Reimagining Public Lands — Joe Quiroz, Wyoming Wilderness Association member
This year we celebrate 75 years of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) — and look to the future of publicly-managed lands. For its anniversary, the BLM has asked us all to “Reimagine Your Public Lands” as the agency looks to manage more than 245 million acres for future generations. We’ve invited BLM Wild partners and friends to share their love of BLM-managed places and reflections about the opportunity to reimagine public land management.
Joe Quiroz is the son of people who have lived in the arid western lands of North America for many centuries. His education and life experience led him to find his purpose and profession in understanding and managing human use of natural resources. Now living in Lander, Wyoming, he remains committed to the duty of all Americans to participate in the care and sustainable use of our natural heritage.
Q: The Bureau of Land Management’s theme for its 75th Anniversary is “Reimagine Your Public Lands.” What does reimagining BLM-managed public lands mean to you?
A: Reimagining the role of public lands now is an opportunity, and a mandate, to reassess what the idea of public land means. Their designation as public lands under the laws of America recapitulate that they have been common lands since the first humans arrived here. In that venerable tradition, their stakeholders include not only all of us who contribute to their sustainable use and enjoyment, but to some extent, those from other places with whom we share all of Earth’s bounty.
Q: How have you been involved in advocating for the conservation of significant BLM-managed lands in your state or region?
A: I have. And I will. As an owner of these lands, I, and you, have a fiduciary duty to provide Care of the land through participation in the decisions about how it will be treated. I have a duty of Loyalty to avoid and prevent conflicts of interest. And I have the duty of Obedience to the laws and ethics that guide our actions.
Q: What is one of your favorite or most important BLM-managed areas and why?
A: Among my favorites are the ones I have visited. I wonder how many more are waiting for me. Today I am in Wyoming’s Red Desert, a land of superlatives. It’s a place of not just scenic beauty and historic power, it is a sublime point of connection between my individual humanness and the essence of creation. There is no way to experience this from a distance. You have to be here.
See Wyoming Wilderness Association’s website to learn more about the Red Desert.
