BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE
PUBLIC LANDS TRANSFER
The current national drive for the federal government to divest
itself of lands managed by the Forest Service, BLM, US Fish and
Wildlife Service, etc., just keeps roiling along. The armed
occupation of the Malheur
National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters outside of Burns, Oregon has
placed the issue in the spotlight again, this time interwoven with
radical political ideologies. Yet,
ever since the first formal dedication of National Parks, Forests and
public lands there have been numerous efforts to seize them and put
them in “other” hands. Extreme political groups have been a part
of these efforts as well. In other words, this is nothing new; we
have been here before.
Resistance to public land designation existed when Yellowstone was
first established in the 1872 and moved into the new century in
various forms and iterations. Corporations fought it because it
limited their empires and unregulated, monopolistic interests. States
and local groups howled and fought as they perceived a loss of their
rights, either framed as constitutional, individual or purely
economic. A huge amount of land fraud occurred at the turn of the
20th century in attempts to circumvent public designations
of federal and State Trust lands. A very good overview of this as
well as a history of public land designation can be found on the US
Forest Service’s website under The First Century FS 260.
In Montana, Copper Kings and railroads made repeated efforts to gain
possession of public lands. This was done in spite of railroads
already being handed thousands upon thousands of acres of land from
the federal government, ostensibly to “open the West”. The
Northern Pacific Railroad alone was beneficiary to about 47 million
acres granted to in the 1860’s by the United States. More recently,
these NP lands in Montana came under the ownership of Plum Creek
Timber- now Weyerhaeuser. The recent merger of the two made
Weyerhaeuser one of, if not the largest private landholder in
the United States. But in those early years corporate entities never
lost sight of the remaining millions of acres of “unclaimed”
ground under federal authority. Corporations like the Anaconda Co.
bought, appropriated and outright stole land en masse for their
empires well into the 1920’s.
One notable grab occurred in Montana and Idaho during the Great Burn
–the Fires of 1910. At that time, the railroads and other Captains
of Industry (or Robber Barons, depending on your perspective)
colluded to keep federal help from being sent west to fight the
fires. Their thinking was that if the federal lands and forests
burned to a cinder, all value would be gone and worthless. At that
point they could then step in and buy up public ground at fire sale
prices- literally. In spite of extraordinary political pressure
exerted in Washington D.C. to hamstring efforts to deal with the fire
and its subsequent impacts, the lands remained in federal hands and
in some ways, protected. At the same time it only
marked a change in federal forest policy but the beginning of a major
shift (backwards) in the conservation and social policies of Theodore
Roosevelt’s administration. It also heralded the start of huge
changes in the national political landscape, the
results of which are still being felt today throughout the West.
Another factor revolves around the social economics and politics of
the West. Since settlement by non-Native peoples resource and
extractive industries have comprised a large, critical part of
Western economies. These industries were and continue to be volatile
and highly subject to the whims and winds of the resource markets and
politics. Over time, many of have gone from providing modest, and in
some places, even very good livings for rural Westerners to almost
nothing. “Boom and bust,” and “ghost town” are terms that are
as much a part of the West’s history and vocabulary as cowboy,
miner and logger. As a result, those who work in these industries
are cast into horrible, scary economic and social situations. People
seek explanations as to why and how—and often, something or someone
to blame. Monolithic federal government, “environmentalists,”
racial and ethnic minorities and a litany of other “outsiders”
provide convenient, immediate, uncomplicated answers to far more
complex questions. It is at such times demagogues often rise to the
fore, connecting the dots from local issues to other, supposedly
larger problems, cynically trying exploit the situation for their own
purposes. White supremacism is just one of those extrapolated
philosophies. The Ku Klux Klan was a mighty force in the West in the
1920’s and ‘30’s, playing on people’s fears about their
social and economic futures. The “Sagebrush Rebellion” and then
the “Shovel Brigade” that arose from the Great Basin in the
1970’s and 1990’s mixed public land ownership and management with
constitutionalist politics. Groups with radical anti-government
philosophies grew from major shifts in the lumber industries in
California, Oregon, Idaho and northwest Montana. Again, we’re
witnessing the sowing of fertile ground with the seeds of fear, hate
and doubt for the future. The tattered remnants of fringe political
groups have hitched their wagons to the “local control” issue and
are gaining support from more “respectable” forces in the halls
of the Legislature and the Congress, giving them a peculiar aura of
credibility.
As the debate plays out, it is important that the Conservation
movement in Montana as well as across the West keep the discussion
firmly focused when responding to this “new” assault on public
lands. How the arguments are being framed -- botched management, a
growing sense of overbearing, convoluted, unresponsive, befuddled
government, etc—presents some new, twists. But many of the
solutions coming forth labeled as “ just plain common sense,”
ranging from local control, and the fundamental legal basis for
public land to patriotism and getting back to “real” American
values are the repackaging of old snake oil remedies that have been
handed out for almost 150 years. The seemingly new algorithm needs to
be met head-on with the knowledge and confidence that the
conservation movement has been down this road before- and prevailed,
both legally and practically. Public sentiment still remains against
federal transfer. In a recent bi-partisan poll, the annual Colorado
College Conservation in the West Survey found 58 percent of
interviewed registered voters across the region opposed the divesting
of federal lands. In Montana, 59 percent opposed the move.
And, as in times before, many of the answers will likely lie in
providing support and thoughtful, constructive, resource based ideas,
methods and legislative support to federal and state managers. In
doing so, assisting them to work through the issues; to untangle what
have unquestionably become cumbersome, gridlocked, often seemingly
futile bureaucracies and contradictory policies. There are many good
people in those organizations who embrace a conservation ethic as
passionately as we do. They need our support and ideas on how to
proceed and succeed.
We all see – and in many cases agree on- the problems. It’s how
they get resolved that will determine the future of public lands. The
conservation community must offer support to the historic mission of
those people and agencies responsible for their oversight. At the
same time, we must strive to keep them honest in the process and
ensure that they not, by the enormity of the task at hand or simple
convenience, lose sight of their fundamental responsibilities on
behalf of the resources under their stewardship and ultimately, the
legacy of the public trust.
Mike Korn
MSA Consultant/Contributor
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