I've worked with the BLM many times out West and your characterization does not comport with my experience. For example, during my many interactions with BLM in rural Nevada, an astonishing number of the local employees were New England natives that had recently graduated from environmental science programs. True locals were rare. (It was strange -- even the old timers that seemed like natives originally moved there from New England and just never left. Why always New England?)
BLM long-timers in the region were easy to work with and understood the nuances of the ecosystem well. Most of the conflict was when some recently transferred idealist with no experience in the high desert ecosystem decided that they needed to dramatically change how the ecosystem was managed, mostly just to show that there was a new sheriff in town, without understanding why things were managed the way they were. Normal human condition stuff. And yes, this occasionally produced real ecosystem destruction because they didn't understand the ecosystem interdependencies and weren't interested in listening. This always sorted itself out over time, they either quickly recognized that they didn't understand the ecosystem nearly as well as they thought they did and started listening to locals or they transferred back to the east coast, but there was always a steady stream of fresh young graduates cycling through to create new drama.
BLM long-timers in the region were easy to work with and understood the nuances of the ecosystem well. Most of the conflict was when some recently transferred idealist with no experience in the high desert ecosystem decided that they needed to dramatically change how the ecosystem was managed, mostly just to show that there was a new sheriff in town, without understanding why things were managed the way they were. Normal human condition stuff. And yes, this occasionally produced real ecosystem destruction because they didn't understand the ecosystem interdependencies and weren't interested in listening. This always sorted itself out over time, they either quickly recognized that they didn't understand the ecosystem nearly as well as they thought they did and started listening to locals or they transferred back to the east coast, but there was always a steady stream of fresh young graduates cycling through to create new drama.