NPCA submitted the following position to members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources ahead of a hearing scheduled for June 8, 2021.
NPCA urges Senators to support the nomination of Tracy Stone-Manning as Director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
Our national parks are symbols of conservation, historic preservation and our shared heritage. In the last four years, as we witnessed attacks on public lands and public land managers and weakened protection for cultural resources, wildlife and waterways, the highest level of protection was not afforded to these incredible places. We can and must do better. The Biden-Harris Administration must address climate change head-on, ensure the federal government is welcoming to diverse communities, and reverse damaging policies that put at risk the water, air, wildlife and other resources that make our parks world-renowned destinations that provide millions to regional economies.
Public lands managed by BLM surround most of the national parks in the western United States. The management of these lands is critical to the health and well-being of those national parks, the natural resources within them and the communities that surround them. How those lands are managed will have a direct impact on national parks like Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Zion and in the California Desert.
As a Westerner, a former state official, congressional staffer and senior policy advisor, and an avid outdoorswoman, Stone-Manning understands the unique challenges facing the agency: conserving and restoring lands to protect wildlife habitat and recreation; ensuring local communities continue to benefit from their proximity to public lands; understanding the complexities of managing lands as landscapes; managing for multiple uses that benefit a broad array of stakeholders; and working across jurisdictions to find creative solutions.
Stone-Manning has spent her career bringing divergent interests and people together to solve a vast array of hard problems – from leading the Superfund clean-up of one of Montana’s most iconic rivers to helping expand government programs to meet the extensive public needs in a conservative, rural Western state. She is a person of great experience, integrity, foresight and commitment to collaborative partnerships designed to build balanced solutions that will ensure our public lands work for all of us.
The full story of America cannot be contained in a textbook or housed within a museum. The over 400 national parks, preserves, historic sites, seashores and more that comprise the National Park System begin to tell the story of the United States and its people. It is America’s legacy to future generations and to the world. But this story is still incomplete, and its chapters often face revision at the hands of environmental, ideological and human threats.
