Photo by Beverly Schlotterbeck
Assistant Secretary of the Interior Bob Armstrong promises cooperation from
the Bureau of Land Management in helping local officials deal with planning
for the future of public land use during his speech to delegates at WIR's
Thursday luncheon.
The theme was beginning to sound very familiar. People are drawn
to the West for its scenic beauty, clean air and clean water. Yet, their
migration threatens to destroy the very place they are seeking. And ...
local communities, seeking to preserve their heritage, share stewardship
with federal agencies, charged with providing recreational opportunities
for all Americans.
In a word or two, these were several of the concepts put on the table for consideration by Assistant Secretary of the Interior Bob Armstrong, Thursday's luncheon speaker.
Like the speakers before him, Armstrong came with his own set of statistics: world-wide, $3.6 trillion was spent in 1996 on travel, tourism and recreation; in the United States, the travel, tourism and recreation industry provides six million jobs and contributes $21 billion to America's trade surplus.
Meanwhile, visitors continue to pour into public lands, and new communities, born of changing technology and global economies, are springing up within elbow and eyespot of the nation's most beautiful landscapes.
This new migration, and the change it presents, would be happening "regardless of politics," Armstrong claimed. It also means that, "we cannot separate out recreation from all other uses of public lands." In turn, this means that local communities must be empowered to deal with what Armstrong characterizes as a "great uprooting."
As assistant interior secretary, Armstrong heads the 9,000-employee Bureau of Land Management, better known as "BLM." The agency, Armstrong promised, has a new attitude fueled by cooperation. "What we've got to do," he told delegates, "is sit down together. If we can make peace among ourselves, we can prevail."