Some people don’t like public land. They say it should be “taken back” by private owners. They fail to note that federal open space in the West was always public land. After the Native Americans, it belonged to the federal government. Following a 40-year frenzy of free giveaways under the Homestead Act, colored by colossal fraud, Presidents Benjamin Harrison and Teddy Roosevelt set aside some of the remaining federal land as national forests.
Proposals to transfer land from federal stewardship to state or county governments are thinly disguised attempts to facilitate private ownership or unfettered development by extraction industries.
The principal organization pushing for liquidation of federal public land is the American Legislative Exchange Council, receiving 98 percent of its funding from large corporations like Exxon Mobil, according to the Center for Media and Democracy.
Those who prefer more private land and freer reins on development have a lot of America to choose from. Even in my rural county in Oregon, where more than half the land is public, the private land that remains would accommodate many times today’s total population under current zoning.
Nationwide, two-thirds of all the land is private. If the grand open and public spaces of Wyoming or Oregon are not your cup of tea, then maybe the private expanses of Illinois, New Jersey, or any one of 38 states with nominal public land would be a better fit.
The national forests, along with other federal property, are the birthright and heritage of every American, now and yet to come.
Those who want to dismantle this extraordinary estate and take it for their own fail to recognize that this land serves us all. They fail to recognize that when they talk about taking our federal land away, they’re talking about taking my land away from me, and away from every single one of us
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