Today's BLM seeks to strike a balance between harvesting the wealth of its vast domain and preserving fragile ecosystems. In Wildlands of the West, author Leslie Allen and photographer Melissa Farlow roam this expanse, exploring its wonders and the BLM's role in administering them. Here are unknown cliffs whose beauty rivals that of the Grand Canyon; rugged landscapes that conceal the nation's densest concentration of archaeological sites; magnificent redwood stands, already ancient when Europeans arrived; and isolated stretches of wild coastline a scant 200 miles from San Francisco.