APES Federal Land Agency Homework
Directions: There are 6 different government land agencies that you must know for the APES test. Read information on the following six agencies and fill in the table below. Then do the assessment.
Name of Agency / Examples (At Least 2) / Basic Notes / Motto of AgencyLand Agency Assessment
Directions: Below are statements regarding the various land agencies in the United States. Identify whether the statement is true of false. If the statement is false, correct the statement so that it becomes true.
1) Yosemite National Park was the first national park in the United States.
2) Hunting is allowed in a national park.
3) Gifford Pinchot was the first Chief Forester of the National Forest Service.
4) Resource extraction is allowed in a national forest.
5) The Wilderness Act of 1964 designated wilderness areas in the United States.
6) One of the conditions for being designated as wilderness is that there are opportunities for solitude and recreation.
7) National Wildlife Refuges manage a full range of habitat types, from wetlands to prairies.
8) At six National Wildlife Refuges, one can hunt and fish.
9) The National Marine Sanctuaries Program is a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency.
10) The Channel Islands Marine Sanctuary is the marine sanctuary that is closest to our school.
11) Most public BLM lands are found in the west, especially Texas.
12) The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 allowed grazing on public, BLM lands.
#1 National Park Service
The United StatesNational Park Service(NPS) is theU.S. federal agencythat manages allnational parks, manynational monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations.It was created on August 25, 1916, byCongressthrough theNational Park Service Organic Act.
It is anagencyof theUnited States Department of the Interior, afederal executive departmentwhose head, theSecretary of the Interior, is aCabinetofficer nominated by thePresidentandconfirmedby theSenate. Most of the direct management of the NPS is delegated by the Secretary to the National Park Service Director, who must also be confirmed by the Senate.
The 21,989 employees of the NPS oversee 398units, of which 58 are designatednational parks
National parks and national monuments in the United States were originally individually managed under the auspices of the Department of the Interior. The movement for an independent agency to oversee these federal lands was spearheaded bybusiness magnateandconservationistStephen Mather, as well asJ. Horace McFarland. With the help of journalistRobert Sterling Yard, Mather ran a publicity campaign for theDepartment of the Interior. They wrote numerous articles that praised the scenic qualities of the parks and their possibilities for educational, inspirational, and recreational benefits. This campaign resulted in the creation of a National Park Service. On August 25, 1916, PresidentWoodrow Wilsonsigned a bill that mandated the agency "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." Mather became the first director of the newly formed NPS.
On March 3, 1933, PresidentHerbert Hooversigned the Reorganization Act of 1933. The act would allow the President to reorganize the executive branch of the United States government. It wasn't until later that summer when the new President,Franklin D. Roosevelt, made use of this power. Deputy DirectorHorace M. Albrighthad suggested to President Roosevelt that the historic sites from the American Civil War should be managed by the National Park Service, rather than the War Department. President Roosevelt agreed and issued twoExecutive ordersto make it happen. These two executive orders not only transferred to the National Park Service all the War Department historic sites, but also the national monuments managed by the Department of Agriculture and the parks in and around the capital, which had been run by an independent office.
In 1951,Conrad Wirthbecame director of the National Park Service and went to work on bringing park facilities up to the standards that the public expected. The demand for parks after the end of theWorld War IIhad left the parks overburdened with demands that could not be met. In 1952, with the support of PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower, he beganMission 66, a ten-year effort to upgrade and expand park facilities for the 50th anniversary of the Park Service. New parks were added to preserve unique resources and existing park facilities were upgraded and expanded.
National Park Systemis a term that describes the collection of all units managed by the National Park Service. The title or designation of a unit need not include the termpark; indeed, most do not. The system encompasses approximately 84.4 millionacres(338,000km²), of which more than 4.3 million acres (17,000km²) remain in private ownership. The largest unit isWrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. At 13,200,000acres (53,000km²), it is over 16 percent of the entire system. The smallest unit in the system isThaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial,Pennsylvania, at 0.02acre (80m²).
Since its inception in 1916, the National Park Service has managed each of the United States' national parks, which have grown in number over the years to 58.
Yellowstone National Parkwas the firstnational parkin the United States. In 1872, there was nostate governmentto manage it, so thefederal governmentassumed direct control.Yosemite National Parkbegan as astate park; the land for the park was donated by the federal government to the state ofCaliforniain 1864 for perpetual conservation. Yosemite was later returned to federal ownership.
Lastly, the motto of the National Park Service is “take only photos, leave only footprints.” Hunting is not allowed in a National Park. Logging or mining are also prohibited. There are concessions, however, in a National Park. For example, in Yosemite National Park, there is a ski resort (Badger Pass) in which you can pay to go skiing.
#2 National Forest Service
TheUnited States Forest Serviceis an agency of theUnited States Department of Agriculturethat administers the nation's 155national forestsand 20national grasslands, which encompass 193 million acres (780,000km2). Major divisions of the agency include the National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, and the Research and Development branch.
In 1876, Congress created the office of Special Agent in the Department of Agriculture to assess the quality and conditions of forests in the United States.Franklin B. Houghwas appointed the head of the office. In 1881, the office was expanded into the newly formedDivision of Forestry. TheForest Reserve Act of 1891authorized withdrawing land from the public domain as "forest reserves," managed by theDepartment of the Interior. In 1901, the Division of Forestry was renamed theBureau of Forestry. The Transfer Act of 1905 transferred the management of forest reserves from theGeneral Land Officeof the Interior Department to the Bureau of Forestry, henceforth known as theUnited States Forest Service.Gifford Pinchotwas the first Chief Forester of the United States Forest Service in theadministration of President Theodore Roosevelt.
In February 2009, theGovernment Accountability Officeevaluated whether the Forest Service should be moved from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of the Interior, which already includes theNational Park Service, theFish and Wildlife Service, and theBureau of Land Management, managing some 438,000,000 acres (1,770,000km2) of public land.
The mission of the Forest Service is "To sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations." Its motto is "Caring for the land and serving people." As the lead Federal agency in natural resource conservation, the US Forest Service provides leadership in the protection, management, and use of the Nation’s forest, rangeland, and aquatic ecosystems. The agency's ecosystem approach to management integrates ecological, economic, and social factors to maintain and enhance the quality of the environment to meet current and future needs. Through implementation of land and resource management plans, the agency ensures sustainable ecosystems by restoring and maintaining species diversity and ecological productivity that helps provide recreation, water, timber, minerals, fish, wildlife, wilderness, and aesthetic values for current and future generations of people.
The everyday work of the Forest Service balances resource extraction, resource protection, and providing recreation. The work includes managing 193,000,000 acres (780,000km2) of national forest and grasslands, including 59,000,000 acres (240,000km2) ofroadless areas; 14,077 recreation sites; 143,346 miles (230,693km) of trails; 374,883 miles (603,316km) of roads; and the harvesting of 1.5 billion trees per year.Further, the Forest Service fought fires on 2,996,000 acres (12,120km2) of land.
The 193 million acres (780,000km2) of public land that are managed as national forests and grasslands are collectively known as the National Forest System. These lands are located in 44 States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands and comprise about 9% of the total land area in the United States. The lands are organized into 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The mission of the National Forest System is to protect and manage the forest lands so they best demonstrate the sustainable multiple-use management concept, using an ecological approach, to meet the diverse needs of people.
The history of the Forest Service has been fraught with controversy, as various interests and national values have grappled with the appropriate management of the many resources within the forests. These values and resources includegrazing,timber,mining,recreation, wildlife habitat, andwilderness. Because of continuing development elsewhere, the large size of National Forests have made them de facto wildlife reserves for a number of rare and common species. In recent decades, the importance of mature forest for thespotted owland a number of other species led to great changes in timber harvest levels.
In certain fire-adapted ecosystems, the ensuing decades of fire suppression unintentionally caused a buildup of fuels that replaced the historically natural fire regime of slow-burning, relatively cool fires with fast-burning, relatively hot wildfires in the fire-adapted forest lands across the nation.
#3 Wilderness Areas: National Wilderness Preservation System
TheNational Wilderness Preservation System(NWPS) of the United States protectsfederallymanagedwildernessareas designated for preservation in their natural condition. Activity on formally designated wilderness areas is coordinated by the National Wilderness Preservation System. Wilderness areas are managed by four federal land management agencies: theNational Park Service, theU.S. Forest Service, theU.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and theBureau of Land Management. The term wilderness is defined as “an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain" and "an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions."
During the 1950s and 1960s, as the American transportation system was on the rise, concern for clean air and water quality began to grow. A conservation movement began to take place with the intent of establishing designated wilderness areas.Howard Zahnisercreated the first draft of the Wilderness Act in 1956. It took nine years and 65 rewrites before the Wilderness Act was finally passed in 1964. The Wilderness Act of 1964, which established the NWPS, was signed into law byPresidentLyndon B. Johnsonon September 3, 1964. The Wilderness Act mandated that the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service review all federal lands under their jurisdiction for wilderness areas to include in the NWPS.The Great Swamp in New Jerseybecame the first formally designated wilderness refuge in the United States. It had been declared a wildlife refuge on November 3, 1960. In 1966, it had been declared aNational Natural Landmarkand, in 1968, it was given wildernessstatus. The Bureau of Land Management was not required to review its lands for inclusion in the NWPS, however, until in 1976, when theFederal Land Policy and Management Actwas passed by Congress. This resulted in the creation of hundreds of wilderness areas within already protected federally administered lands, consisting of approximately 9.1 million acres (3,700,000ha).
This act clarified the landholdings of theBureau of Land Managementand set up a deadline for review of the lands by November 1980. This deadline corresponds to the dramatic spike of acreage added for that year and also explains why 1980 became the year with the most wilderness acreage added in the United States by far. As of August 2008, a total of 704 separate wilderness areas, encompassing 107,514,938 acres (43,509,752ha) had been set aside. With the passage of the Omnibus Public Lands Act in March 2009, there are now 756 wilderness areas. The Elkhorn Ridge Wilderness, which was officially initiated into the system on January 13, 2011, is the newest area protected by the act. This came five years after the 2006 law that designated the area to the system due to restorations on 1,565 acres of land reacquired from the public.
Onfederallands in the United States,Congressmay designate an area as wilderness under the provisions of the Wilderness Act of 1964. Multiple agencies, including theBureau of Land Management, theNational Park Service, theFish and Wildlife Service, the US Forest Service, among others are responsible for the submission of new areas that fit the criteria to become wilderness to congress. Congress then reviews these cases on a state-by-state basis and determines which areas and how much land in each area will become part of the WPS. There have been multiple occasions in which Congress designated more federal land then was recommended by the nominating agency. Whereas the Wilderness Act stipulated that a wilderness area must be "administered for the use and enjoyment of the American people in such a manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness.", theEastern Wilderness Act, which added 16 National Forest areas to the NWPS, allowed for the inclusion of areas that had been severely modified by human interference.
TheWilderness Actprovides criteria for lands being considered for wilderness designation. Though there are some exceptions, the following conditions must be present for an area to be included in the NWPS: (1) the land is under federal ownership and management, (2) the area consists of at least five thousand acres of land, (3) human influence is “substantially unnoticeable,” (4) there are opportunities for solitude and recreation, and (5) the area possesses “ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.”
Wilderness areas are subject to specific management restrictions; human activities are limited to non-motorized recreation (such asbackpacking,hunting,fishing, horseback riding, etc.),scientific research, and other non-invasive activities. During these activities, patrons are asked to abide by the "Leave No Trace" policy. This policy sets guidelines for using the wilderness responsibly, and leaving the area as it was before usage. These guidelines include: Packing all trash out of the wilderness, using a stove as opposed to a fire, camping at least 200 feet from trails or water sources, staying on marked trails, and keeping group size small. When closely observed, the "Leave No Trace" ethos ensures that wilderness areas remain untainted by human interaction.[7]In general, the law prohibitslogging,mining, mechanized vehicles (includingbicycles), road-building, and other forms of development in wilderness areas, though pre-existing mining claims and grazing ranges are permitted throughgrandfather clausesin the Wilderness Act.
Wilderness areas are parts ofnational parks, wildlife refuges,national forests, and the public domain and may include land in several different units managed by different agencies. Initially, the NWPS included 34 areas protecting 9.1 million acres (37,000km2) in the national forests. As of August 2008, there were 704 wilderness areas in the NWPS, preserving 107,514,938 acres (435,097.52km2). This is approximately 5% of the entireUnited States, though only about 2.5% of the 48 contiguous states. The states with the highest number of wildernesses areCalifornia,Arizona,Nevada,Alaska, andOregon, however, when measured in wilderness acres the list changes dramatically asAlaskacontains many of the largest areas protected under the act. In terms of total acres,Alaska,California,Arizona,Idaho, andWashingtoncompose the list of the five states with the most wilderness. Wilderness areas exist in every state exceptConnecticut,Delaware,Iowa,Kansas,Maryland, andRhode Island.
#4 Wildlife Refuges
National Wildlife Refugeis a designation for certainprotected areas of the United Statesmanaged by theUnited States Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Wildlife Refuge System is the system of public lands and waters set aside to conserve America's fish, wildlife and plants. Since PresidentTheodore Rooseveltdesignated Florida'sPelican Island National Wildlife Refugeas the first wildlife refuge in 1903, the System has grown to more than 95,000,000 acres (384,451km2), 556 national wildlife refuges and other units of the Refuge System, plus 38 wetland management districts.
The mission of the Refuge System is to manage a national network of lands and waters for the conservation, management, and where appropriate, restoration of fish, wildlife and plant resources and their habitat. The Refuge System maintains the biological integrity, diversity, and environmental health of these natural resources for the benefit of present and future generations of Americans.
National Wildlife Refuges manage a full range of habitat types, including wetlands; prairies; coastal and marine areas; and temperate, tundra and boreal forests. The management of each habitat is a complex web of controlling or eradicating invasive species, using fire in a prescribed manner, assuring adequate water resources, and assessing external threats like development or contamination.