6 
of mutually performing basic remote sensing studies and developing a high 
level of remote sensing applications expertise at both the field and State 
management levels of the Bureau in Montana. 
Since the fundamental soundness of resource management is primarily depen 
dent upon the amount and quality of resource data collected at the field level 
by the personnel who actively interface with the resource, and who after all 
are the people most conversant with all the problems related to it, the devel 
opment of remote sensing techniques which were technically and economically 
feasible at the field level were given the highest priority. Once these in 
tensive local applications were developed and in use, increasingly extensive 
(large area) applications of remote sensing were selected as the next line of 
investigation and implementation. 
Contrary to usual practice in research procedures, the studies were at 
the outset taken directly to the field and to the ultimate users — the on- 
the-ground resource managers — who were directly involved at all times in 
the investigations and in the ultimate shaping of the applications technique. 
There were two reasons for this: (a) the applications technique benefited to 
the fullest extent on a continuing basis from the local knowledge, practical 
experience and professional expertise of the field manager, and (b) the field 
manager received on-the-job training in remote sensing and, because of his in 
volvement, ultimately had better control of his own fate in terms of his future 
involvement in the applications of the technique. By the spring of 1973, a 
battery of operational procedures involving a 35mm aerial photography technique 
had been developed (Meyer, 1973;) and upwards of 40 BLM personnel in the state 
of Montana had been trained and equipped and were active through the 1973 
season implementing, testing, critiquing and improvising on the system. A re 
view session with involved personnel was held in the spring of 197^ and the 
results (Batson, 197^) were most gratifying. Admittedly, there were failures 
both in terms of personnel problems (personnel transfers, inability to find 
time to test the techniques) and limitations of the system itself -- but in 
the main, not only had many of the original concepts of applicability survived, 
but the us^rs in the field had developed a great many new applications which 
had not even been considered before! 
Even before this intensive applications phase had been completed, work 
began on a more extensive remote sensing resource survey system. In the spring 
of 1972, sparked by the many and increasing demands for leases on the vast 
subsurface deposits of strippable coal in SE Montana (which fall largely under 
the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management), there arose an immediate 
need for valid surveys of surface resource values, such as livestock for 
age, wildlife and wildlife habitat, water, agriculture, forests, recreation 
and archeological sites, etc., in order to provide a suitable basis for deter 
mining when, if or how leases to exploit some of the coal deposits under 
millions of acres of land in SE Montana were to be let. Since much of the sui— 
face ownership was private, little information was available. Again the Mon 
tana State Office of the Bureau had to face up to a problem of providing de 
tailed, accurate, credible surface resource data on millions of acres of land 
in a period of only a few months without attending increases in either oper 
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