Obama incorporated(not right word) 3 ) Nat. Monuments Thursday . 1.8 million acres of land. These include Mojave trails, sand to snow and castle mountains near the Nevada border. Angles forest will become the San Gabriel National Monument.
Wondering if repeaters will be added to cover the Castile mountain area. I'm sure the the comm. Center in San B.will handle dispatch. They currently do for the near areas.
Exsmokey might be able to help with info. And provide insight. Hope you are doing better BTW..
The term, just for your information, is "designate" a National Monument. The word comes from the 1906 Antiquities Act. Almost all the land is presently BLM managed land in the agency's California Desert District. I haven't seen a detailed map of the "Sand to Snow" National Monument yet, but some lands on the San Bernardino National Forest are apparently included.
There won't be any changes necessary to the radio systems of either the Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management. They already have jurisdiction of these lands. The changes in management will be in the degree of protection the land has in regard to the management of natural resources and hopefully that will result in more emphasis on all natural resources, not just the "extractive uses," i.e. timber, grazing, mining and others, that often dominate multiple use management. This shift in emphasis will not affect the need for radio communications. This shift will take decades to manifest on the ground and won't always be immediately recognizable by the public.
Various conservation organizations have been purchasing private land within the boundaries of these monuments for the last 20 or more years and then donating it to the BLM as they worked to raise support for these designations. These monuments have had grass roots and local support for many years. The designations are a culmination of many years of effort by a large number of people. Legislation to establish these monuments have stalled in Congress for many
**EDIT** The San Gabriel National Monument was designated more than a year ago. Dozens of attempts to bring a higher level of protection and management to the Angeles National Forest have been made in the last 30 years. None of these designations will bring about improvements unless the agencies are given sufficient resources to bring about the necessary changes on the ground. In my opinion, if there arent't enough skilled people on the ground and I mean on the ground, not cowboys/cowgirls back in the bunkhouse looking at computers, but out on the ranch fixing things, nothing will happen.
