PHS100A
Warner Pacific College
October 24, 2011
My
view on the bureau of land management’s involvement in our society is one of an
avid outdoorsman who feels that everyone should get to enjoy the natural beauty
of the wilderness. The bureau has had many impacts on our society for better
and for worse, but all in all I think that they do the best they can. In this
paper I will discuss the pros of having a bureau of land management and what
they give back. I will also include my views on how Weyerhaeuser, the company
that owns the most land in the northwest, is doing business in regards to the
needs of our society.
The
bureau of land management in Oregon and Washington has over 15 million acres of
land to protect and conserve for the public to enjoy (Tourism, 2010). They are
able to do this by receiving grants from the government and charging fees at
all recreational areas.
The term that the
BLM use for this is “public land” but some are not so sure how open to the
public it is; when every forest that we want to enjoy costs money for us to
enjoy. Some people feel that if the public owns this land, (the
parks/lakes/rivers, anywhere that there is a place for recreational adventure)
than it should be free to the public to use and enjoy. These same people that
continually complain about our government how it operates yet do nothing to
correct the errors. This same group of people is the reason for the hippie fest
that occurred last summer under the guise of “Rainbow festival.” The BLM
allowed these people to go out and reconnect with nature on the lands that they
operate and care for and all these people did was leave a giant mess in the
woods that now we have to clean up.
Right now the fees
that we pay to enjoy these public lands are not substantial but can be annoying
if you are not prepared for them. Without these fees the parks themselves
wouldn’t have funding to stay operational. The BLM recorded that 7,962,017
people visited the 70 recreational sites that the BLM manages last year. And
they were able to generate 1.9$ million dollars from the fees and permits that
they required (Tourism, 2010). It is nice to see that one bureau of our local
government can raise almost 2 million dollars for its own continued success
instead of taking it straight out of taxes that could’ve been better spent on
other situations.
As an avid
outdoorsman I have had many experiences with the Weyerhaeuser Company in the
state of Washington. Besides BLM owned land Weyerhaeuser is the 2nd
largest land owners in Washington. Growing up I have found that my friends and
I are more often than not on Weyerhaeuser property when we go out to enjoy the
wilderness. They have been very generous in letting the public go onto their
lands and conduct their recreational adventures, as long as it doesn’t impede
the logging work that is being done in that particular area.
After Weyerhaeuser
is done with their logging of an area they offer plots of land to be sold back
to the public. Right now there are 90 listings of land that Weyerhaeuser is
selling ranging from 3+ acres to 340+ acres. I think this is a great way for a
company to offer people a chance to live out their dreams of escaping the city
life to live in the solitude of the wilderness.
The BLM and
Weyerhaeuser have taken our most precious resource in the Pacific Northwest,
which is our vast expanses of wilderness, and transformed them into
recreational areas for our families to enjoy and cherish. As our cities grow
and our wilderness diminishes it is imperative to have the BLM speaking out to
keep our forests intact.
References
Coranto.
(2011, January 1).Washington’s Public
Lands. Retrieved from http://publiclands.org/explore.quadrant_map.php?plicstate=WA&quad=wa_q14
Tourism. (2010, January 1). Retieved
from
Weyerhaeuser. (2011, June 10). Retrieved
from
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