
Why public lands must remain in public hands - diebir
http://www.fieldandstream.com/keep-public-lands-in-public-hands
======
Brendinooo
When you get into hunting/sportsman's issues, you might find yourself
surprised at how politically...moderate it can be. I was.

My wife's extended family is really into hunting so I ended up taking a gun
safety course to get my hunting license. A LOT of gun safety is preached
there. Don't brandish your weapons or your prey publicly; keep them to
yourself. Always assume a gun is loaded. When carrying a loaded gun, hold it a
certain way. When walking with a loaded gun, don't point more than 15-20
degrees in either direction if someone is standing next to you. Lock your guns
separately from your ammo. And so on.

There are a lot of environmentalists (preservationists?) working for the state
in this field as well. Managing deer population levels, preventing forest
fires, not littering, that kind of thing.

So while I was a bit surprised to see a 'red state' kind of company advocating
for federal control of these lands, I suppose I shouldn't have been. There's a
lot of room for nuance in this country.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Fewer than 20% of gun owners are active hunters [1]. I wouldn't be surprised
if it's as low as 10%, and more than a few of those hunters are pretty casual
about gun safety and conservation, in my experience.

A little off topic, but...my experience is that many gun owners (maybe most?)
are far too casual about gun safety. I'm a 2nd amendment supporter and lean
libertarian, BUT I'm also a pragmatist. I think it's absolutely ludicrous that
we don't have strong national standards and licensing requirements for
acquiring, owning, and carrying firearms. I'm a pilot, and the amount of
effort I had to put into being able to fly a small airplane is orders of
magnitude greater than that required to walk into a store and walk out with a
weapon designed to kill people. I think you should be required to go through
initial training, safely store your firearms, and go through refresher
training every 2 years. At minimum.

1\. [http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/us-gun-owners-
outnumbere...](http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/us-gun-owners-outnumbered-
hunters-5-1-2011)

~~~
pc86
We don't have strong national standards because it's not in the purview of the
Federal government to regulate gun sales or licensing. It is explicitly up to
the states to do within the bounds of the Second Amendment.

Flying a plane is not a Constitutional right (I am finishing my PPL now,
actually!), and is under the Federal government's regulatory authority.

~~~
winter_blue
In 2010, the SCOTUS found that the right to bear arms (the Second Amendment)
is incorporated by the 14th amendment against the states:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald_v._City_of_Chicago](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald_v._City_of_Chicago)
So states have restricted power and authority to regulate or restrict your
freedom to bear arms.

Now, regarding flying... If we ignore the machine used to travel / the mode of
transportation (be it a plane, a car, a space saucer, etc) -- the basic
question we're asking here is: do the people have a travel freely within their
country regardless of what machine or contraption they use to do so?

A basic analysis of the constitution would reveal that the right to travel
freely (using whatever contraption or machine to do so) was something so
obviously a right, that it did not require to be explicitly stated as a
protected right (and likely implicitly covered under the 9th).

Imagine states in 1800, requiring licensing (i.e. government approval) before
you could ride a horse. There would've been an uproar.

~~~
pc86
The specificity is important. I am talking specifically about operating
general aviation aircraft. A good portion of GA flight is _not_ travel from A
to B but sight-seeing/recreation. The question isn't whether travel is a
Constitutional right. The question is whether it's a violation of your
Constitutional rights to require training and licensure to operate a single-
engine piston aircraft. It's not.

------
garby
As someone who loves to spend weekends in the outdoors hiking, hunting, and
fishing, moving to Texas really highlighted the importance of keeping these
lands public. As the article mentions, Texas sold nearly all of the federal
land it was granted and as a result is currently about 95% privately-owned.

For most hunters, this means that you either have to lease private land, which
is becoming increasingly more difficult and expensive (think thousands of
dollars annually), or hire an outfitter for exorbitant fees. This has priced
many people out of hunting and will continue to do so as populations and land
development continue to rise. I, personally, have been looking for a hunting
lease within a couple hours drive of Austin for the past three years and have
not been able to find one - and that's with a budget of over $3k/year.

Without transfer protections that mandate keeping the land public and
accessible perpetually, I don't know how any outdoorsman could be for this
"transfer".

~~~
unethical_ban
I agree with how sad it is that Texas doesn't have more public land for
hunting and shooting. Imagine if we had 100,000+ acres out past Fredericksburg
for outdoor activities.

Honestly, I didn't know how people hunted or shot weapons outside Texas. I
assumed it was all private business and expensive deer leases. I still don't
get it! You're telling me, in Utah/Colorado and other places, that I can just
go to federal/state land with a gun and a license, and get food?

~~~
rsync
"I still don't get it! You're telling me, in Utah/Colorado and other places,
that I can just go to federal/state land with a gun and a license, and get
food?"

Yes.

Setting aside seasonal limitations and quantity limits, you may do just that.

Further, at any time of any day of the year, you can enter a national forest
in Colorado, set up a target, and start shooting.[1][2][3]

In fact, I am fairly certain that you can just go _live_ in the national
forest provided that your encampment/structures are completely mobile and
temporary.

It's the "Land of Many Uses".

[1] I recommend a lot of sanity checks, however. In addition to scouting the
entire area for any other people and ensuring proper backstop, I would also
give a courtesy call to the local forest service office _and_ the local
sheriff and give them a heads up. About half the time they would respond by
telling me that I was not able to do that and I would politely inform them
that they were wrong and to have a great day.

[2] Also note that just because you are legally able to do this and are "in
the right" doesn't mean local LE can't come arrest you and seize your firearms
and sort it out in court anyway. If you're remote enough and nobody is there
to complain it's not really an issue.

[3] Do not do this in popular areas with hikers and kids and where there is
little or no tradition of shooting in that place, etc. Don't be a dick.

~~~
DamnYuppie
I think most National Forests and BLM have a 14-21 day limit on being in one
camp. A lot of fulltime RV'ers get around this by simply moving to another
camp.

------
bpodgursky
Without making this too political, there would be far less pushing by the
states to get this land back if the federal government hadn't gone on a (ahem)
roughly 8 year spree of turning it into enormous national monuments:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bears_Ears_National_Monument#D...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bears_Ears_National_Monument#Designation)

Turning federal land into national monuments greatly limits the traditional
uses of these publicly held lands -- restrictions on livestock grazing,
hunting, camping, etc.

Obviously there needs to be responsible land stewardship, but abusing the
antiquities act to carve out enormous not-parks-but-not-free chunks of land
isn't the best way to get everyone working together there.

~~~
vkou
Designating an area a national monument ties the hands of subsequent
governments to do with it as they please.

On the other hand, every other way of losing public land also ties the hands
of subsequent governments to do with it as they please. Suppose that you sell
it for a song to your friends, or allow resource extraction in an
environmentally sensitive area... A decade down the road, you can't wave a
magic wand, and undo that damage.

The fact of the matter is that once public lands are lost, they are gone -
forever. Every election year, we must fight to keep public lands public - we
only need to lose once, and then its over. Can you really blame someone for
seeking a more permanent solution to this problem?

~~~
bpodgursky
Yeah, but allowing cattle to graze on land they've been grazing on for 100
years keeps states from starting campaigns to take it back. I'm not suggesting
that selling to the states is a good idea. I am suggesting that taking _away_
traditional land rights is causing states to push to take ownership of the
land.

The BLM has not traditionally been enemies of the people using the land. The
antagonism is a very new phenomenon.

~~~
blackguardx
I've met with the BLM folks out there and helped them repair trails. The BLM
isn't anyones enemy.

They have gotten a lot of guns pointed at them by people who are upset that
they can't ride ATVs in an area with lots of sensitive Anasazi artifacts,
though.

The BLM gets along just fine with many ranchers. There are a few bad apples
out there that think that because they were the only ones using the public
land for a while that they should keep it. Ranchers in general get a pretty
sweet deal from the feds. Be skeptical of claims that they are getting
screwed. The prices they have paid are extremely low.

~~~
bpodgursky
> Ranchers in general get a pretty sweet deal from the feds.

See, this is the problem mindset, and the reason people are protesting. The
mindset should not be "oh, it's all owned by the federal government, and
everything they choose to give you you should be grateful for"

The land is literally supposed to be held in trust for the public, and free to
use. The BLM prevents abuse, but it's not supposed to be making a profit from
the public. For the vast majority of the country's history, fees to use public
lands were token, because it was land owned _collectively by the people_

Now that a small minority of the country actually uses the land, because
people have moved to the cities, nobody notices that this contract is being
slowly changed, to the detriment of people who have relied on this public
access for a long time.

~~~
blackguardx
> The land is literally supposed to be held in trust for the public, and free
> to use. The BLM prevents abuse, but it's not supposed to be making a profit
> from the public. For the vast majority of the country's history, fees to use
> public lands were token, because it was land owned _collectively by the
> people_

The BLM doesn't make a profit. Actually they (rather, the Dept. of the
Interior) don't charge enough for things like mineral extraction. Think of it
this way. You and I and everyone else owns those minerals. The US should make
sure that we as taxpayers are getting our fair share of their value. It is the
same thought process behind the FCC and spectrum auctions. When there is a
public good involved, the government needs to make sure it is being put to the
best use for all of the citizens. Not just the first people in the door or the
well connected.

>Now that a small minority of the country actually uses the land, because
people have moved to the cities, nobody notices that this contract is being
slowly changed, to the detriment of people who have relied on this public
access for a long time.

This is an erroneous statement. Where did you read this?

More people are using BLM land, especially in the Bears Ears area than ever
before. This is because of population growth and increased awareness of BLM
land. In the past, it was just ranchers and hunters using the land. Now people
go hiking, ride ATVs, ride horses (for fun, not work like in the past), etc.

------
bsder
It's hard to feel sorry for people who want public lands to be accessible but
who, as a bloc, keep voting for politicians who want to privatize everything.

~~~
twobyfour
I assume that part of the problem is that we don't have politicians with whom
these people agree on most topics other than privatization who also don't want
to privatize everything. When you have a binary choice of politicians in a
multidimensional space, you're likely to have to elect someone with whom you
disagree on a lot of things.

~~~
bsder
Then perhaps privatization is more important than they thought, no? And
perhaps maybe _that_ should be their single issue until they dislodge their
representation?

The problem is that these same jerks aren't against privatizing _YOUR_ stuff;
they're just against privatizing _THEIR_ stuff.

This is a common theme among the right wing of the US political system right
now.

------
vacri
> _What could hunting and fishing look like should our public lands fall under
> state control? Turn to Europe_

... where plenty of nations have Right to Roam over private lands for their
citizens? Can't see that _ever_ happening in the US. Hunting isn't widespread
in Europe, sure, but hunting isn't the only thing that you can do on the land.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam)

~~~
gumby
Why do you think hunting is not widespread in Europe? IMHO it's quite common
and the delicious meals that result are common too!

~~~
vacri
Admittedly not European myself, and I know that there is some hunting in
Europe (and used to work with a Polish guy whose family hunted pigs), but it
doesn't seem anywhere near as pervasive as hunting in the US.

~~~
gumby
I think you would be surprised, and if you are into hunting, pleasantly so by
the level of shooting that goes on in Europe.

Outside the US the stereotype about America goes the other way: that all the
shooting is of people. In case it's not obvious: I know this belief is
incorrect.

------
ethbro
Curious question. About half of states have voted a constitutional amendment
specifically calling out a right to hunt and fish.

F.ex., Georgia's reads _" The tradition of fishing and hunting and the taking
of fish and wildlife shall be preserved for the people and shall be managed by
law and regulation for the public good."_

Could a state resident sue their government for transferring state land to
private ownership under the clause?

~~~
TallGuyShort
I would bet if they could prove that that sale materially harmed the
preservation and management they could possibly sue successfully. That said,
there are states where the public grounds that allow hunting and fishing suck
due to mismanagement, and people go to private bodies of water and fields
instead. Just because it's public doesn't mean taxpayers actually get what
they're owed.

~~~
ethbro
True. Which harkens back to the active or effective management vs passive or
ineffective.

I was just struck that it would seem logically difficult to make a case that
sale of public land (able to be hunted or fished) to a private party is "for
the public good" in the sense of "preserving the traditions."

------
closeparen
I wonder how long this will matter. When we're all living in shared studio
apartments in car-free megacities, will there still be interest in going
places whose whole appeal is being out of mass transit range? Will we still
own camping and hunting gear?

Maybe the support will be there to maintain public lands and National Parks,
but what about the roads and necessary roadside businesses (gas, motels,
restaurants, etc) leading up to them?

Will rental cars be economical when leisure is the _only_ remaining use of the
automobile?

~~~
matt4077
I live in an apartment, in a Megacity[0], and none of my friends have cars[1].

I see no reason to suspect that city life diminishes interest in nature. If
anything, it's more of an experience because it's different. Come summer, my
Facebook feed is filled with nature, and I've personally crossed the Alps on
bicycle, usually camping the forests at night.

Upkeep of a few roads isn't actually that expensive, and to some degree costs
are proportional to use. Take a look at a map of Australia to see many roads
that may only see a few cars per week. Even if a National Park were only
accessible by gravel road, I'd argue it'd enhance the experience.

With regards to cars, I get the sense that the most realistic future is no
longer mass-transit only, but includes self-driving electric car-sharing. That
allows people to continue enjoying the benefits of individual cars (privacy,
carrying stuff, direct point-to-point, use of existing infrastructure worth
billions) while still enabling the kind of transformation previously
attributed to mass transit. For example, autonomous driving and car-sharing
reduces the need for parking spaces and allows parking spaces to move to less-
desirable areas, freeing up 1/3 of your typical city street.

[0]: Using a rather technical definition of ≥1 Million inhabitants

[1]: Yes, I have friends.

~~~
jpetso
I'm having a hard time seeing autonomous vehicles significantly undercutting
the price of existing rental cars, which is definitely something that keeps me
from getting out of town on a regular basis.

Sure, renting for a long weekend is still significantly cheaper than actually
owning a car, but compared to other costs (taking a walk to the closest inner-
city park, cycling to a larger one, or just having dinner or board games with
friends) it's actually a pretty high threshold.

What I am looking forward to is the night heating feature that allow electric
cars to function as a makeshift "hotel room" for overnight accommodation. Once
I have access to that via carsharing, that should lower the cost of a weekend
trip enough to do it on a regular basis, with no camping gear required.

~~~
brewdad
Alternatively, I would like to see some sort of workable car-sharing solution
that would allow me to head out to the wilderness and hike for a few days
without having to pay rental fees for the time my car sits unused at the
trailhead. I only need the car for 8 hours or so (4 hour drive there and back)
but have to pay for 96 hours of use.

~~~
jpetso
Yeah, that should be much more feasible once the car can drive back to a more
populated area for rental use there, until it takes off to pick you up from
the trailhead again. I like this line of thinking as well! Higher mileage but
also a higher degree of utilization, hopefully leading to less cars being
needed overall.

------
Clubber
The federal government owns quite a bit of state land. I would like to be able
to purchase some on the cheap like they did when they were trying to develop
new territories in the 1800s.

This will probably come out like crap:

State, FederalOwned, TotalAcreage, Percent Nevada 59,681,502 70,264,320 84.9%
Utah 34,202,920 52,696,960 64.9% Idaho 32,621,631 52,933,120 61.6% Alaska
223,803,098 365,481,600 61.2% Oregon 32,614,185 61,598,720 52.9%

[https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_land_ownership_by_state](https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_land_ownership_by_state)

~~~
gnarbarian
Alaska has less than 1% private land ownership. [https://s-media-cache-
ak0.pinimg.com/736x/43/65/bf/4365bf0b3...](https://s-media-cache-
ak0.pinimg.com/736x/43/65/bf/4365bf0b3b2890b8c966c60443239e32.jpg)

------
DamnYuppie
If you are interested in supporting an organization that is dedicated to
defending public land I strongly encourage you to join or donate to
Backcountry Hunters and Anglers (BHA) www.backcountryhunters.org. I know
having "hunters" in the name may scare many here but they are core
conservationists out west and are fighting hard to maintain our open spaces
that we are so blessed to have.

------
fiatjaf
Public is different (or should be) from State-owned.

A land is not public anymore if the State owns it. Even though the State
claims to be a "public" institution, owned by everyone, it is not, it is a
separate organization that works with certain bizarre democratic rules, but
still a separate organization, much like a "public" company.

~~~
im2nguyen
Then what's your definition of "public"?

~~~
fiatjaf
Land not owned by anyone.

~~~
Qwertious
Land not owned by anyone is land that can be claimed by anyone. Which means
that anyone can build a hut there and then legally claim the land as their own
private property.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius)

~~~
fiatjaf
Maybe in your crazy legal system.

------
fittingin
For many, the question is which public hands should hold the public land. Why
should the federal government bring staffers from Arizona to manage the
Everglades? Why is the Grand Canyon "governed" by Vermont? Why can't Bears
Ears be managed by the state of Utah, or perhaps better yet, San Juan County?

Is a hot spring in Arkansas really so remarkable that it should belong to the
people of California?

~~~
timmaah
huh? Are we all not citizens of the United States?

------
DelTaco
Huh, I didn't even know they started selling public land. Last I had heard,
the federal government tried to give back land to the states, but the states
didn't accept. The reason being that the federal government was paying the
states to preserve the land as if the states were making money off of it. So
the states didn't want their free income gone.

~~~
mason240
They haven't started selling. This is in response to the failed attempt you
mentioned for federal government to give control of the land to the states.

However, that was a bill in Congress that withdrawn after a very bipartisan
outcry. This issue has brought together hunters, sportsmen, and snowmobilers
on the right with environmentalists on the left.

The concern is that once the states have control, they will simply sell off
most of it (as the article show precedent for).

------
zanethomas
The more interesting question is whether the federal government has the
constitutional authority to set aside and control state land:

[http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/05/07/federal-land-
owne...](http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/05/07/federal-land-ownership-is-
it-constitutional/)

------
disposition2
For anyone interested, I did some review in to somewhat related information
(the review of national monuments since 1996) last week:

[https://justinhorner.github.io/national_monuments.html](https://justinhorner.github.io/national_monuments.html)

------
thaddeusmt
In Utah, my understanding is that the primary purpose of state owned lands is
to generate revenue for the state. Utah uses them to make money, not to
protect them. This includes mineral leasing for oil, gas, coal, etc, and
grazing, but in some cases, like the "SITLA" School Trust lands, the state
will literally auction off land into private hands. This is ostensibly to
raise money for public schools. I strongly support public education, but this
way of removing beautiful tracts of Utah desert from the public is very final.
You can hike around an oil well, and eventually sort of clean them up, but
outright selling off limited resources like lands is frustrating. Compared to
normal revenue sources, like taxes, these land auctions raise such a small
amount for money for the school system it's even more tragic.

The outdoor recreation industry in Utah is growing rapidly, largely part due
to the National Parks, Monuments, and other amazing public lands we have to
recreate on. Our 5 national parks (Arches, Canyonlands, Zion, Bryce and
Capitol Reef) are some of the most visited in the country. This isn't hunting
recreation, like the Field & Stream article is about. Most of this is mountain
biking, climbing, hiking, rafting, etc. (Think family vacations and young web
developers in Vanagons, not gun toting hunters in big trucks.) On top of the
burgeoning hospitality industry supporting this tourism, outdoor companies
like Backcountry.com, Petzl, Goal Zero, Black Diamond, Altra, Kuhl, Scott, etc
have large presences in Utah now. By some counts, outdoor recreation is one of
the largest economic drivers in Utah. And between the aspirational outdoor
photos people in the city like on Instagram and generally affordable travel,
this visitation trend will only continue upward.

In response to Utah's politicians passing resolutions and endlessly promoting
"taking back" Federal land into State hands, the outdoor industry that relies
on public land access has started to fight back. To make a stand against these
anti-federal politics Patagonia, Black Diamond and some other large retailers
threatened to boycott the "Outdoor Retailer" trade show, held in Utah. In
response, there was a call with the Governor and he basically gave the outdoor
industry the finger. They are moving the trade show to another state now -
more symbolic than actually hurtful to Utah's economy, but an interesting
development nonetheless. After the ceaseless "jobs" and "pro-business"
rhetoric from red states like Utah this antagonism towards one of it's largest
and fastest growing industries is frustrating and puzzling. I can't tell if my
politicians really see using public lands for finite oil and gas extraction as
a better plan than protecting them for generations of future vacationers - or
if they just get better campaign contributions from those extraction
industries. Either way, as someone who likes mountain biking and who has high
hopes for solar energy and electric cars, there is nothing positive to me
about these state attempts to control my Federal lands. (I do vote, but I will
probably not be able to affect Utah's red state politics for a long time.)

------
dsfyu404ed
On the other side of the coin, states are generally much more favorable to OHV
enthusiasts than the BLM is.

~~~
mason240
Bikes too. Mountain bikes are currently banned from Federal lands. There's an
uphill battle right now to open it, and I fear that e-bikes are going to kill
it.

~~~
TYPE_FASTER
Bikes are banned in federal wilderness areas, not all Federal lands.

------
easilyBored
I don't get his outrage, one side will always complain. Depending on the state
they could lose or gain rights if the feds transferred it.

But the feds and states are quite separate when it comes to taxes, budgets etc
so why shouldn't both own land too?

~~~
theparanoid
By law federal public lands are multi-use, e.g. hunting, fishing, camping.
States have no such proviso.

------
zeveb
I'm a huntsman, but I disagree: those federal lands are essentially a subsidy
paid for by everyone but which I get to enjoy. I have no problem with them
being given to the states and/or sold to private owners. Indeed, I think that
the expiration of the Homestead Act was a very sad thing for our republic: the
idea that someone could move to public lands and set up his own home is very
freeing.

~~~
molsongolden
But the idea that any individual can wander out into publicly-owned wilderness
and enjoy endless acres of public land is less freeing?

