WILDERNESS MANAGEMENT BY THE MULTIPLE USE AGENCIES: WHAT MAKES THE FOREST SERVICE AND THE BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT DIFFERENT?

The organic statutes for the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management direct each agency to manage lands under its jurisdiction in accordance with nearly identical multiple use, sustained yield mandates. Like the dominant use agencies, the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service, the multiple use agencies are required to identify lands suitable for preservation as wilderness and must manage lands designated by Congress as wilderness pursuant to the Wilderness Act. Although the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management are subject to parallel statutory regimes, wilderness preservation practices in national forests and on public lands have diverged. More acres in, and a greater percentage of, national forests are protected as wilderness, and the Forest Service generally has been more receptive to wilderness preservation than the Bureau of Land Management. This Article explores whether the divergence is due to differences in the physical characteristics of the two land systems, agency culture and organization, interactions between the agencies’ organic statutes and either the Wilderness Act or other statutes, agency management policies and procedures, degree of congressional commitment, and judicial treatment. After concluding that several of these factors have more explanatory power than others, the Article suggests statutory and administrative actions that would allow wilderness to be preserved as effectively on public lands as in national forests.