I'm from Texas originally and in Texas, well, you just don't go on other peoples land. But I grew up sharing a fence line with national grasslands and I naturally developed an affinity for public land.
A few years ago I learned about Hawaiis public ownership of the beaches when a friend took me to a locals secret spot in Kauai that we had to trespass to get to. The trail to get there represented a battle between landowner (a golf resort) and the trespassers, with big soil dumps to create steep descents and thorny bushes vines planted to make it difficult (or at least painful) to get to the cove. But on the other hand it was clear people had come through there with shovels and machetes to clear the way so people could access that beautiful beach. I imagine that battle is still being waged today.
Recently I moved to a state (Maine) with a more nuanced set of norms about private land use (for recreation and hunting/fishing both), Before I didn't realize there are places in the US where it's normal to access peoples private land without permission. I took a hunters safety course here and one of the things they reinforce over and over again is to get permission to hunt land. They even gave us booklet containing templates for getting signed permission to hunt land. It was unfathomable to me that you would hunt on someones land without permission. They also taught us that times are changing here and in a couple of generations this whole culture of public use of private lands will probably go away, so it’s important to be respectful so as not to hasten its demise.
I’ve come around to believing that nature ought to be seen and land should be used (in a respectful way). Just to be able to go on a hike and be in nature is a special kind of liberty.
Those Wilks brothers in the article represent a culture of fear and paranoia that is born of certain ideologies (religion, neoconservatism, etc). I imagine they can’t see the world in any other way. That Justin Wilks thinks recreating on his 300,000 acres is somehow equivalent to him camping on your front yard shows you how petty and slighted even billionaires can be.
I grew up in Sweden with extensive Freedom to roam rights where you can visit all the forest and lakes. But my view has gone in the opposite direction, as someone who loves being in nature I thought the idea was wonderful and I have spent so much time in nature picking mushrooms and nuts. It has been great for me and I respect nature and try to leave it as I found it.
Unfortunately I can't say the same for other people. I just keep seeing more and more trash around pretty lakes because people got there and have a party and just leave all the trash. I found piles of junk in the forest just to learn that people just dump it there because it's easy and free. The problem is that it's basically impossible to enforce the Freedom to roam rules about not leaving trash or cutting down trees and so on. Basically it is just free for all to dump trash and behave like people want because of the lack of enforcement.
At this point I really wish to own a forest but not in Sweden, I want to own it in a country where I have real property right were I can people away from it because I don't want them to ruin it. Sure I don't need 100,000 of acres but I still want to own forest and be able to keep people from using it without permission.
A better, longer term, structural solution to this is investing in education and fostering a culture of environmental awareness from childhood. Instead, in the US, we keep defunding the EPA and denouncing scientists sacrificing their lives to appease the needs of rich people to increase the value of their equity.
Do you think people don’t know that dumping and littering in nature is bad? There is an inherent selfishness at play, especially with little threat of punishment or shame.
A similar problem encountered in California is illegal pot grows in National Forest and even National Park lands. These growers deliberately introduce large quantities of rodent poison into the econsystem, divert streams, and dump trash in what is supposed to be the most protected and pristine federal land. And they do it for profit, or because, as they claim, their families back home would be threatened by a cartel.
A few years ago I learned about Hawaiis public ownership of the beaches when a friend took me to a locals secret spot in Kauai that we had to trespass to get to. The trail to get there represented a battle between landowner (a golf resort) and the trespassers, with big soil dumps to create steep descents and thorny bushes vines planted to make it difficult (or at least painful) to get to the cove. But on the other hand it was clear people had come through there with shovels and machetes to clear the way so people could access that beautiful beach. I imagine that battle is still being waged today.
Recently I moved to a state (Maine) with a more nuanced set of norms about private land use (for recreation and hunting/fishing both), Before I didn't realize there are places in the US where it's normal to access peoples private land without permission. I took a hunters safety course here and one of the things they reinforce over and over again is to get permission to hunt land. They even gave us booklet containing templates for getting signed permission to hunt land. It was unfathomable to me that you would hunt on someones land without permission. They also taught us that times are changing here and in a couple of generations this whole culture of public use of private lands will probably go away, so it’s important to be respectful so as not to hasten its demise.
I’ve come around to believing that nature ought to be seen and land should be used (in a respectful way). Just to be able to go on a hike and be in nature is a special kind of liberty.
Those Wilks brothers in the article represent a culture of fear and paranoia that is born of certain ideologies (religion, neoconservatism, etc). I imagine they can’t see the world in any other way. That Justin Wilks thinks recreating on his 300,000 acres is somehow equivalent to him camping on your front yard shows you how petty and slighted even billionaires can be.