federal programs providing subsidized access to ranchers and other natural resource
industries (Dana and Fairfax, 1980). In considering the historic balance between resource
management decisions affecting the development or conservation of natural resources,
agency officials often sided with extractive industries, a critical source of jobs and
income in the rural West. This led to political alliances with like minded trade groups and
with natural resource committees in Congress to nurture and protect program subsidies
(Culhane, 1981; Clarke and McCool, 1996).
However, federal land policies and agencies have not been immune from larger
social, economic, and political forces resulting in change. The environmental movement
of the 1960s and 1970s put pressure on Congress to develop an array of new programs
and responsibilities affecting BLM and the Forest Service as well as production limits on
the harvesting of natural resources within existing programs (Kraft, 2007). Newly
empowered environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, the
Sierra Club, and Defenders of Wildlife began to clamor for changes in planning and
management of land use programs that would take into account the impacts of ongoing or
proposed projects on wildlife, watershed quality, recreational opportunities, and aesthetic
concerns (Hays, 2007). More militant groups such as Forest Guardians were impatient or
frustrated with the seemingly glacial pace of change obtained through legislative efforts
and attempted to achieve their policy goals through alternative venues such as federal
courts or state ballot initiatives.
Political efforts to seriously address the environmental impacts of project
proposals on resource allocation decisions meant that natural resource industries
accustomed to few or no restrictions in terms of use permits or leases for access to
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Convention