390: What Leads to the Successful Management of Our Public Lands?

Guest Hunter Seim is a thirty-year veteran of the Bureau of Land Management. His current role is a range and wild horse advisor to the District Manager of the Northwest District, Colorado BLM. During his career, he worked as a land survey technician and an outdoor recreation planner specializing in wilderness management in Palm Springs, California, and as a rangeland management specialist and an assistant field manager in Craig, Colorado. His duties have given him exposure to almost every aspect of managing public lands.

He received a Bachelor of Science in Range Management from Texas Tech University in 1992. Range management and rangeland ecology are my primary background and where the bulk of my career and professional interests lie.

Summary

Hunter Seim brings three decades of experience from the Bureau of Land Management to this conversation about managing America's public lands. With a background in range management and ecology, Hunter explains how the BLM oversees 245 million acres across the western states, balancing diverse and often conflicting interests—from wilderness preservation to resource extraction, livestock grazing, and wildlife habitat protection.

The discussion reveals the BLM's unique challenge: its mission is so broad that "somebody's always going to be disappointed." Hunter describes managing everything from wilderness boundaries in California to oil and gas reclamation in Colorado, emphasizing that collaboration is essential to success. Rather than dictating policy, the BLM works as a neighbor to thousands of private landowners, state agencies, and various other stakeholders.

Particularly fascinating is Hunter's work with outcome-based grazing, which demonstrates how properly managed livestock grazing can coexist with—and even benefit—sensitive habitats, such as sage grouse environments. The wild horse program presents one of the agency's most emotionally charged challenges, as the BLM attempts to balance animal welfare with ecosystem health while facing intense public scrutiny amplified by social media.

From fire management to water rights, mineral extraction to animal crossings, the BLM operates at the intersection of conservation and commerce. Hunter emphasizes that these public lands benefit all Americans, whether they ever visit them or not—from the resources they provide to the simple knowledge that vast, undeveloped wilderness still exists. His recommended reading, Wallace Stegner's "Beyond the 100th Meridian," captures the essential challenge of managing the arid West.

The Essential Point

The most critical insight is that successful public lands management requires constant collaboration and a balancing act between competing interests. The BLM cannot simply dictate policy—it must work as a neighbor with thousands of stakeholders, from ranchers to environmentalists, state agencies to private landowners. This collaborative approach, exemplified by outcome-based grazing initiatives that benefit both livestock operators and wildlife habitat, demonstrates that conservation and commerce need not be mutually exclusive.

Social Media & Referenced Bureau of Land Management Beyond the 100th Meridian