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07 September 2006
Update: Forest sale plan is dead

An update to an earlier post I wrote back in the spring, about a damn-fool plan by the Bush administration to sell off national forest land to help fund rural schools:

I'm happy to say that it looks like the plan is officially dead, and there's little likelihood of it coming back. With opposition from everyone from the usual environmental groups to the NRA, this and other similar plans have run into broad opposition which reveals just how many people can agree on one thing, at least: we love our public lands.

Aside from the issues of a gross abuse of power and failure to responsibly steward our public land, this topic made me think more about how obsessed this country seems to be with private ownership and hoarding of property and wealth.

If you're interested in the topic of land ownership, the rights of landowners vs. the public good and ecological health, I highly recommend an article in the March/April 2005 issue of Orion magazine, "The Culture of Owning", by Eric Freyfogle. A quote:

Encouraged by federal payment programs, farmers increasingly expect money whenever conservation measures reduce their crop yields. When development would harm a particular landscape, the growing practice is to avert it by buying up "development rights" or purchasing a conservation easement. And rather than banning landowners from destroying critical wildlife habitat (a ban that's quite legal under the federal Endangered Species Act), the Fish and Wildlife Service is now prone to pay them to leave the habitat alone...

A message is embedded in these payment schemes, and it's coming through loud and clear: To own land is to have the right to degrade it ecologically.

Realizing how sensitive and interconnected our natural lands are, and how long it can take for them to heal once damaged, should give anyone pause when considering how private lands are used, and any time public lands are opened to private interests.

After all, can land which has been here for billions of years and will presumably be here for millions more ever really be "owned" by some mammal with a sub-100-year lifespan? And if not, what justifies our abuse and destruction of it?

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