay Recreation area, east of Coeur d’Alene. NPLD is an opportunity to highlight public lands through volunteering and helping with service projects. This year’s event will be held at the Blue Creek Bay Recreation area east of Coeur d’Alene.
Volunteer activities for the event include planting trees and shrubs, minor trail maintenance, kiosk improvements and general site maintenance. If you are interested in helping out, please dress appropriately for the weather and terrain and plan to get a little dirty for a good cause!
NPLD is the nation’s largest hands-on volunteer effort to enhance public lands all of us enjoy. Across Idaho, the BLM expects hundreds of volunteers and partners to take part in National Public Lands Day events.
National Public Lands Day this year is a special one for the BLM. In addition to being the agency’s 70thanniversary, 2016 marks the 40th year since the BLM’s bedrock legislation was passed.
The BLM was formed in 1946 when the General Land Office (whose mission was the disposal of federal lands in the western U.S.) and the Grazing Service (whose mission was the regulation of grazing lands and the retention of federal lands) combined. As a result of the fusion of two different agencies, the early BLM lacked a well-defined statutory mandate for managing and caring for lands. The Federal Lands Policy and Management Act (FLPMA)—signed by Pres. Gerald Ford on October 21, 1976—resolved that issue.
Today, the BLM is the Department of Interior’s only multiple-use land management agency. The BLM manages one in every 10 acres of land in the United States and 30 percent of the nation’s mineral and soil resources, more than any other Federal agency in the United States. BLM-managed public lands stretch across the nation, from the Arctic Ocean to the Mexican border, and from Key West, Florida, to Washington’s San Juan Islands.
Additional information on this event and others can be found at https://www.neefusa.org/find-an-event.
The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land located primarily in 12 western states, including Alaska, on behalf of the American people. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. Our mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of America’s public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.