The Bureau of Land Management has had a hard time when it comes to making friends — but it’s starting to make progress.
It’s not that BLM doesn’t play well with others; after all, the agency claims responsibility for 245 million acres of federal land used for a mix of oil and gas leasing, mining, grazing and recreation.
But unlike other major federal land agencies — the National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Forest Service — BLM went without an official nonprofit partner for nearly all of its 80 years of operations. That left the agency without what’s commonly known as a “friends group” to raise private funds and address agency priorities, helping to fill funding shortfalls and project needs.
By comparison, the National Park Foundation has operated since the 1960s and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation since the 1980s.
