THE DESERT PEAKS SECTION NEWSLETTER JAN-FEB 1971 NUMBER 104 CHAIRMAN'S CORNER

Last year Ben and Miriam Romero presented an outstanding program at a DPS meeting concerning the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) study of the California desert. The object of this study was to find out what was happening in the 16 million acres of California desert, 11 million acres of which is public domain; that is, land under the control of the BLM. The results of this study were published in November of 1968 in a volume entitled The California Desert and copies are available from the BLM. Basically what the study found was that many people were using the desert for various recreational purposes, and that the number was increasing greatly each year. It seemed to them to be necessary to preserve and to develope areas according to their present and future usage. They identified 19 areas as having some various amount of recreation potential to people ranging from climbers and hikers to dune buggyists and motorcyclists. A brief summary of their concepts and recommendations is given below. A. Should identify and establish boundaries for recreation lands. B. Procure private lands, sell public lands, and make exchanges and withdrawals wherever necessary. C. Protect the desert from visual and physical pollution. D. Develope recreational sites, and establish a corps of rangers, visitor centers, way stations, concessions, roads, trails, specialized recreation areas, and off road vehicular and motorcycle facilities. E. Establish interpretive programs, obtain university and professional assistance, and maintain a cleanup and maintenance operation. F. Encourage public participation in the entire operation. It is this last point that concerns us as desert peakers more than anything else. Here is a chance to make our views understood by those people who are in a position to do something. As preservationists first and recreationists second most desert peakers will find things in the BLM plans that are slightly or totally disgusting to our senses of values. However it is much to our advantage to have the BLM dvelope certain areas for those people who like to do things other than wander around on foot. If not offered recreational areas to ride motorcycles and drive dune buggies or jeeps they will continue to find and destroy new desert areas. And these areas will probably be the areas further from LA than they now go, places like the New Yorks, Providences, and Whipples. The areas to be developed or preserved by natural area classification are divided into three priority groups. This is the order in which the BLM feels that each area should be developed or preserved. It is interesting that all priority one and half of the priority two areas contain no peaks on our qualifying list.

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