By Howard Whiteman
Murray State University
Over four decades ago, a young spike buck ran by my stand and stopped long enough for me to take a shot. I was 15 years old and it was my first deer, taken on land that I own in Pennsylvania. Thirty years ago, I cast an elk hair caddis into a beautiful stream that curves through my Colorado property, and I caught my first trout on a fly rod.
Two decades ago, I taught my daughter how to fish on a pond we own that is fed by that same stream. Soon after, I climbed a mountain that I own near the stream and found a snoozing cow elk, and spent the next three days carrying my first elk out on my back. Ten years ago, I saw my first (and only) mountain lion on land I own in Idaho. A few years later, I caught the largest smallmouth bass of my life on a lake I own in Wisconsin. Two years ago, I introduced my son to big game hunting on another parcel of land we own in Wyoming, and we watched a gray wolf playing in the prairie.
I must be wealthy to own all this land, right? It’s true, I am wealthy in terms of my land holdings. Funny thing about that land, though — it is yours too, and you are just as wealthy as I am.
Public land is like that. I own it, you own it, and so does every citizen of the U.S.A. We jointly own national forests, parks, monuments, and other recreation areas including state parks and wildlife management areas. Americans are rich beyond belief because of our public lands. On them, we can do things that people in other countries can only dream about. Maybe, like me, you have fulfilled some of your dreams on your property, on your public lands.
Public lands are one of the underappreciated miracles of America. There are very few places on Earth where someone can get out of their car and hike, bike, hunt, fish, or just play with their kids or dogs for hours without having to ask permission. We don’t need permission when we own the land, and that is a right and privilege that we should all cherish.
Unfortunately, not everyone sees it that way. Some people look at public lands and think about ways they can exploit them for financial gain. For decades, they have attempted to drill for oil in wilderness areas, privatize National Parks, or sell off parcels of public land that are important to their business interests. In response, public land owners like you and me have been fighting them tooth and nail. No matter how hard we fight these folks, however, they keep popping up, trying to find new ways to get wealthy off of our public lands.
Talk about highway robbery. They are literally trying to steal the wealth that you, I, and the rest of America have by owning these lands, and convert it into what they truly value—cash in their pockets.
It’s happening again. Last week, members of the House Natural Resources Committee advanced an amendment authorizing the sale of more than 500,000 acres of public lands in Utah and Nevada. The amendment, inserted into a budget reconciliation bill after midnight without adequate time for analysis or committee discussion, violates the intent of the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act (FLTFA). To put it more bluntly, committee members are breaking the law.
The broader budget bill circulating in the House includes other provisions that are problematic to public land owners like you and me, including changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that will limit environmental reviews and weaken safeguards for public access, wildlife habitat, and water quality. The bill will also rollback land management plans on our public lands, cut conservation funding for public land management agencies, and has provisions that would undermine protections for wilderness areas.
If they are willing to sell public lands in Utah and Nevada, what will be next? Kentucky’s Daniel Boone National Forest and the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area?
No thanks. I want more public lands, not less, and I want our lands to be managed properly by enforcing laws, not ignoring them or making them weaker. I’m not willing to give up an acre of what we own, what we enjoy every day, which is one of the things that makes America so special.
I’m sure some of these Congressional Representatives are thinking that we aren’t paying attention. If you are like me, then they have underestimated how much we value our public lands.
I’ve contacted my House Representative and told him how I feel. Now it is your turn. If you love your public lands, take a stand and call or write your representative. Dial the U.S. Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to your House Representative. Make sure they realize that you don’t want any public lands to be sold anywhere, and ask them to support our public lands, rather than adding provisions to the budget bill that would weaken their protection and management.
If you need help finding your Representative, check out Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, an organization that focuses on public lands protection and management. They have links to help you find and contact your Representative, including ones specific to this issue (https://www.backcountryhunters.org/you_can_help_stop_the_sale).
Public lands have made my dreams come true, and they are helping to make similar dreams come true for my children, other family members, and friends. Whether the same is true for you or not, I am sure you can appreciate how they have made similar dreams come true for millions of Americans. If we protect them, they will be around for many more decades, and we can continue to dream about our next adventure on our properties. If we band together, all of our public land dreams are still possible. I want to see a grizzly someday on my land; what’s your public lands dream?
Dr. Howard Whiteman is the Commonwealth Endowed Chair of Environmental Studies and professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Murray State University.
Thank you for this. I appreciate your articles on caring for our environment.