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Department of Interior agencies that manage federal lands (BLM, USFS, NPS) have educational programs for school students and visitors to public lands presenting relatively manicured histories of the places from both natural (biological, geological) and cultural history points of view. These forms of education do not necessarily encourage a reflective capacity for examining land use. In some instances, the multi-use aspect of these areas is treated as a taken-for-granted characteristic of the spaces while at other times multiple-use is somewhat obscured or omitted in favor of highlighting spaces as natural and carrying value in their own right as ecosystems/as places to visit specifically for the enjoyment of natural spaces.

In general there seems that the conflicts surrounding public lands themselves are rarely the focus or topic of educational programs. Furthermore, the historical and political conditions that contribute to such conflict or that create challenges for management, though recognized by some individuals within agencies, do not appear to be incorporated explicitly into educational programs.

Some questions that remain and require further ethnographic exploration are who else is educating people (education broadly conceived) about the areas that fall into the category of federal public lands? For instance, many local residents who are members of the LDS church hold negative attitudes toward the federal government but highly value these spaces and regularly camp, fish, hike, bike, and hunt on public lands. Who/what informs their knowledge and relation to these spaces? What education about these spaces and about the environment occurs through the LDS church?

With repeated instances of ignoring indigenous presence and claims to territory, the area now considered federal public lands in Utah is part of a large multi-state area that was Mexican territory until the 1848 Mexican Cession. Brigham Young and the group of LDS church members traveling with him to settle in the area arrived shortly before this land became part of the U.S. public domain. Whereas the Mormon immigrants to the area had originally sought to build a separate society from the mainstream U.S., church leaders ultimately pushed for statehood, viewing such legal status as potentially useful because state governemnt could provide a degree of autonomy. In early attempts to achieve statehood, the church set up an interim government--when that appeal for statehood was denied, that government somewhat continued despite not being formally/legally recognized by the U.S. Eventually in 1896, Utah was declared a state, shortly after a representative of the LDS church renounced the church's previous encouragement of plural marriage.

The state government that then formed and continues into the present is understood to be tightly entwined with the LDS church, with non-Mormon residents speaking cynically of the ways that their voices are ignored because they aren't LDS. Despites a strong sense of states' rights, 66.5% of land in Utah is federally-owned, thus federal agencies have a significant presence in the area. The overall high percentages of federally-owned land in the West (47% of western states) is a result of the geographic and climatic conditions that made many areas difficult to travel to and unsuitable for significant agricultural development, meaning many areas were not transferred out of federal hands through homestead policies or land grants. The areas remaining in federal ownership were, for many decades, used by ranchers rather freely until the formalization of bureaucratic procedures for permitting use of these spaces in the mid 20th century. While ownership has not shifted out of federal hands since mid-19th century acquisition, such changes as the 1934 Taylor Grazing Act and various changes to land status through legislative wilderness designation (as laied out by the 1964 Wilderness Act) and executive action (as enabled by the 1906 Antiquities Act) have resulted in changes to use and the permits required for such economic uses as cattle grazing in ways that are described as "federal land grabs," as a removal or taking away of land from locals and from the state.

The federal public lands under contention in southern Utah are adjacent to communities that hold significant anti-federal sentiment, in what appear to be two primary forms. One is a stance of anti-federal patriotism/nationalism, in which  people view the federal government as tyrannical but cast the government as explicitly in opposition to the ideals of America. This perspective is seen in the militia movements that exist across western states and has been exhibited more publicly in instances such as the 2014 Bundy standoff in Nevada or the 2016 Malheur Wildlife Refuge occupation. Another perspective present in communities near these federal lands is one of a refusal to recognize the federal governmant as a legitimate governing institution and the recognition of the church as the legitimate formation of government. This perpsective is primarily circumscribed to fundamentalist LDS communities, a number of which exist adjacent to federal public lands in southern Utah. In both of these perspectives there is a general disregard for the notion of the federal government as a legitimate owner of these lands and, by extension, as a legitimate manager and adjudicator of use.

The arid climatic conditions of much of southern Utah (and the American West more generally) have shaped the landscape in terms of land tenure. Much of the land that remained in federal ownership did so because it went unclaimed through such legislative efforts as the Homestead Act of 1864 and following homestead-related bills due to its lack of suitability for successful agriculture. This same dry climate means that cattle (and other livestock) grazing required massive amounts of space to have adequate vegetation, significantly more than is required in wetter climates. Consequently, successful ranching in this region essentially requires access to public lands, as few individuals would be able to own enough land on which to sufficiently raise cattle. This livelihood has had impacts on the ecological conditions of these spaces, as cattle shape the landscape by reducing vegetation and increasing erosion.

[TBC...]

The geologic formations of the Colorado Plateau have implications for land use in a number of ways. There are oil and mineral deposits that make some areas of federal public lands of particular interest for regulations that make it easy to lease/permit resource extractions and/or encourage calls for transfer to state hands or privatization. Additionally, this area's geologic features are part of what make it so appealing to tourists--awe-striking landscapes have encouraged the creation of many national parks and national monuments that highlight the geology (as well as the archaeological material highlighting Native American presence in/on the geologic formations), such as Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Monument Valley, Pink Cliffs, etc.

My perception is that there are a number of individuals who have been engaged in federal public land use and management for decades who have an incredibly vast knowledge of and reflective perspective toward public lands issues, but that at the institutional/organizational level things get simplified into stakeholder language that flattens the complexities of the situation and that a variety of points of view get taken-for-granted as obvious, natural, or inherently right/good. From individuals who have sought to work within agencies I've heard tales of frustration of the obstacles to effective and flexible management created by bureaucratic structures and political timescales, as well as the frustration of working in a space where many visions of good governance and use exist and long-standing tensions seem to discourage desires to build alliances or compromises. These individuals, some retired and some still working, have opted for trying to further their own understandings of what good management is through their individual actions, aiming to do the best they can in the structures that exist, rather than trying to rock or restructure the boat they are in.

Many agency employees responsible for managing wilderness and other recreation areas seem acutely aware of the challenges of regulating land use that arise from misaligned and permeable boundaries in space and legal designation--that is, the rules guiding use in any particular space have the potential to affect other spaces that may or may not have the same designations. Beyond just wilderness/non-wilderness or monument/non-monument designations, land uses on prviate land can impact public lands due to the interconnectedness of ecosystems and watersheds.

The broader impacts of oil and gas drilling on public lands (e.g. through greenhouse gas emissions) and the impact of climate change on public lands ecosystems and future use appear in discourses produced somewhat distant to these spaces (e.g. at UC Irvine) and circulate online, but my perception is that this multi-directional connection to broader global and regional earth system processes has been thus far on the margins of public lands management debates in southern Utah.

Land use on federal public lands in southern Utah ranges from oil and mineral extraction by private companies that have received leases from the U.S. government, to ranchers who also must go through a permitting process to graze their cattle on public lands, to subsistence users (e.g. hunting, fishing, firewood collection, plant collecting), to local and tourist recreators who hike, bike, camp, drive off-road vehicles, canyoneer, climb, etc.

These varying uses are regulated based on the agency responsible for an area's management and on its designation (e.g. as general BLM or USFS land, as national monument, as wilderness, etc.). BLM land especially (and to some extent national forests) are intended to be multi-use spaces, but such regulations (for instance, wilderness designations that allow hiking and equestrian use but prohibit bicycles and off-road vehicles) antagonize relationships between different land users.

Department of Interior agencies such as BLM and USFS seek to take into account public perspectives in managing public lands for multiple-use through the creation of advisory councils (US Fish and Wildlife Service also does this), the positions of which are divided into specific land-user/"stakeholder" categories such as recreational land users, commercial tourist companies, extractive industry representatives, BLM staff, and so on. One area for further ethnographic exploration is examining how/whether these advisory councils actually shape public lands management--they do hold votes on whether to recommend particular policies to federal agencies but by all appearances these council polls simply communicate a recommendation and are not binding in any way. Additionally, as this is one way in which members of "the public" are included in a formalized way (this is a position people must apply for, be accepted to, hold for a certain length term, and participate in a specific number of meetings), I am curious to know whether this avenue for public participation (or for the communication of public perspectives through representatives) is perceived as an effective or meaningful inclusion of multiple perspectives and interests. Another facet of public participation has been BLM hearings and city/county council hearings, which seem to be predominantly perceived as futile engagement that merely stokes community-level conflict. In communities where a number of people may hold anti-federal sentiment, is a system of advisory councils run by federal agencies perceived as desirable or effective?

Although federal agencies, such as Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), are the entities formally charged with governing federally-owned lands that are deemed "public lands," there are a number of groups that challenge that jurisdiction and/or aim to participate in land and resource governance. There are a plethora of non-governmental organizations that have developed to further environmentalist and indigenous interests and participation in public lands governance. Such organizations include those that have taken on formal partnerships with the BLM and USFS, such as Grand Staircase Escalante Partners (the official "friends" organization of Grand Staircase Escalanate National Monument that takes care of much of the outreach and public interface work related to the monument) and the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition which is a management partner with USFS and BLM for the Bears Ears National Monument. The latter governance formation is a result of work on the part of a number of organizations focused on protecting indigenous landscapes and pushing for Indian sovereignty and is a rare instance of indigenous representatives having an institutionalized management role on federal public lands.

There are also those who wish to shape public lands governance by pushing for the transfer of federal public lands to state governance or to private landholders. Much of this work is done through lobbying to legislators to create such bills as Utah's Lands Transfer Act, which called for shifting federal lands into state management (although critics argued that such a bill passed by Utah legislative bodies is unconstitutional). Much of the anti-federal sentiment is expressed through highly organized but less institutionalized militia efforts as well as through conservative think tanks such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, the American Lands Council, and the Heritage Foundation.

Additionally, in Utah there are a number of fundamental Latter Day Saints (fLDS) communities that do not recognize the federal government and its agencies, i.e. BLM, as legitimate rule-makers/governers of the spaces surrounding where they live. Although there is some overlap with these communities and the anti-federal groups listed above, further examination of the perspectives on land use and governance from fLDS groups and the mainstream LDS church are needed.