By Mr. Pink
Public lands are all over the news again. This time, there is a lot of consternation around swaths of land in Utah and Nevada being sold. The proposed lands were somewhere between an acre and 500,000 acres.
The House Natural Resources Committee pushed through the approval of the sale of public lands in an amendment to the House budget proposal. It happened at the 11th hour without public input, and the public land warriors were up in arms—understandably so.
Before this budgetary proposal was finalized in committee, our friends at the Wild Sheep Foundation released their statement opposing any sale of public ground that would result in a diminished resource. We agree with them.
“Proposals to dispose of these lands emerge occasionally. While no specific proposal has yet advanced in this Congress and administration, we are affirming our opposition to any proposal that would diminish public lands in size or quality.”
North American Model of Conservation Ideals
Before we go too far, I want to make it clear that we aren’t jumping on the Backcountry Hunters and Anglers bandwagon. We agree with BHA’s idea of maintaining and protecting our public lands, but we prefer to do it with elected officials in charge that also want to preserve our rights to carry a gun for our hunts and use real fishing hooks rather than reverting to stick and string or lead-free fishing tackle.
Our public lands, along with our right to own private property, set our country apart from others around the world, and that needs to be maintained. Now we can’t ignore the egregious mismanagement of federal lands over the years. Though this in part to frivolous lawsuits from environmental agencies and poor policies, and the managing agencies are not completely at fault. Which is very much a reason why there is a push to transfer management authority over the states—where it could be easier to manage them on the state and local levels.
The argument against this is this: with states in control, they will sell the land for revenue as they may not have the money to properly manage it, and it will be lost to history. Is that true? Maybe. But it is unlikely. In my experience, state and local government is much easier to deal with than officials at the federal level. Would you rather deal with the FBI or your local sheriff’s department if someone breaks into your house?
Land Sale Devil in the Details
Back to the matter at hand. Sales and transfers of these lands happen, and it is not infrequent. The difference with the amendment to the budgetary proposal was primarily where the funds would land once the property is sold. Rather than a transfer of property that is of equal or greater value or use of the funds to help better access and improve other public ground, the money would go directly back into the treasury.
The folks at Wild Sheep Foundation said it best: “Instead of liquidating the value of public lands, we support multiplying their value. This is what true conservation does. Conservation—now misunderstood by too many—is use and care. Uses produce values for people now, and care sustains those values for people in the future. Care is both restraint in what we use today and active management and restoration for what we can use later. Use includes both what people take away from the land and what we enjoy and leave in place. Properly conserved, our public land asset will produce wildlife and wood, minerals and memories, excitement, and energy, and many other products, either with economic prices or priceless ecological value.”
Our public lands need to be conserved, but superfluous lands that are a waste of taxpayer dollars to maintain may not be the best to conserve. Like the lands in Nevada and Utah which were listed in the budget proposal. Transfer of those lands could work out in everyone’s favor if we ensure that the funds from the sale are used for the betterment of our public lands and access to recreation on those lands.
Bipartisan Support for Public Lands
Luckily, our elected officials holding office now struck down the sale of public lands and stopped the proposal in its tracks. Of course there was bipartisan opposition to this proposal, but the Republicans came out strong to strike this down. Quite possibly a shock to the BHA crowd. What should be the greatest takeaway from this is that our public lands are held in great regard by politicians on both sides of the aisle and to the American people—regardless of opposing views on managing this amazing resource.
“Also, existing public land policies governing transfers, swaps, acquisitions, and boundary consolidation must be applied more effectively to improve the overall value of public lands. Any tract of public land sold for a good reason—such as its condition, isolation, or inaccessibility—should fund the improvement and acquisition of public lands retained for good reason,” stated the Wild Sheep Foundation.
I don’t think we are in a place where we need to be concerned about the wholesale loss of our public lands, but like our friends at the Wild Sheep Foundation, we are here to say that we want to protect our access to public lands and conserve the opportunities they offer for years to come. We’re happy to see that proposals like this budget reconciliation didn’t gain traction.
Will there be proposals like this in the future? Most likely. These events over the past few weeks have proven that there is bipartisan love for the lands. Maybe now we could work together to actually manage these lands instead of watching them catch on fire every year. That’s also unlikely, though.
