tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/public-land-24993/articlesPublic land – The Conversation2024-03-20T17:15:38Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2241142024-03-20T17:15:38Z2024-03-20T17:15:38ZEngland’s rural housing crisis could be solved by fixing land prices and bringing land into public ownership<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582783/original/file-20240319-28-3673sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/new-housing-development-building-houses-increased-2231267889">Richard Johnson|Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Young people are <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-house-prices-are-18-per-cent-higher-in-the-country-than-in-the-city-573lzgfbt">reportedly</a> being priced out of rural communities by soaring housing costs. Official statistics for England show that affordability in rural parts of the country is worse than in towns and cities, excluding London. In 2021, even the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rural-housing/rural-housing#housing-affordability">cheapest houses</a> in rural areas cost around 9.2 times more than the earnings of the lowest paid workers. In urban areas, it was eight times more.</p>
<p>Since Brexit, there has been a rise in the number of landlords transferring long-term rental housing into short-term lettings on platforms like Airbnb, in a bid to cash in on the growing staycation market. COVID has increased the appeal of rural living, with more people buying second homes. Affordability has worsened since 2020. </p>
<p>These recent pressures have accentuated the decades-old trends of general counter-urbanisation and demand for rural homes that my colleagues and I discuss in our 2022 book, <a href="https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/192317">Village Housing</a>. </p>
<p>A combination of planning constraint and external demand pressures, focused on the smallest villages and hamlets, is driving land price expectation and making it <a href="https://www.housing.org.uk/rural-exception-sites/">difficult to build affordable homes</a>. Land values <a href="https://www.henrygeorgefoundation.org/the-science-of-economics/a-savannah-story.html">belong</a> to the communities that create them. A way needs to be found of fixing the cost of land at a price that supports the delivery of affordable homes in rural locations.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A row of stone village houses." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582782/original/file-20240319-30-beu6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582782/original/file-20240319-30-beu6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582782/original/file-20240319-30-beu6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582782/original/file-20240319-30-beu6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582782/original/file-20240319-30-beu6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582782/original/file-20240319-30-beu6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582782/original/file-20240319-30-beu6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Houses in attractive villages across England are becoming investment opportunities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/a-stone-building-with-a-green-door-and-windows-XNKz57TDqVo">Lāsma Artmane|Unsplash</a></span>
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<h2>Upward pressure on land price</h2>
<p>Rural planning authorities largely operate according to the rationale that housing and service needs can more effectively be met in towns than in the countryside. They generally respond to increased housing demand in rural areas by allocating sites in service centres and larger towns for new development. They also fix policies in local plans that require the inclusion of affordable homes in market-led schemes. </p>
<p>Far less gets built in villages. There, the existing stock is gradually sold as investment opportunities to wealthier incomers or to seasonal and weekend residents. This dynamic places upward pressure on land prices. </p>
<p>In those few instances where sites for market development are allocated in smaller villages, land price soars. The resulting housing is high end and unaffordable to local people. </p>
<p>It is within this challenging market that <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/registered-providers-of-social-housing">registered providers of social housing</a> and <a href="https://www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk/">community land trusts</a>, formed by groups of concerned residents, try to secure affordable land for affordable housing through the so-called <a href="https://www.housing.org.uk/rural-exception-sites/">“rural exception site”</a> approach.</p>
<p>Since 1991, communities have been able to work with partners on securing exceptional planning permission for affordable homes on small parcels of unallocated land (sufficient for up to a dozen homes, depending on the scale of proven local need) on which permission for housing would not normally be granted.</p>
<p>Getting a landowner to accept that this is an “exception” to normal planning – and not a regular allocation – is a key hurdle. The landowner needs to agree to sell plots at a price that supports affordability.</p>
<h2>Affordable land supports affordable housing</h2>
<p>Since 2012, exception sites have been able to include market housing, whose role is to support project viability in a context of falling grant rates. Those grants are channelled to registered providers by <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/homes-england">Homes England</a>, a government agency sponsored by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Government has been targeting grant-free development, with the help of the market, although exception sites usually need some grants to achieve viability.</p>
<p>But the inclusion of market homes on rural exception sites comes at a cost. Landowners’ price expectations are raised, driving up the price paid for land, and meaning that an ever larger component of market housing is needed to cross-subsidise the affordable element. Bigger developments comprising more homes for sale, and relatively fewer affordable homes for local need, will not gain the same level of community support.</p>
<p>Threats to the viability of rural exception sites, largely because of rising land costs, means that communities stand to lose a critical source of affordable homes in otherwise unaffordable villages. The question is what can be done about this. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A view of fields and mountains." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582788/original/file-20240319-26-e34zz7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582788/original/file-20240319-26-e34zz7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582788/original/file-20240319-26-e34zz7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582788/original/file-20240319-26-e34zz7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582788/original/file-20240319-26-e34zz7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582788/original/file-20240319-26-e34zz7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582788/original/file-20240319-26-e34zz7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Agricultural land is valued significantly lower than full residential value.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/low-winter-sun-on-rural-hills-168107036">Mr Doomits|Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Raising grant rates would allow social housing providers (or taxpayers) to bear higher land costs. But our <a href="https://www.housing.org.uk/rural-exception-sites/">research</a> notes that this is unlikely to happen given public funding constraints and governments’ preference for market support. And in any case, the justice of such an approach (taxpayers effectively subsidising landowners’ rent extractions) is questionable. </p>
<p>A fairer approach would be to fix the cost of land at a price that supports a range of affordable housing types. That fix can be achieved by setting an advisory price for rural exception sites in <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65a11af7e8f5ec000f1f8c46/NPPF_December_2023.pdf">national planning policy</a> or, where an advisory price does not encourage sale, by using simplified and remodelled compulsory purchase powers to bring land into public ownership. Experience elsewhere in the UK shows that the prospect of compulsory purchase is often enough to encourage landowners to <a href="https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/192317">sell</a>.</p>
<p>Our research has shown that the land price that typically supports affordability on rural exception sites is <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/374024892_Land_landowners_and_the_delivery_of_affordable_homes_in_rural_areas">£10,000 per plot</a>. Assuming a valuation density of 35 dwellings per hectare, this figure is far higher than agricultural value (£600 for a similarly-sized plot), but far lower than full residential value (£150,000, say, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/land-value-estimates-for-policy-appraisal-2019">in South Cambridgeshire</a>).</p>
<p>Some landowners will accept a price that supports affordability, motivated by a desire to help their communities. Others will resist sale at any price short of full residential value. Right now, however, too much is being left to the market. </p>
<p>Local authorities need the power to bring small plots of land into public ownership, quickly and at an affordable price. This would enable registered providers and community land trusts, and also local councils, to match their building programmes to the scale of need for rural housing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224114/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Gallent has received past research funding from charities and UKRI. He is a member of the RTPI, RICS, and a Trustee of the TCPA. </span></em></p>Rural planning authorities largely operate according to the rationale that housing and service needs can more effectively be met in towns than in the countryside.Nick Gallent, Professor of Housing and Planning, The Bartlett School of Planning, Faculty of the Built Environment, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1986542023-01-30T21:05:18Z2023-01-30T21:05:18ZPublicly owned land should be used for affordable housing, not sold to private developers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507018/original/file-20230130-24-9z07f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=111%2C208%2C2779%2C1823&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When land is publicly owned, it can be used to build the kind of housing the market is unwilling, or unable, to build.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Jan. 25, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged to <a href="https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/2023/01/25/hamilton-affordable-housing-lrt.html">“ensure” affordable housing is built along Hamilton’s light rail transit (LRT) route</a>. While this is welcome news, there are many uncertainties about how this will actually happen. </p>
<p>Building and maintaining affordable housing near good transit is one of the biggest challenges cities face today. It’s not just Hamilton, Ont.: <a href="https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-transportation/transit-in-toronto/transit-expansion/">Toronto</a>, <a href="https://www.mississauga.ca/projects-and-strategies/city-projects/hurontario-light-rail-transit">Mississauga, Ont.</a>, <a href="https://www.brampton.ca/EN/residents/transit/Projects-Initiatives/Pages/Welcome.aspx">Brampton, Ont.</a>, <a href="https://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/exploring-the-region/stage2ion.aspx">Waterloo, Ont.</a>, <a href="https://ottawa.ca/en/planning-development-and-construction/major-projects/stage-2-light-rail-transit-project">Ottawa</a>, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-city-third-link-tramway-1.6029933">Québec City</a>, <a href="https://dailyhive.com/montreal/rem-light-rail-train-mcgill-station">Montréal</a>, <a href="https://www.calgary.ca/green-line.html">Calgary</a>, <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8737356/bc-government-legislative-powers-land-transit-hubs/">Vancouver</a> and <a href="https://www.edmonton.ca/projects_plans/transit/future-lrt-projects">Edmonton</a> are all constructing or planning new transit lines. </p>
<p>However, without proactive approaches from all levels of government, <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262536851/transit-oriented-displacement-or-community-dividends/">gentrification and displacement</a> will accompany these new trains.</p>
<p>Fortunately, there are solutions right in front of us.</p>
<h2>Public vs. private ownership</h2>
<p>Metrolinx, a provincial government agency, has <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/metrolinx-lrt-demolition-1.6207825">acquired large sections of land</a> for the construction of many of these LRTs, including in Hamilton. Once trains are running, most of this land will no longer be needed. Typically, surplus public land is sold on the open market to the highest bidder. But that’s not the only approach.</p>
<p>What happens to publicly owned land along new transit lines will determine whether or not they will be affordable places to live. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in a blue dress shirt and suit jackets speaks from behind a podium" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506884/original/file-20230127-25-6v77bq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506884/original/file-20230127-25-6v77bq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506884/original/file-20230127-25-6v77bq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506884/original/file-20230127-25-6v77bq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506884/original/file-20230127-25-6v77bq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506884/original/file-20230127-25-6v77bq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506884/original/file-20230127-25-6v77bq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to the media at the McMaster Automotive Resource Centre, in Hamilton, Ont., during the Liberal Cabinet retreat on Jan. 25, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nick Iwanyshyn</span></span>
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<p>If this land is <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ryerson-university-report-affordable-housing-downtown-parcel-sold-1.5115645">sold to private developers</a>, Canadians are unlikely to see significant amounts of affordable housing built for low- or moderate-income households. </p>
<p>This is a triple blow to these communities: new housing is too expensive, existing affordable housing is being lost through <a href="https://acorncanada.org/resources/save-rental-replacement-bylaws-protect-affordable-housing/">demolition</a>, <a href="https://www.homelesshub.ca/sites/default/files/attachments/august-financialization-rental-housing-ofha-en.pdf">renoviction</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.04.011">gentrification</a>, and people who rely on transit will have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12203">few housing options</a> along routes.</p>
<p>But if this land is kept in public ownership, the future of affordable housing is brighter. Although Metrolinx has no history of doing so, the pieces are in place to use this publicly owned land to build the kind of housing the market is unwilling, or unable, to build.</p>
<p>The province could retain this land and transfer it to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing and use it for social housing. Even if the province wants to sell the land, there are possibilities.</p>
<h2>A culture shift is needed</h2>
<p>In Ontario, provincially owned land — <a href="https://www.metrolinx.com/en/about-us/doing-business-with-metrolinx/development-opportunities/land-opportunities">including land owned by Metrolinx</a> — is subject to the <a href="https://www.ontario.ca/page/ontarios-realty-directive">Ontario Realty Directive</a>. This directive gives other public entities, like the federal government or municipalities, the right to acquire surplus provincial properties before they are sold on the open market. </p>
<p>Cities <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9300122/ontario-metrolinx-affordable-housing-surplus-land-criticism/">rarely exercise their option to buy surplus provincial land</a>, partly because it takes time (and money) to do so, but also because of a culture that emphasizes <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/2870-capital-city">the role of the private sector</a>, rather than the public, in developing housing.</p>
<p>The federal government could also acquire land under the directive and build housing on it funded by the <a href="https://www.placetocallhome.ca/what-is-the-strategy">National Housing Strategy</a>. So far, this strategy has produced very little affordable housing for households in need. <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-governments-across-canada-need-common-income-based-definition-of/">A change is clearly necessary</a>.</p>
<p>The provincial government can also be much more proactive. The <a href="https://files.ontario.ca/mmah-housing-affordability-task-force-report-en-2022-02-07-v2.pdf">Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force</a> recommended that all future government land sales have a 20 per cent affordable housing requirement. Unfortunately, this recommendation has not been adopted. </p>
<p>In 2022, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/provincial-land-transit-hub-private-developer-sale-1.6330555">Metrolinx sold a parking lot in Port Credit</a> — located next to a GO station, right at the start of the Hurontario LRT line — to a private developer for $64.5 million, with no requirement for any affordable housing.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/has-ontarios-housing-plan-been-built-on-a-foundation-of-evidentiary-sand-198133">Has Ontario’s housing 'plan' been built on a foundation of evidentiary sand?</a>
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<p>A culture shift around provincially owned land needs to come from the top — from Minister of Transportation Caroline Mulroney, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark, and from Premier Doug Ford himself. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-passes-housing-bill-23-1.6666657">With the passing of Bill 23</a>, Ford has an ambitious plan to build new homes in Ontario, but <a href="https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2022/10/26/the-province-is-setting-a-housing-affordability-trap-for-toronto.html">more direction is needed</a> to shape what kind of housing gets built and for whom.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A GO Transit train sits parked at a station" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506907/original/file-20230127-14-dsg1vf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506907/original/file-20230127-14-dsg1vf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506907/original/file-20230127-14-dsg1vf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506907/original/file-20230127-14-dsg1vf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506907/original/file-20230127-14-dsg1vf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506907/original/file-20230127-14-dsg1vf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506907/original/file-20230127-14-dsg1vf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Building and maintaining affordable housing near good transit is one of the biggest challenges cities face today.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Tara Walton</span></span>
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<h2>Genuinely affordable housing</h2>
<p>The private market is <a href="https://theconversation.com/housing-is-both-a-human-right-and-a-profitable-asset-and-thats-the-problem-172846">very good at building a lot of small condo units</a>, especially along new transit lines. In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.06.013">Waterloo</a>, where I work, more than $4 billion has been invested along the LRT corridor. Most of this investment was made before the line opened, meaning these kinds of conversations need to happen today, not five years from now.</p>
<p>What the private market is not good at is <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-housing-supply-isnt-a-cure-all-for-the-housing-crisis-188342">building genuinely affordable housing</a> and <a href="https://uwaterloo.ca/environment/news/renters-kitchener-waterloo-are-diverse-their-rental-options">family-sized units</a> for households on a range of incomes.</p>
<p>Not all the new housing on publicly owned land has to be social housing, though we do need a lot more of it. A <a href="https://www.scotiabank.com/ca/en/about/economics/economics-publications/post.other-publications.insights-views.social-housing--january-18--2023-.html">recent Scotiabank report</a> noted that even if Canada doubled its percentage of social housing, we would only be at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and G7 averages.</p>
<p>Within our current planning rules, the questions of what to build and for whom are left to the market. One of the few tools cities have to shape private development is <a href="http://justwebsites.ca/inclusionaryhousing/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/10/August-CIP-2018.pdf">inclusionary zoning</a>, which requires a certain percentage of affordable housing be built in new developments.</p>
<p>Most cities have yet to establish their policies, but <a href="https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-43/session-1/bill-23">Bill 23 will restrict affordable housing</a> to five per cent of units for a maximum of 25 years, with rents at 80 per cent of market rates. This approach won’t do anything for families in <a href="https://www.placetocallhome.ca/national-housing-council/media-newsroom/analysis-affordable-housing-supply-created-unilateral-nhs-programs">core housing need</a> — households that spend more than 30 per cent of their income on shelter. It is also a far cry from the <a href="https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/planning-development/planning-studies-initiatives/inclusionary-zoning-policy/inclusionary-zoning-overview/">City of Toronto’s inclusionary zoning plan</a> which called for 22 per cent of new units to be affordable by 2030.</p>
<h2>Thinking beyond the market</h2>
<p>When land is publicly owned, we can set the terms of development and be much more ambitious and creative. It would be possible, for example, to stipulate that new owner-occupied units be the primary residences of their owners, a model <a href="https://whistlerhousing.ca/">already practised in Whistler, B.C.</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A street car drives down the centre of a two-way street. Condos and apartment buildings are seen in the background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507149/original/file-20230130-7092-7ufo5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507149/original/file-20230130-7092-7ufo5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507149/original/file-20230130-7092-7ufo5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507149/original/file-20230130-7092-7ufo5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507149/original/file-20230130-7092-7ufo5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507149/original/file-20230130-7092-7ufo5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507149/original/file-20230130-7092-7ufo5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Along new transit lines, the private market is good at building a lot of small condo units, not family-sized units for households on a range of incomes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Brian Doucet)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Ontario, where <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/investors-in-ontario-real-estate-market-1.6258199">a quarter of all homebuyers are investors</a>, this would <a href="https://theconversation.com/want-to-solve-the-housing-crisis-address-super-charged-demand-169809">reduce demand by eliminating speculation</a> on publicly owned land.</p>
<p>Cities could use their land for <a href="https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2023/01/07/why-dont-we-zone-for-rental-apartments.html">purpose-built rentals</a>, with rents set at a ratio of a tenant’s income, rather than a little bit below market rates. They could also lease sites to non-profits to build supportive housing, as <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/blockline-road-new-supportive-housing-erin-kloos-1.6456499">Kitchener recently did</a>. Publicly owned land also plays a key role in <a href="https://www.landbackcamp.com/">reconciliation with Indigenous communities</a>, who disproportionately struggle to find adequate and affordable housing.</p>
<p>In a housing crisis, publicly owned land should never be sold to private developers in the hopes of getting <a href="https://www.ohba.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/cur_report_surplus_lands_april2019.pdf">a few crumbs of affordable housing</a> out of the deal. By assuming the private market has a monopoly on housing development, we ignore the genuinely transformative solutions that are hiding in plain sight. </p>
<p>Thinking beyond the market, and using publicly owned land creatively, is the only way Trudeau’s pledge to ensure affordable housing along Hamilton’s LRT corridor will actually result in housing for the people who need it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198654/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Doucet receives funding from SSHRC, the Canada Research Chairs program and the Hamilton Community Foundation. Some of his research is conducted in partnership with the Social Development Centre Waterloo Region. He has co-written reports on housing and mobility for local governments in Ontario. . </span></em></p>In a housing crisis, publicly owned land should never be sold to private developers and should instead be used to build the kind of housing the market is unwilling and unable to build.Brian Doucet, Canada Research Chair in Urban Change and Social Inclusion, University of WaterlooLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1734162022-02-02T13:08:50Z2022-02-02T13:08:50ZThe great Amazon land grab – how Brazil’s government is clearing the way for deforestation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442638/original/file-20220125-23-sjc83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C14%2C1590%2C1123&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A satellite captured large and small deforestation patches in Amazonas State in 2015. The forest loss has escalated since then.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/natural-satellite-image-of-deforestation-on-the-banks-of-news-photo/627792180">USGS/NASA Landsat data/Orbital Horizon/Gallo Images/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine that a group of politicians decide that Yellowstone National Park is too big, so they downsize the park by a million acres, then sell that land in a private auction.</p>
<p>Outrageous? Yes. Unheard of? No. <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab1e24">It’s happening</a> with increasing frequency in the Brazilian Amazon. </p>
<p>The most widely publicized threat to the Amazonian rainforest is deforestation. A new study by European scientists released March 7, 2022, finds that tree clearing and less rainfall over the past 20 years have left <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01287-8">over 75% of the region increasingly less resilient to disturbances</a>, suggesting the rainforest may be nearing a tipping point for dieback. Fewer trees mean less moisture evaporating into the atmosphere to fall again as rain. </p>
<p>We have studied the Amazon’s changing hydroclimate, the role of deforestation and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00139157.2021.1842711">evidence that the Amazon is being pushed toward a tipping point</a> – as well as what that means for different regions, biodiversity and climate change.</p>
<p>While the rise in deforestation is clear, less well understood are the sources driving it – particularly the way public lands are being converted to private holdings in a land grab <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gabriel-Cardoso-Carrero">we’ve</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=qcS5yogAAAAJ&hl=en">been</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=PTEKYYoAAAAJ&hl=en">studying</a>
for the past decade. </p>
<p>Much of this land is cleared for cattle ranches and soybean farms, <a href="https://interactive.pri.org/2018/10/amazon-carbon/science.html">threatening biodiversity and the Earth’s climate</a>. Prior research has quantified how much public land has been grabbed, but only for one type of public land called “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104863">undesignated public forests</a>.” Our research provides a complete account across all classes of public land. </p>
<p>We looked at Amazonia’s most active deforestation frontier, southern Amazonas State, starting in 2012 as rates of deforestation began to increase <a href="https://www.cell.com/one-earth/pdfExtended/S2590-3322(19)30081-8">because of loosened regulatory oversight</a>. Our research shows how land grabs are tied to accelerating deforestation spearheaded by wealthy interests, and how Brazil’s National Congress, by changing laws, is <a href="http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2015-2018/2017/lei/l13465.htm">legitimizing these land grabs</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442639/original/file-20220125-17-6i1s1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A section of forest showing different stages of deforestation." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442639/original/file-20220125-17-6i1s1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442639/original/file-20220125-17-6i1s1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442639/original/file-20220125-17-6i1s1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442639/original/file-20220125-17-6i1s1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442639/original/file-20220125-17-6i1s1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442639/original/file-20220125-17-6i1s1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442639/original/file-20220125-17-6i1s1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Three stages of deforestation: cleared land where the forest has recently been burned to create pasture; pastureland; and forest being burned.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/aerial-view-of-amazon-rainforest-deforestation-and-farm-news-photo/462437532">Ricardo Funari/Brazil Photos/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How the Amazon land grab began</h2>
<p>Brazil’s modern land grab started in the 1970s, when the military government began offering free land to encourage mining industries and farmers to move in, <a href="https://origins.osu.edu/article/amazon-rainforest-under-threat-Bolsonaro-fires-agrobusiness-indigenous-Brazil?language_content_entity=en">arguing that national security</a> depended on developing the region. It took lands that had been under state jurisdictions since colonial times and allocated them to rural settlement, granting 150- to 250-acre holdings to poor farmers. </p>
<p>Federal and state governments ultimately designated over 65% of Amazonia to several public interests, including rural settlement. For biodiversity, they created conservation units, some allowing traditional resource use and subsistence agriculture. Leftover government lands are generally referred to as <a href="http://www.bibliotecaflorestal.ufv.br/handle/123456789/4031">“vacant or undesignated public lands.”</a> </p>
<h2>Tracking the land grab</h2>
<p>Studies have estimated that by 2020, <a href="https://ipam.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Amazo%CC%82nia-em-Chamas-7-Florestas-pu%CC%81blicas-na%CC%83o-destinadas.pdf">32% of “undesignated public forests”</a> had been grabbed for private use. But this is only part of the story, because land grabbing is now affecting many types of public land.</p>
<p>Importantly, land grabs now impact conservation areas and indigenous territories, where private holdings are forbidden. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A herd of cattle on grass with thick forest behind them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442640/original/file-20220125-15-wy06rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442640/original/file-20220125-15-wy06rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442640/original/file-20220125-15-wy06rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442640/original/file-20220125-15-wy06rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442640/original/file-20220125-15-wy06rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442640/original/file-20220125-15-wy06rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442640/original/file-20220125-15-wy06rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cattle on land cleared in the Jamanxim National Forest in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/land-grabbing-cattle-raising-and-deforestation-illegal-news-photo/1228648531">Marco Antonio Rezende/Brazil Photos/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We compared the boundaries of self-declared private holdings in the government’s Rural Environmental Registry database, known as CAR, with the boundaries of all public lands in southern Amazonas State. The region has 50,309 square miles in conservation units. Of these, we found that <a href="https://www.datawrapper.de/_/JbEql/">10,425 square miles, 21%</a>, have been “grabbed,” or declared in the CAR register as private between 2014 and 2020. </p>
<p>In the United States, this would be like having 21% of the national parks disappear into private property.</p>
<p>Our measurement is probably an underestimate, given that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2014.06.026">not all grabbed lands are registered</a>. Some land grabbers now use CAR <a href="https://www.socioambiental.org/en/noticias-socioambientais/even-before-approval-a-land-grab-draft-law-is-already-destroying-the-amazon">to establish claims that could become legal</a> with changes in the law.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440680/original/file-20220113-25-10q4hm4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440680/original/file-20220113-25-10q4hm4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440680/original/file-20220113-25-10q4hm4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440680/original/file-20220113-25-10q4hm4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440680/original/file-20220113-25-10q4hm4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440680/original/file-20220113-25-10q4hm4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440680/original/file-20220113-25-10q4hm4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A map of the region showing deforestation and public lands.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gabriel Cardoso Carrero</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Land grabs put the rainforest at risk by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab1e24">increasing deforestation</a>. In southern Amazonas, <a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440680/original/file-20220113-25-10q4hm4.png">our research reveals that twice as much deforestation occurred on illegal as opposed to legal CAR holdings between 2008 and 2021</a>, a relative magnitude that is growing. </p>
<h2>Large deforestation patches point to wealth</h2>
<p>So who are these land grabbers? </p>
<p>In Pará State, Amazonas State’s neighbor, deforestation in the 1990s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8306.9302008">was dominated by poor family farms in rural settlements</a>. On average, these households accumulated 120 acres of farmland after several decades by opening 4-6 acres of forest every few years in clearings visible on satellite images as deforestation patches. </p>
<p>Since then, <a href="https://www.datawrapper.de/_/JbEql/">patch sizes have grown dramatically</a> in the region, with most deforestation occurring on illicit holdings whose patches are much larger than on legal holdings. </p>
<p><iframe id="JbEql" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/JbEql/12/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Large deforestation patches <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-020-01354-w">indicate the presence of wealthy grabbers</a>, given the cost of clearing land.</p>
<p>Land grabbers benefit by selling the on-site timber and by subdividing what they’ve grabbed for sale in small parcels. Arrest records and research by groups such as Transparency International Brasil show that <a href="https://comunidade.transparenciainternacional.org.br/grilagem-de-terras">many of them are involved in criminal enterprises</a> that use the land for money laundering, tax evasion and illegal mining and logging.</p>
<p>In the 10-year period before President Jair Bolsonaro took office, <a href="http://terrabrasilis.dpi.inpe.br/app/map/deforestation?hl=en">satellite data</a> showed two deforestation patches exceeding 3,707 acres in Southern Amazonas. Since his election in 2019, we can identify nine massive clearings with an average size of 5,105 acres. The clearance and preparation cost for each Bolsonaro-era deforestation patch, legal or illicit, would be about US$353,000. </p>
<h2>Legitimizing land grabbing</h2>
<p>Brazil’s National Congress has been making it easier to grab public land. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2015-2018/2017/lei/l13465.htm">A 2017 change in the law</a> expanded the legally allowed size of private holdings in undesignated public lands and in rural settlements. This has reclassified over 1,000 square miles of land that had been considered illegal in 2014 as legal in southern Amazonas. Of all illegal <a href="https://www.car.gov.br/#/baixar">CAR claims</a> in undesignated public lands and rural settlements in 2014, <a href="http://atlasagropecuario.imaflora.org/mapa">we found that 94% became legal in 2017</a>.</p>
<p>Congress is now considering two additional pieces of legislation. One <a href="https://legis.senado.leg.br/sdleg-getter/documento?dm=9050818&ts=1639516395952&disposition=inline">would legitimize land grabs up to 6,180 acres, about 9.5 square miles</a>, in all undesignated public forests – an amount <a href="http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2015-2018/2017/lei/l13465.htm">already allowed by law</a> in other types of undesignated public lands. The second would legitimize large holdings on about <a href="https://www.camara.leg.br/proposicoesWeb/prop_mostrarintegra;jsessionid=node0ncik9mq5phv818u4p592bgsuc3415152.node0?codteor=2066398&filename=Tramitacao-PL+4348/2019">80,000 square miles of land once meant for the poor</a>. </p>
<p>Our research also shows that the federal government increased the amount of public land up for grabs in southern Amazonas by shrinking rural settlements by 16%, just over 2,000 square miles, between <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00267-016-0783-2.pdf">2015</a> and <a href="https://certificacao.incra.gov.br/csv_shp/export_shp.py">2020</a>. <a href="https://governancadeterras.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Andre%CC%81-Segura-Tomasi-PAF-Curuquete%CC%82-Grilagem-de-Terras-e-Viole%CC%82ncia-Agra%CC%81ria-SulAM-1.pdf">Large ranches are now absorbing that land</a>. Similar downsizing of public land has affected <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/627431/pdf?casa_token=w5cmTxINMOYAAAAA:SwlFEGwJj4BsjBSYggfqbr57fsSgCyOw9AcykDICyjSIzl05hFLFhRADSEJENKFDyqyf4Z5_lQ">Amazonia’s national parks</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c4-KpR1HrNs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Satellite images over time show how deforestation spread in the Amazon.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What can turn this around?</h2>
<p>Because of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1248525">policy interventions and the greening of agricultural supply chains</a>, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell after 2005, reaching a low point in 2012, when it began trending up again <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.105072">because of weakening environmental governance and reduced surveillance</a>.</p>
<p>Other countries <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-amazon-norway/norway-to-complete-1-billion-payment-to-brazil-for-protecting-amazon-idUSKCN0RF1P520150915">have helped Brazil with billions of dollars</a> to protect the Amazon for the good of the climate, but in the end, the land belongs to Brazil. Outsiders have limited power to influence its use.</p>
<p>At the U.N. climate summit in 2021, 141 countries – including Brazil – signed a <a href="https://ukcop26.org/glasgow-leaders-declaration-on-forests-and-land-use/">pledge to end deforestation by 2030</a>. This pledge holds potential because, unlike past ones, the private sector has committed <a href="https://cnr.ncsu.edu/news/2021/11/cop26-deforestation-pledge-a-promising-solution-with-an-uncertain-future/">$7.2 billion to reduce agriculture’s impact on the forest</a>. In our view, the global community can help by insisting that supply chains for Amazonian beef and soybean products originate on lands deforested long ago and whose legality is long-standing.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated March 7, 2022, with new research suggesting the Amazon is nearing a tipping point.</em></p>
<p>[<em>Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173416/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gabriel Cardoso Carrero received funding from the Tropical Conservation and Development Program at the University of Florida to conduct fieldwork related to this research. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cynthia S. Simmons and Robert T. Walker do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Land grabs spearheaded by wealthy interests are accelerating deforestation, and Brazil’s National Congress is working to legitimize them.Gabriel Cardoso Carrero, Graduate Student Fellow and PhD Candidate in Geography, University of FloridaCynthia S. Simmons, Professor of Geography, University of FloridaRobert T. Walker, Professor of Latin American Studies and Geography, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1634052021-07-19T12:12:51Z2021-07-19T12:12:51ZWho owns the beach? It depends on state law and tide lines<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411690/original/file-20210716-15-1hbrwkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C3%2C2284%2C1705&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If you want to stroll the shoreline, know your rights. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/2oonXo">Normanack/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Americans flock to beaches this summer, their toes are sinking into some of the most hotly contested real estate in the United States. </p>
<p>It wasn’t always this way. Through the mid-20th century, when the U.S. population was smaller and the coast was still something of a frontier in many states, laissez-faire and absentee coastal landowners tolerated people crossing their beachfront property. Now, however, the coast has filled up. Property owners are much more inclined to seek to exclude an ever-growing population of beachgoers seeking access to less and less beach. </p>
<p>On most U.S. shorelines, the public has a time-honored right to “lateral” access. This means that people can move down the beach along the wet sand between high and low tide – a zone that usually is publicly owned. Waterfront property owners’ control typically stops at the high tide line or, in a very few cases, the low tide line. </p>
<p>But as climate change raises sea levels, property owners are trying to <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/shoreline-armoring.html">harden their shorelines</a> with sea walls and other types of armoring, squeezing the sandy beach and the public into a shrinking and diminished space. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=awdP4SoAAAAJ&hl=en">director</a> of the <a href="https://www.law.ufl.edu/areas-of-study/experiential-learning/clinics/conservation-clinic">Conservation Clinic</a> at the University of Florida College of Law and the Florida Sea Grant Legal Program, and as someone who grew up with sand between my toes, I have studied beach law and policy for most of my career. In my view, the collision between rising seas and coastal development – known as “<a href="https://eluls.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/ELULS-Reporter-March-2014.pdf">coastal squeeze</a>” – now represents an existential threat to beaches, and to the public’s ability to reach them. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pZ8TBwEj2NQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">California state law mandates public access to beaches, but wealthy property owners have been able to restrict access to this beach near Santa Barbara.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The beach as a public trust</h2>
<p>Beachfront property law has evolved from ideas that date back to ancient Rome. Romans regarded the beach as “public dominion,” captured in an oft-cited <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5983/5983-h/5983-h.htm">quote from Roman law</a>: “By the law of nature these things are common to all mankind; the air, running water, the sea and consequently the shores of the sea.”</p>
<p>Judges in medieval England evolved this idea into the legal theory known as the “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/public_trust_doctrine">public trust doctrine</a>” – the idea that certain resources should be preserved for all to use. The U.S. inherited this concept.</p>
<p>Most states place the boundary between public and private property at the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/index.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=eb4daf217ed3403b9523cd80923e98d2&term_occur=2&term_src=Title:40:Chapter:I:Subchapter:H:Part:230:Subpart:A:230.3">mean high tide line</a>, an average tide over an astronomical epoch of 19 years. This means that at some point in the daily tidal cycle there is usually a public beach to walk along, albeit a wet and sometimes narrow one. In states such as <a href="https://www.maine.gov/dacf/parks/docs/public-shoreline-access-in-maine.pdf">Maine</a> that set the boundary at mean low tide, you have to be willing to wade. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411695/original/file-20210716-19-1480ioz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Sign directs beachgoers to walk along the water's edge." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411695/original/file-20210716-19-1480ioz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411695/original/file-20210716-19-1480ioz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411695/original/file-20210716-19-1480ioz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411695/original/file-20210716-19-1480ioz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411695/original/file-20210716-19-1480ioz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411695/original/file-20210716-19-1480ioz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411695/original/file-20210716-19-1480ioz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sign marks the demarcation between public beach and private property in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/FloridaBeachAccess/5a9135a37fe7430db0be7aa065fe514c/photo">AP Photo/Brendan Farrington</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Everybody in!</h2>
<p>Early beach access laws in coastal states were largely designed to ensure that workaday activities such as fishing and gathering seaweed for fertilizer could occur, regardless of who owned the beach frontage. Increasingly, however, public recreation became the main use of beaches, and state laws evolved to recognize this shift. </p>
<p>For example, in 1984 the New Jersey Supreme Court extended the reach of the Public Trust Doctrine beyond the tide line to include <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1367402685720835765&q=matthews+v+bay+head+imp+ass%27n&hl=en&as_sdt=4,212">recreational use of the dry sandy beach</a>. In a pioneering move, Texas codified its common law in 1959 by enacting the <a href="https://www.glo.texas.gov/coast/coastal-management/open-beaches/index.html">Open Beaches Act</a>, which provides that the sandy beach up to the line of vegetation is subject to an easement in favor of the public. </p>
<p>Moreover, Texas allows this easement to “roll” as the shoreline migrates inland, which is increasingly likely in an era of rising seas. Recent litigation and amendments to the act have somewhat modified its application, but the basic principle of public rights in privately owned dry sand beach still applies. </p>
<p>Most states that give the public dry sand access on otherwise private property do so under a legal principle known as <a href="https://digitalcommons.mainelaw.maine.edu/oclj/vol25/iss1/2/">customary use</a> rights. These rights evolved in feudal England to grant landless villagers access to the lord of the manor’s lands for civic activities that had been conducted since “time immemorial,” such as ritual maypole dancing. </p>
<p>Oregon’s Supreme Court led the way in judicially applying customary use rights to beaches in 1969, declaring <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/oregon/supreme-court/1969/462-p-2d-671-9.html">all the state’s dry sand beaches open to the public</a>. Florida followed suit in 1974, but its Supreme Court decision has since been interpreted to apply on a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9190362824797043502&q=tona+rama+inc&hl=en&as_sdt=6,212">parcel-by-parcel basis</a>. </p>
<p>Like Texas, <a href="https://www.carolinacoastonline.com/news_times/article_d21d8baa-c234-11e6-b5ee-37e91fae51cc.html">North Carolina</a>, <a href="https://seagrant.soest.hawaii.edu/public-access-rights/">Hawaii</a> and the <a href="https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1801&context=facultypub">U.S. Virgin Islands</a> all have enacted legislation that recognizes customary use of the sandy beach, and courts have upheld the laws. </p>
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<h2>Sand wars in Florida</h2>
<p>Florida has more sandy beaches than any other state, a year-round climate to enjoy them, and a seemingly unbounded appetite for growth, all of which makes beach access a chronic flashpoint.</p>
<p>Along Florida’s Panhandle, <a href="https://www.floridabulldog.org/2020/02/who-owns-floridas-beaches/">pitched battles have erupted</a> since 2016, with beachfront property owners and private resorts asserting their private property rights over the dry sandy beach and calling sheriffs to evict locals. When beachgoers responded by asserting their customary use rights, Walton County – no liberal bastion – backed them up, passing the <a href="https://30a.com/30a-beaches-customary-use/">local equivalent of a customary use law</a>. </p>
<p>Florida’s Legislature stepped in and <a href="https://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/20190105/year-in-review-hb-631-sparked-intense-debate-on-publics-customary-use-of-beach">took away the local right</a> to pass customary use laws, except according to a complicated legal process that only a few local governments have initiated. Critics argue that the law has made it <a href="https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/news-and-profiles/2020/09/who-owns-florida-beaches">harder for communities to establish lateral public access</a> to beaches and has done little to resolve the ongoing disputes.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1235909907448303616"}"></div></p>
<h2>What about just adding sand?</h2>
<p>Erosion is both an enemy and a potential savior of beach access. As rising seas erode beaches, pressure to harden shorelines grows. But armoring shorelines may <a href="https://explorebeaches.msi.ucsb.edu/beach-health/coastal-armoring">actually increase erosion</a> by interfering with the natural sand supply. Adding more sea walls thus makes it increasingly likely that in many developed areas the dry sand beach will all but disappear. And what once was the public wet sand beach – the area between mean high and low tide – will become two horizontal lines on a vertical sea wall. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411720/original/file-20210716-15775-c0n31a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="House fronted by sea wall extending into the ocean." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411720/original/file-20210716-15775-c0n31a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411720/original/file-20210716-15775-c0n31a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411720/original/file-20210716-15775-c0n31a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411720/original/file-20210716-15775-c0n31a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411720/original/file-20210716-15775-c0n31a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411720/original/file-20210716-15775-c0n31a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411720/original/file-20210716-15775-c0n31a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The sea wall around this Florida Panhandle beach house blocks public movement along the shore.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thomas Ankersen</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One alternative is adding more sand. Congress authorizes and funds the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to restore beaches with sand pumped from offshore or trucked from ancient inland dunes. States must typically match these funds, and beachfront property owners occasionally collectively pitch in. </p>
<p>But federal regulations require communities that receive these funds to ensure there is adequate access to nourished beaches from the street, including parking. And new beaches built from submerged shorelines must be <a href="https://www.publications.usace.army.mil/Portals/76/Publications/EngineerRegulations/ER_1165-2-130.pdf">maintained for public access</a> until <a href="https://www.saj.usace.army.mil/Portals/44/docs/Civil%20Works/Shore%20Protection/FAQ_Easements_FINAL_May_%202017.pdf">rising seas submerge them again</a>. </p>
<p>This requirement, along with more arcane property rights issues, led landowners in Florida’s Walton County to fight a beach nourishment project that would have protected their property from erosion. They took the case <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=13703403711788343295&q=stop+the+beach+renourishment+inc+v+florida+department+of+environmental+protection&hl=en&as_sdt=4,60">to the U.S. Supreme Court and lost</a>. </p>
<p>Beach nourishment, too, is a temporary solution. Good-quality, readily accessible offshore sand supplies <a href="https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/special-reports/2016/11/17/shrinking-shores-florida-sand-shortage-leaves-beaches-lurch/92052152/">are already depleted</a> in some areas. And accelerating sea level rise may outpace readily available sand at some point in the future. Squeezed between condos and coral reefs, South Florida beaches are especially at risk, leading to some desperate proposals – including the idea of <a href="https://www.gcrc.uga.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Review-Use-of-Pulverized-Recycled-Glass-for-Beach-Nourishment_v1.pdf">grinding up glass to create beach sand</a>. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Ankersen works for the University of Florida and receives funding from Florida Sea Grant through the National Sea Grant Program.</span></em></p>In principle, some portion of the shoreline is public land along virtually all US coasts. But these can sometimes overlap with private property interests, creating confusion and conflict.Thomas Ankersen, Legal Skills Professor and Director, Conservation Clinic, University of Florida College of Law, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1409232020-07-05T10:46:52Z2020-07-05T10:46:52ZFinding a place to pee during a pandemic or a protest shouldn’t be so hard<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344627/original/file-20200629-155312-rea637.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=271%2C36%2C4617%2C3085&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Finding a washroom during either a pandemic or a protest within a pandemic is an issue about how free and accessible our urban spaces are. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In early June in our home city of Guelph, Ont., <a href="https://www.guelphtoday.com/local-news/thousands-gather-in-downtown-guelph-for-black-lives-matter-protest-24-photos-2415299">thousands marched</a> to support the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in the United States and the death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet in Toronto. But where did protesters who needed to use the washroom go? We don’t know. </p>
<p>Guelph, like many Canadian cities, had few open public washrooms in the first phase of the pandemic. The libraries, community centres and municipal buildings that house public washrooms were closed to the public (though as of late June there is some <a href="https://guelph.ca/2020/06/guelph-opening-outdoor-pools-splash-pads-washrooms-farmers-market-and-serviceguelph-with-covid-19-measures-in-place/">limited reopening in Guelph</a>.) </p>
<p>From May’s now-infamous <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/05/23/dangerous-and-selfish-behaviour-a-day-after-mayor-medical-officer-urges-social-distancing-dozens-gather-at-trinity-bellwoods.html">impromptu summer party</a> in Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods Park to Black Lives Matter protests in June, there are serious challenges when large groups of people gather during a pandemic. These gatherings magnify existing problems with urban public space.</p>
<p>At the Trinity Bellwoods party, <a href="https://dailyhive.com/toronto/tickets-issued-trinity-bellwoods-park-over-weekend-toronto-police">almost all tickets</a> issued were for public urination or defecation. As researchers at the University of Guelph who study public spaces, we were struck by the irony of handing out these tickets when public washrooms and businesses weren’t open. There was literally nowhere for people to go. Where we go when we really need to go is not something people like to talk or think about when they’re in public spaces.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1264358891460182019"}"></div></p>
<h2>Finding a public washroom</h2>
<p>Even in the best of times, public availability of washrooms is limited and often heavily restricted. <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/how-safe-is-using-a-public-restroom-during-a-pandemic-expert-weighs-in-1.4965907">Public health experts</a> say that public washrooms are no more dangerous than any other enclosed space for COVID-19, and <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-june-4-andre-picard-on-coronavirus-masks-testing-and-pandemic/">recommend leaving them open</a>. But the already limited public washrooms in many cities remain closed, with some exceptions. </p>
<p>Public space and public washrooms are two fundamental public goods. <a href="https://theconversation.com/washrooms-for-customers-only-peeing-with-dignity-in-the-city-112192">Research shows</a> people who need to use the washroom when they’re out and about in Toronto rely on the kindness of private business owners or the blind eye that their employees often turn. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/washrooms-for-customers-only-peeing-with-dignity-in-the-city-112192">Washrooms for customers only: Peeing with dignity in the city</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Truly public spaces are those that are freely accessible to all. Public spaces that don’t have public washrooms are neither free nor accessible. Public spaces are diminished by poor investments in the amenities (like washrooms) that make being in public possible. Investing in washrooms, especially during a public health crisis, means paying people to clean them. </p>
<p>We don’t often see the burden that cleaning up public washrooms, and dealing with the occasional health crises that happen in them, <a href="https://theconversation.com/washrooms-for-customers-only-peeing-with-dignity-in-the-city-112192">puts on minimum wage workers</a>. Frontline workers in restaurants and grocery stores are being celebrated during the pandemic but not rewarded with <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-12/a-supermarket-billionaire-steps-into-trouble-over-pandemic-wages">permanent wage increases</a> and job security.</p>
<p>As businesses open up again with tighter social distancing rules, it will be these same low-paid workers who keep businesses going and are tasked with protecting themselves and customers — all while enforcing unfamiliar rules. And while <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/16/health/coronavirus-toilets-flushing.html">there’s a playful squeamishness</a> associated with public washrooms, they are nonetheless essential public service. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344621/original/file-20200629-155353-in17bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344621/original/file-20200629-155353-in17bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344621/original/file-20200629-155353-in17bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344621/original/file-20200629-155353-in17bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344621/original/file-20200629-155353-in17bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344621/original/file-20200629-155353-in17bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344621/original/file-20200629-155353-in17bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The work of cleaning public bathrooms often falls to minimum wage workers and during a pandemic, they have few protections and temporary pay increases.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Free to pee, free to be</h2>
<p>Maintenance — specifically the hiring of well-paid city workers with appropriate protective gear — is a crucial part of making public washrooms work. During our research, we noticed that many of the Toronto’s park washrooms were closed at odd times, often pervasively. The insufficient maintenance and cleaning of these spaces means that they fall into disrepair and cannot be used, where they do exist.</p>
<p>Instead of stepping up maintenance, however, the city opted for bylaw enforcement patrols to encourage social distancing and make sure no one pees where they shouldn’t. Policing washroom use likely determines who feels able to show up at both parties and protests.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344636/original/file-20200629-155345-4zeha8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344636/original/file-20200629-155345-4zeha8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344636/original/file-20200629-155345-4zeha8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344636/original/file-20200629-155345-4zeha8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344636/original/file-20200629-155345-4zeha8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344636/original/file-20200629-155345-4zeha8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344636/original/file-20200629-155345-4zeha8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Whether in public parks or during protests, washrooms must be free and accessible for all in order to make public spaces welcoming and safe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Knowing that public washrooms are closed, people who need to frequently use the washroom might not participate in public gatherings because of a lack of access to these facilities. And the possibility of incurring a ticket for public urination may bring protesters in contact with law enforcement when, as the Black Lives Matter movement continues to highlight, encounters between <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/05/28/autopsy-scheduled-for-toronto-woman-who-fell-24-storeys-from-high-park-building-with-police-present.html">Black</a> people and law enforcement can be fraught, and all-too-often, deadly. <a href="https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-watchdog-to-probe-fatal-rcmp-shooting-of-n-b-indigenous-man-1.4982770">Indigenous people</a> too are deeply familiar with this pattern.</p>
<p>A comprehensive system of open, accessible public washrooms should be part of how we think about reorganizing urban public spaces after the pandemic. We need to think about how people are excluded from public space because of the lack of public washrooms, how responsibility for maintaining existing limited resources fall to low-paid, often precarious workers, and how routine involvement with law enforcement is much more dangerous for some people. </p>
<p>The washroom dilemma requires more investment. Why? Because having more free and accessible public washrooms is not just the right thing to do, it’s the necessary thing to do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140923/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mervyn Horgan receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edith Wilson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Public washrooms are an essential service and the people who maintain them are essential workers. But what happens when a pandemic closes public bathrooms and a civil rights protest breaks out?Edith Wilson, Master's of Sociology, University of GuelphMervyn Horgan, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/730322017-02-21T01:47:15Z2017-02-21T01:47:15ZIn latest skirmish of western land wars, Congress supports mining and ranching<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157398/original/image-20170218-10200-mocvun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sheep move through public lands near Shoshone, Idaho</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mypubliclands/30736733466/in/album-72157674657349752/">BLM/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Republicans in Congress are enthusiastically using the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/us/politics/congressional-review-act-obama-regulations.html">Congressional Review Act</a> to overturn regulations finalized during the last weeks of the Obama administration. One measure on their list is the Bureau of Land Management’s new <a href="https://www.blm.gov/programs/planning-and-nepa/planning2">Planning 2.0 rule</a>, which is designed to improve BLM’s process for making decisions about ranching, energy development and other uses of public lands. The House has already <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-joint-resolution/44">voted to repeal the rule</a>, and the Senate is likely to follow.</p>
<p>As an environmental historian, I see this as the latest skirmish in a long-running battle over use of the quarter-billion acres of public lands managed by BLM. </p>
<p>Historically, BLM has been dominated by commodity interests, especially ranchers and mining companies. But in the 1970s Congress passed several laws that increased public involvement in land management decisions. It also directed BLM to balance extractive uses such as mining, grazing and logging with other activities, such as wildlife conservation, recreation and preservation of wilderness areas. These laws shifted the agency into what has been called a “<a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/american-environmental-policy">green drift</a>” toward greater environmental protection, even in the face of subsequent congressional gridlock.</p>
<p>This is not a simple Washington-versus-local struggle. Many westerners, including some Republican officials, support the idea of opening up the planning process and doing it across larger areas. Overturning Planning 2.0 exposes BLM to charges of ignoring science, collaboration and the public – criticisms that it has worked for decades to overcome. And it will probably lead to more of the lawsuits that inspired the rule in the first place. </p>
<h2>The Bureau of Livestock and Mining</h2>
<p>BLM’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-twisted-roots-of-u-s-land-policy-in-the-west-52740">history</a> makes it vulnerable to charges of not listening to a wide public. An agency of the Interior Department, it was created in 1946 through a merger of the General Land Office and the U.S. Grazing Service. Government experts had found that 95 percent of rangelands in the public domain had declined since the turn of the century due to “<a href="https://archive.org/stream/westernrangelett00unitrich#page/n9/mode/2up">excessive stocking</a>,” or overgrazing. </p>
<p>However, BLM was so attentive to its main constituencies – ranchers and mineral companies – that it quickly became known as the Bureau of Livestock and Mining. In its early years, power rested almost entirely with grazing advisory boards, made up of local ranchers who assigned grazing permits on government rangelands. At one point these boards even helped pay BLM employee salaries. </p>
<p>Through the 1970s western land management was a classic example of what political scientists call an “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_triangle_(US_politics)">iron triangle</a>,” in which tightly connected congressional committees, bureaucracies and interest groups enact policy. Such relationships typically favor the narrow self-interest of commodity groups. </p>
<p>According to early studies of BLM, such as Philip Foss’ 1960 book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Grass-Administration-Grazing-Public/dp/0837121361">Politics and Grass</a>,” the agency was “captured” by livestock interests. Political scientist Grant McConnell <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Private-power-American-democracy-McConnell/dp/B0006BMZFG">observed</a> in 1966 that BLM’s decentralized structure was designed to allow “home rule on the range” – just what ranchers wanted.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157399/original/image-20170218-10195-19w4pxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157399/original/image-20170218-10195-19w4pxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157399/original/image-20170218-10195-19w4pxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157399/original/image-20170218-10195-19w4pxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157399/original/image-20170218-10195-19w4pxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157399/original/image-20170218-10195-19w4pxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157399/original/image-20170218-10195-19w4pxz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lazy B Ranch near Duncan, Arizona in 1945. The ranch was the childhood home of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and is on an active grazing allotment managed by BLM.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mypubliclands/30181142305/in/album-72157671460858983/">BLM/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Gradual opening</h2>
<p>In the 1970s BLM started to become more independent and manage land in a more <a href="http://www.oupress.com/ECommerce/Book/Detail/2046/the%20size%20of%20the%20risk">adaptive and balanced</a> way. This was partly due to the 1969 <a href="https://www.epw.senate.gov/nepa69.pdf">National Environmental Policy Act</a>, which gave the public a new role in federal policy. Agencies proposing major projects were required to produce environmental impact statements that were subject to public review. This opened up federal agencies to greater scrutiny and allowed new voices to influence agency decisions. It also increased litigation and <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-1895-8.html">slowed down the planning process</a> as more constituencies became involved. </p>
<p>The 1976 <a href="https://www.blm.gov/or/regulations/files/FLPMA.pdf">Federal Land Policy and Management Act</a> increased BLM’s power to regulate grazing and mining, and made wilderness a new priority in its multiple-use portfolio. Ranching and mining interests now had to compete and cooperate with wildlife advocates and other nonextractive users. </p>
<p>These new policies improved BLM decisions by enabling the agency to consider science, such as rangeland ecology and habitat protection for endangered species, and the noneconomic values of wilderness and wildlife. They also disrupted power balances. Many western stakeholders felt that national priorities were displacing local needs and traditions. </p>
<p>Their dissatisfaction spawned the Sagebrush Rebellion of the late 1970s and early 1980s and its <a href="https://theconversation.com/history-points-to-more-dangerous-malheur-style-standoffs-68134">descendants</a>. Ever since then, commodity interests have bristled at having to incorporate broadly environmental values in western land use decisions, instead of basing them strictly on economics that favored ranchers with <a href="http://www.opb.org/news/series/burns-oregon-standoff-bundy-militia-news-updates/federal-grazing-fees/">below-market grazing fees</a> and miners with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/mining-firm-profits-from-public-lands-remain-a-mystery-new-gao-study-shows/2012/12/11/c3416110-43c1-11e2-8061-253bccfc7532_story.html?utm_term=.5e38a7338a8a">favorable leasing and royalty arrangements</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157397/original/image-20170218-10206-1di3h48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157397/original/image-20170218-10206-1di3h48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157397/original/image-20170218-10206-1di3h48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157397/original/image-20170218-10206-1di3h48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157397/original/image-20170218-10206-1di3h48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157397/original/image-20170218-10206-1di3h48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157397/original/image-20170218-10206-1di3h48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Humbug Spires, on BLM land south of Butte, Montana, is an 11,175-acre zone under study for possible designations as a wilderness area.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mypubliclands/9469796516/in/album-72157673516560212/">Bob Wick, BLM California</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Planning 2.0 in the crosshairs</h2>
<p>The final <a href="https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/documents/files/PlanningandNepa_Planning_FinalPlanningRuleSigned.pdf">Planning 2.0 rule</a>, published on Dec. 16, 2016, is designed to fix some key flaws in western land use planning. Notably, BLM lands are intermingled with private lands and public lands managed by other federal agencies. Many issues, such as wildfire management and invasive species control, cross these boundaries. </p>
<p>Instead of planning at the local or site-specific scale, which does not address the environment’s interconnected nature, the rule directs BLM to plan at the landscape scale – that is, over large areas with “<a href="https://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/more/Landscape_Approach.html">similar environmental characteristics</a>,” such as the <a href="https://geomaps.wr.usgs.gov/parks/province/coloplat.html">Colorado Plateau</a>. Landscape-scale planning necessarily involves federal, state, local and tribal governments.</p>
<p>The rule also requires BLM to seek public input before developing plans. This approach contrasts with NEPA, which requires agencies only to consult with the public <a href="http://www.lynnscarlett.com/uploads/2/7/9/5/2795360/nepa_policy_commentary--.pdf">after they have identified a few options for action</a>. Environmentalists have repeatedly stalled BLM land use planning through lawsuits when they disagreed with agencies’ proposed alternatives. Planning 2.0 seeks to involve them earlier to help develop alternatives in hope of reducing litigation later. </p>
<p>Many westerners who opposed the rule raised classic federal-versus-state arguments against it. Tom Jankovsky, a Republican commissioner in Garfield County, Colorado, <a href="http://www.postindependent.com/news/local/u-s-house-votes-to-kill-blms-planning-2-0/">called it</a> “the first step to a totalitarian government, having bureaucrat planners making legislation through administrative process.” The <a href="https://cdn.westernenergyalliance.org/sites/default/files/Western%20Energy%20Alliance%20Letter%20in%20Support%20of%20Planning%202.0%20CRA%20Resolution%201.26.17.pdf">Western Energy Alliance</a> complained that it was an “overreach of federal authority” beyond what FLPMA allowed and prioritized conservation over multiple use.</p>
<p>But other western stakeholders found merit in Planning 2.0. <a href="http://www.publicnewsservice.org/2017-02-13/public-lands-wilderness/sportsmen-stand-up-to-defend-blm-2-0/a56346-1">Hunters and anglers</a>, along with other <a href="http://www.mensjournal.com/adventure/articles/how-fishermen-hunters-bikers-and-hikers-are-about-to-lose-their-say-on-public-land-use-w466008">hikers and outdoor enthusiasts</a>, want seats at the table in land use decisions. Some wildlife advocates see the new rules as a great improvement and <a href="http://www.wyomingnews.com/opinion/andersen-congress-needs-to-pass-blm-planning-to-give-power/article_6440c5ee-f4dd-11e6-8671-dbe5095e6796.html">have called for Congress</a> to ratify Planning 2.0 rather than repeal it. Park County, Colorado’s three Republican commissioners <a href="https://wilderness.org/sites/default/files/Planning%202.0%20County%20letters%20of%20support.pdf">praised the rule</a> for allowing the public to influence plans rather than just react to them. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ifQpcrCzT0Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">BLM work to help protect threatened western snowy plovers in Oregon.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>One step forward, two steps back</h2>
<p>In my view, many critics who have urged Congress to strike down Planning 2.0 want to return to the era when mining companies and ranchers wrote the rules and did so for a narrow range of interests. This strategy is consistent with the Republican Party’s general <a href="https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/media/documents/DRAFT_12_FINAL%5B1%5D-ben_1468872234.pdf">commitment to deregulation</a> to facilitate business. But repealing the rule is unlikely to have that effect. </p>
<p>Laws like NEPA and FLPMA have brought other interests to the planning table, and Planning 2.0 would get them there earlier to help prevent costly delays that frustrate everyone involved. By excluding their voices, Congress will guarantee the status quo: lengthy court battles after planning decisions are issued. And once a rule is vacated under the Congressional Review Act, agencies <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43992.pdf">cannot issue a new rule that is “substantially the same</a>” unless Congress passes a law authorizing them to do so. The result will be more gridlock and unsound multiple-use management of western public lands. </p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the number of acres of public lands managed by BLM.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73032/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam M. Sowards does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Republicans in Congress are working to kill an Obama administration rule that broadens public input into federal land use planning. Hunters, fishermen, hikers and environmental groups are opposed.Adam M. Sowards, Professor of History, University of IdahoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/711302017-01-23T00:41:34Z2017-01-23T00:41:34ZWill Trump negotiate a better coal deal for taxpayers?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153724/original/image-20170121-30949-j97jlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trump promises to revive the coal industry in part by opening up mining on federal lands, yet economists found that increasing royalties on public land would lead to more mining elsewhere, including Northern Appalachia and the Illinois Basin.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Steve Helber</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s here. The first week of the Trump administration. And it promises to be a busy one.</p>
<p>On the energy front, Trump has an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/america-first-energy">ambitious agenda</a> for his first days in office. Some policy changes will take time to execute. Others can happen with the stroke of his pen (and a tweet).</p>
<p>Ending the moratorium on leasing federal land for coal mining – <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/01/14/obama-administration-set-to-announce-moratorium-on-some-new-federal-coal-leases/?utm_term=.64857ec8c3df">put in place last year</a> by the Obama administration – is one change we can expect very soon. When it happens, it will mark a return to business as usual in the federal coal program.</p>
<p>Here’s the problem. Business as usual is broken. The <a href="https://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/energy/coal_and_non-energy.html">federal coal program</a> is supposed to manage vast federally owned coal reserves, which account for more than <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-department-releases-comprehensive-roadmap-reform-federal-coal-program">40 percent</a> of U.S. coal production, “for the benefit of current and future generations.” But the program has, for a long time, been <a href="http://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/shortchanged-are-coal-companies-paying-fair-market-value-for-leases-on-public-lands">criticized</a> for selling taxpayers short. For this and other reasons, new federal leases were <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/secretary-jewell-launches-comprehensive-review-federal-coal-program">put on hold</a> last year until a comprehensive review of the program could be completed.</p>
<p>A follow-up <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-department-releases-comprehensive-roadmap-reform-federal-coal-program">scoping report</a> released earlier this month from the Department of the Interior lays out a blueprint for major reforms that would help taxpayers receive fair compensation and better account for the environmental impacts from coal mining. The outgoing secretary of the interior has argued that <a href="https://www.blm.gov/node/8505">“the only responsible next step is to undertake further review and implement these commonsense measures.”</a> </p>
<p>It’s now up to the Trump administration to decide what to do next. Sticking with the status quo will cost taxpayers. It could also have big implications for the environment. </p>
<h2>What’s the problem (and how can we fix it)?</h2>
<p>If you are an American taxpayer, you are a part owner (in a manner of speaking) of vast coal reserves. In addition to the coal covered by existing leases, which can support production at current levels for 20 years, there’s much more coal in federally owned ground.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153705/original/image-20170120-30764-ky7oxq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153705/original/image-20170120-30764-ky7oxq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153705/original/image-20170120-30764-ky7oxq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153705/original/image-20170120-30764-ky7oxq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153705/original/image-20170120-30764-ky7oxq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153705/original/image-20170120-30764-ky7oxq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153705/original/image-20170120-30764-ky7oxq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153705/original/image-20170120-30764-ky7oxq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://energy.usgs.gov/GeneralInfo/EnergyNewsroomAll/TabId/770/ArtMID/3941/ArticleID/961/New-Powder-River-Basin-Wide-Coal-Assessment-of-Recoverable-Resources-and-Reserves.aspx">US Geological Survey; Bureau of Land Management; Energy Information Administration</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When the government (or, more precisely, the Department of the Interior) auctions leasing rights and collects royalties from the sale of “your” coal, it is supposed to make sure it receives fair compensation on your behalf. But the government is falling short. Critics have convincingly argued that leasing auctions are <a href="http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/659801.pdf">fundamentally noncompetitive</a> and undervalue the rights to mine federal lands. </p>
<p>Problems with the royalties that mining companies actually pay are <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/page/files/20160622_cea_coal_leasing.pdf%22%22">well-documented</a> as well. Overall, it’s been <a href="https://www.northernplains.org/powder-river-basin-coal-leasing-prompts-ig-gao-reviews-washington-post-june-24-2012/">estimated</a> that undervaluation of coal could have cost taxpayers as much as US$30 billion in lost revenue over the past 30 years.</p>
<p>For the <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/190010/concern-global-warming-eight-year-high.aspx">majority of Americans who are worried about global warming</a>, uncompensated environmental damages should present a much bigger concern. In a <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6316/1096.full">recent study</a>, my coauthors and I calculated the climate change-related damages from burning Powder River Basin coal (which accounts for most of federal coal production). We use the monetized climate damages of $44 per ton of CO2 based on the median U.S. government <a href="https://www.epa.gov/climatechange/social-cost-carbon">social cost of carbon</a>. We found the estimated climate impacts are about six times the current market price. Royalty payments <a href="http://www.rff.org/research/publications/putting-carbon-charge-federal-coal-legal-and-economic-issues">could be increased</a> to reflect some of these damages. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153706/original/image-20170120-5234-r6vpd2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153706/original/image-20170120-5234-r6vpd2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153706/original/image-20170120-5234-r6vpd2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153706/original/image-20170120-5234-r6vpd2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153706/original/image-20170120-5234-r6vpd2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153706/original/image-20170120-5234-r6vpd2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153706/original/image-20170120-5234-r6vpd2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153706/original/image-20170120-5234-r6vpd2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6316/1096.full?ijkey=.7HMzxFLG0FD.&keytype=ref&siteid=scihttp://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6316/1096.full?ijkey=.7HMzxFLG0FD.&keytype=ref&siteid=sci">Kenneth Gillingham, James Bushnell, Meredith Fowlie, Michael Greenstone, Charles Kolstad, Alan Krupnick, Adele Morris, Richard Schmalensee, James Stock</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The recently released scoping report lays out a series of proposed changes that could address these problems, such as calculating royalties using the private market price of coal and adjusting royalty rates to account for climate change impacts.</p>
<h2>Winners and losers under federal coal reform</h2>
<p>In <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6316/1096.full?ijkey=.7HMzxFLG0FD.&keytype=ref&siteid=sci">our paper</a>, we highlight knowledge gaps that need to be filled before we can definitively assess the impacts of potential coal program reforms. These gaps notwithstanding, there’s a lot we can learn based on information we already have. </p>
<p>In this spirit, economists Jim Stock and Ken Gillingham have been <a href="http://www.hamiltonproject.org/papers/federal_minerals_leasing_reform_and_climate_policy">hard at work</a> looking at the likely impacts of increasing the royalties paid per short ton of federal coal sales. They examine how a royalty increase or “adder” would impact future U.S. coal production. To put these royalty adders into perspective, a $20 increase per ton would capture roughly 20 percent of estimated climate change damages in 2030. </p>
<p>The figure below summarizes their 2030 projections. It should come as no surprise that, as federal royalties increase, coal production on federal lands falls. Some of these reductions are offset by increased production at other US coal mines which are not subject to these federal royalties. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153707/original/image-20170121-30959-1gew4mv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153707/original/image-20170121-30959-1gew4mv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153707/original/image-20170121-30959-1gew4mv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153707/original/image-20170121-30959-1gew4mv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153707/original/image-20170121-30959-1gew4mv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153707/original/image-20170121-30959-1gew4mv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153707/original/image-20170121-30959-1gew4mv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153707/original/image-20170121-30959-1gew4mv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Including an ‘adder,’ or higher royalty fee that recognizes the cost to society and the environment of coal, would slow coal production and shift coal production slightly to nonfederal lands.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.hamiltonproject.org/papers/federal_minerals_leasing_reform_and_climate_policy">Kenneth T. Gillingham, James H. Stock</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A somewhat surprising finding: Increasing federal royalties would increase national mining employment, even as total domestic coal production falls. That’s because the largest projected increases in production are found in Northern Appalachia and the Illinois Basin. Because these regions are relatively labor-intensive, increased employment in these areas more than offsets reductions in employment on federal lands.</p>
<p>Increased royalties would also benefit taxpayers and the environment. Through 2030, Gillingham and Stock estimate that additional royalties under an increase starting at $15.80/ton and ramping up to $20/ton by 2030 for Powder River Basin coal could exceed $35 billion (undiscounted). The higher price for coal would also lead to power sector emissions reductions on the order of three percent in 2030, they found.</p>
<p>Those who stand to lose the most under reform are the handful of companies that have invested in mining federal coal and the services (such as railroads) that serve them. Electricity consumers would see a very small increase in electricity prices. Gillingham and Stock calculated that under the $20 royalty increase, wholesale electricity prices in 2030 increase by approximately 0.1 cents/kWh, which is less than one percent of current average retail prices.</p>
<h2>We snooze, we lose</h2>
<p>As President Trump took the oath of office last Friday, the White House website was transformed to reflect the arrival of the new administration. References to climate change were <a href="http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-trump-climate-change-20170120-story.html">removed</a>. During Senate hearings for his Cabinet, there was no indication this administration intends to make action on climate change a priority. </p>
<p>But a refusal to acknowledge the existence of this problem does not make the problem go away. On the contrary, halting progress toward a meaningful policy response just makes it a harder hill to climb when members of a future administration inevitably resolve to roll up their sleeves and deal with the problem. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153755/original/image-20170122-30955-lkz2af.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153755/original/image-20170122-30955-lkz2af.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153755/original/image-20170122-30955-lkz2af.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153755/original/image-20170122-30955-lkz2af.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153755/original/image-20170122-30955-lkz2af.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153755/original/image-20170122-30955-lkz2af.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153755/original/image-20170122-30955-lkz2af.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/153755/original/image-20170122-30955-lkz2af.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Wyoming open mine in the Powder River Basin, where much of the coal production on U.S. federal lands is located.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mypubliclands/29721783112/in/photolist-MpgHgW-MhpUCq-MpgHay-MhpUjE-M1wvZQ-MhpTBC/">Bureau of Land Management</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the same vein, the time to act on federal coal program reform is now. Momentum has been building behind the
“<a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?324886-1/interior-secretary-sally-jewell-remarks-energy-agenda">open and honest conversation about modernizing the coal program</a>.” Judging by the hundreds of thousands of <a href="https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front-office/eplanning/planAndProjectSite.do?methodName=dispatchToPatternPage&currentPageId=93180">comments</a> filed so far on the scoping report, there is broad-based support for meaningful reform. </p>
<p>If the Trump administration decides to turn a deaf ear on this conversation, we will be in a different place when a future administration picks up this ball. More leases will be auctioned in the coming years, and more federal coal will be covered by long-term contracts. Hitting the snooze button will deliver more good deals to the coal companies operating on federal lands, at the expense of taxpayers and the environment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71130/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Meredith Fowlie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>One of Trump’s first orders of business on energy will likely be to reopen federal lands to coal mining, which would be a bad deal for taxpayers and the environment.Meredith Fowlie, Associate Professor of Economics, University of California, BerkeleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/681342016-11-03T23:01:09Z2016-11-03T23:01:09ZHistory points to more dangerous Malheur-style standoffs<p>The acquittal of Ammon Bundy and other militia members who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon last January leaves our public lands and the people who steward them in a vulnerable position. Indeed, it puts a target on their backs.</p>
<p>The Bundy family has said as much. “The government should be scared,” Ryan Bundy <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2016/11/01/c45bdf4e-a04c-11e6-a44d-cc2898cfab06_story.html">asserted</a> to the Washington Post less than a week after their acquittal. “They are in the wrong. The land does not belong to the government. The land belongs to the people of Clark County, not to the people of the United States.” When asked whether he and fellow militiamen had the right to take up arms to assert their control of the public land, Bundy declared: “Ask George Washington.” </p>
<p>This brazen and unapologetic rhetoric is a striking contrast to the Oregon jury’s carefully tailored language about their decision to free those men who bore arms against the federal government. As <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/10/juror_4_prosecutors_in_oregon.html">one juror</a> told the Portland Oregonian in response to the post-verdict uproar: “Don’t they know that ‘not guilty’ does not mean innocent?” </p>
<p>Clearly the militants, whose actions echo 20th-century Sagebrush Rebellions to take local control of public lands, know no such thing. For them the verdict offered an affirming message which, in my view, imperils the public servants who protect our lands in the face of a long history of threats and violence. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sagebrush Rebellion rally in 1980 on July 4 in Grand County, Utah. The roots of today’s disputes echo violent protests in the 1970s and 1980s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sagebrush_Rebellion_July_4th,_1980_Grand_County_Utah.JPG">TheRealDeJureTour/wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Debate over public lands has been a crucial part of my scholarship, but it also contains a personal dimension: For the past three decades I have been helping to train Forest Service leaders at all levels of the organization. A key part of my contribution to their studies has been the impact of the Sagebrush Rebellion, past and present, on the management and managers of our public lands. This close relationship leaves me deeply concerned for their safety.</p>
<h2>History of violence</h2>
<p>My worry is also framed within the larger political context: The Bundy verdict will play into the hands of those political forces – state legislatures, governors and congressional representatives – who have been <a href="https://www.gop.com/platform/americas-natural-resources/">scheming</a> to force the sale or the giving away of U.S. public lands to the individual states. The Republican Party platform is on record as being in full support of this <a href="https://theconversation.com/dems-and-the-gop-are-miles-apart-on-yet-another-issue-public-lands-65772">dismantling of our system of national forests, parks and refuges</a>.</p>
<p>Ammon Bundy and his followers make the same case. In a post-trial press conference, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/10/28/off-the-charts-unbelievable-will-acquittal-of-oregon-refuge-occupiers-embolden-extremists-militias/">the defendants</a> underscored their posture as patriots, who by dint of arms have defended the Constitution from an overly aggressive federal government. </p>
<p>As for the group’s possession of weapons, that is described in the most benign terms: “For these defendants and these people, having a firearm has nothing to do with a threat or anything else,” Bundy defense attorney Matthew Schindler <a href="http://absoluterights.com/bundy-clan-is-free/">declared</a>. “It’s as much a statement of their rural culture as a cowboy hat or a pair of jeans. I think the jury believed at the end of the day that that’s why the guns were there.” </p>
<p>However folksy his language, it masks the historical reality that such threats to public servants protecting public lands have been commonplace for more than a century. </p>
<p>No sooner had Congress in 1891 granted the executive branch the power to redesignate federal lands as national forests and to establish regulations for their use, than some westerners rose up in opposition. The grazing, mining and lumbering industries chafed at the small fees they were required to pay for the resources they once took at will. As I observe in my analysis of the Malheur occupation in my new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Not-Golden-State-Sustainability-California/dp/1595347828">“Not So Golden State</a>,” they fought back in the federal court system courts, and lost every test case. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Threats to employees of federal land agencies goes back to the late 19th century when Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service, visited each hotspot, even one in Alaska where locals hung him in effigy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fhsarchives.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/gifford-pinchots-ten-commandments/">US Forest Service</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the ground, they took out their frustrations on the local representatives of the nascent Forest Service. The verbal and bodily threats against its employees were so omnipresent that the agency’s first chief, <a href="https://fhsarchives.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/gifford-pinchots-ten-commandments/">Gifford Pinchot</a>, made it a point to visit every hotspot to demonstrate that he had employees’ backs. And when the good citizens of Cordova, Alaska, hung Pinchot in effigy, he made certain to travel there, too.</p>
<p>Similar attacks continued across the last century. In the 1940s, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and social critic Bernard DeVoto wrote a series of essays in Harper’s that exposed how the “Landgrabbers” of his generation intimidated Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management rangers across the West, bullied the agencies’ Washington offices and used their clout to bend the U.S. House subcommittee on public lands to their will. Their threats to employ the “sterner justice” of mob violence only underscored that their “ultimate hope,” DeVoto <a href="http://harpers.org/archive/1948/07/sacred-cows-and-public-lands/">affirmed</a>, “is to destroy the established conservation policies of the United States.”</p>
<p>President Ronald Reagan fanned these flames when he came to power in 1981, arguing that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” That was music to the ears of those, like earlier generations of the Bundy family, who disdained federal land managers. </p>
<p>Egged on by right-wing talk radio commentators, verbal and physical attacks escalated. Vigilantes bombed Forest Service offices, a ranger discovered an explosive device under his truck and Elko County (Nevada) <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/16/us/court-puts-down-rebellion-over-control-of-federal-land.html">commissioners</a> used bulldozers to crash through Forest Service fencing. The agency responded by urging its staff to wear civilian clothes on the job and drive their personal vehicles to work.</p>
<h2>Fuel to the fire</h2>
<p>There is reason to suspect that this kind of coercion and violence will resume in the wake of the Malheur acquittals, just as it did in the initial aftermath of the Malheur occupation in January. Last winter, according to the nonpartisan conservation and advocacy group the <a href="https://medium.com/@WesternPriorities/armed-militants-pose-ongoing-dangerous-threat-to-government-employees-working-to-protect-americas-dc3858ff2a5b#.kabmzfjrv">Center for Western Priorities</a>, land managers reported a troubling increase in confrontations with Sagebrush-like groups on federal lands. </p>
<p>Bureau of Land Management employees received death threats and even <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2016/11/01/c45bdf4e-a04c-11e6-a44d-cc2898cfab06_story.html">withdrew</a> from the contentious Gold Butte rangelands on which the Bundys graze their cattle, whose archaeological treasures have since then been trashed. The Fish and Wildlife Service reported a number of confrontations with “militia” groups on refuges, which understandably intensified rangers’ fears for their welfare.</p>
<p>Their anxieties have increased post-verdict. “The danger is that we get armed invasions of all kinds of public lands and similar institutions,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/after-oregon-verdict-a-hot-debate-a-victory-for-liberty-or-license-to-intimidate/2016/10/28/3cc1372c-9d37-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html">argues</a> Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “The real danger is bloodshed.” His colleague, <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/news/2016/06/15/splc-public-support-perceived-victory-bundy-ranch-2014-emboldened-extremists-standoff">Heidi Beirich</a>, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, drives the point home: “This is a growing movement that is probably going to grow more due to this verdict because they have shown they can use armed interventions and not be punished for them.”</p>
<p>One of the <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/10/juror_4_prosecutors_in_oregon.html">Bundy jurors</a> even anticipated this dire possibility: “It was not lost on us that our verdict(s) might inspire future actions that are regrettable, but that sort of thinking was not permitted when considering the charges before us.”</p>
<p>Fair enough. But whatever regrettable “future actions” occur, it will not be the jurors who will endure them but the dedicated men and women stewarding our public lands, our most treasured terrain. Who will step up and protect them?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68134/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Char Miller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Acquitted in the Malheur takeover trial, Ryan Bundy urges protests against efforts to conserve public lands. Who will protect federal employees?Char Miller, W. M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis, Pomona CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/657722016-10-14T01:55:29Z2016-10-14T01:55:29ZDems and the GOP are miles apart on yet another issue: Public lands<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140982/original/image-20161008-21414-1sicr17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What does 'public' land mean to the two political parties?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwshq/14036893418/in/album-72157644749867234/">U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s unlikely the presidential candidates will field a question about public lands during their last debate. But public land is an issue that concerns many Americans, with arguments over it flaring up with cyclical regularity. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-oregon-frustration-over-federal-land-rights-has-been-building-for-years/2016/01/04/9bc905a2-b330-11e5-a76a-0b5145e8679a_story.html">Malheur National Wildlife Refuge takeover</a> and the <a href="http://www.opb.org/news/series/burns-oregon-standoff-bundy-militia-news-updates/oregon-standoff-trial-6th-week-defense-plans/">ongoing trial</a> received significant media coverage, even outside of the American West, likely because, if nothing else, it presents a wild west drama. President Obama’s active use of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-antiquities-act-has-expanded-the-national-park-system-and-fueled-struggles-over-land-protection-56454">Antiquities Act</a> to create protected lands over the past few years has also contributed to a sometimes fractious dialogue. Other conflicts, such as the proposed <a href="http://fusion.net/story/322406/inside-an-epic-national-monument-on-the-brink/">Bear’s Ears National Monument</a> and the <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2016/09/why_the_sioux_battle_against_the_dakota_access_pipeline_is_such_a_big_deal.html">Dakota Access Pipeline</a> protests, have similarly brought the relationship between Native Americans and public land ownership and management to the forefront in ways we haven’t seen before. </p>
<p>These instances have forced us to confront the sometimes uncomfortable historical and social implications of how we conceive of public lands. Fundamentally, it’s a question of who has a voice in public lands management, who owns public lands and who is the “public” in public lands.</p>
<p>What is perhaps less apparent, though, is just how far apart the two major parties now are on this question. A closer look shows that they are just as divided on public lands policy as they are on gun policy or immigration reform. </p>
<h2>Rebel or steward?</h2>
<p>The debate over public land ownership – that is, land managed by the federal government of the United States – is deeply rooted in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-twisted-roots-of-u-s-land-policy-in-the-west-52740">history of the West</a>. </p>
<p>The debate centers on who would be the best manager of the public lands, and whether they should be managed at all by any government. We have heard this discussion for over one hundred years, most notably during the so-called<a href="http://www.hcn.org/articles/a-history-of-the-sagebrush-rebellion"> Sagebrush Rebellion</a> of the mid-1970s. A movement against federal land control, it was <a href="http://www.foresthistory.org/Publications/Books/Origins_National_Forests/sec13.htm">set off</a> in main part by the passage of the Bureau of Land Management’s Organic Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. Whether or not the current debate is part of a normal fluctuation or recurrence of the Sagebrush Rebellion, there is an increased national focus on these conflicts. </p>
<p>The disagreements between Democratic and Republican candidates in the past seem to have centered more on what level of government – state, federal or perhaps even county or local – should manage the public lands and for what purpose, rather than suggestions that the land be sold. It was President Reagan, for example, who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/04/even-sagebrush-rebel-ronald-reagan-couldnt-change-federal-land-use-in-the-west/">boldly stated</a>, “Count me in as a rebel” in support of the 1970s “Sagebrush Rebellion,” thereby championing the idea of ceding federal control to states or at least policies that tilted heavily toward resource extraction. </p>
<p>By contrast, Democrats have solidly branded themselves as pro-public lands, particularly by supporting values associated with wildlife and habitat conservation and by promoting land use by sportsmen and women, outdoor recreation and for renewable energy. </p>
<p>Hillary Clinton’s <a href="https://www.hillaryclinton.com/briefing/factsheets/2016/06/01/hillary-clintons-plan-for-conservation-and-collaborative-stewardship-of-americas-great-outdoors/">policy positions</a> echo the <a href="https://www.democrats.org/party-platform#public-lands">DNC’s platform</a> of “keeping public lands public” which we’ve seen under the Obama administration. Her platform positions are centered on collaborative stewardship of those lands and suggest federal public lands remain federal. In response to sportsmen and outdoor groups’ <a href="https://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/Media-Center/News-by-Topic/General-NWF/2016/09-08-16-Sportsmen-Public-Lands-Letter-to-Presidential-Hopefuls.aspx">call for candidates</a> to support public lands, Secretary Clinton <a href="http://www.nwf.org/%7E/media/PDFs/Education-Advocacy/09-07-2016-Clinton-Response-Letter.ashx">reaffirmed</a> those positions.</p>
<h2>Weakening federal control</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gop.com/the-2016-republican-party-platform/">GOP party platform</a>, meanwhile, embraces values of deregulation, expanded resource extraction and increased state control. </p>
<p>While past GOP platforms included similar language, the tone of the 2016 platform is different. It reads like an attack on the DNC platform and the Obama administration’s public land legacy. For instance, it points to the sage-grouse as a symbol for Republican arguments to weaken federal public lands control. Yet ironically, the sage-grouse avoided a federal listing on the Endangered Species Act in large part due to <a href="http://www.sagegrouseinitiative.com/">collaborative state and federal conservation efforts</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140981/original/image-20161008-21447-1izshxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140981/original/image-20161008-21447-1izshxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140981/original/image-20161008-21447-1izshxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140981/original/image-20161008-21447-1izshxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140981/original/image-20161008-21447-1izshxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140981/original/image-20161008-21447-1izshxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140981/original/image-20161008-21447-1izshxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140981/original/image-20161008-21447-1izshxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Through partnerships between state and federal agencies as well as ranchers and other groups, a plan to keep the sage-grouse off the federal Endangered Species Act has succeeded.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/juliom/26631418935/in/photolist-GzjZ2r-ktpkTR-pCiEWR-kwRLDy-e6jXC3-efcqmR-efi8Es-poQLkM-cGPJ9U-spJg5e-ofoymh-sm5nQx-p7mHSp-o5dR56-pNtNMo-oztR82-cJm9xG-rcE2Qp-pPZqtS-opWmjv-bJ2YFp-7QTJBk-bsNicy-9pTJrM-q3JuLW-mVidY8-pLa7Kr-spJhDg-7T8tar-pwWpxL-7QX41S-efmcBn-qSK8XZ-7QX3zo-9xzJRX-jc8YrB-bEGoNM-nrgRVP-mVjRHs-bJ47bR-e4gm98-Gr56sh-6ea1tq-5TcH6e-gUhbgv-7QTMRz-mVhFMt-cGPJhY-cGPJpA-8FgDGv">juliom/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Things get more interesting, however, with the Republican Party nominee. On public lands ownership and management, Donald Trump seems to contradict his party’s platform. In a 2016 interview with <a href="http://www.fieldandstream.com/articles/hunting/2016/01/qa-donald-trump-on-guns-hunting-and-conservation">Field and Stream</a>, Trump rejected the idea of transferring public lands to states. His rhetoric briefly echoed those of public lands supporters who fear that states would be free to sell this land and decrease access. His son, Donald Trump Jr., <a href="http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/politics-government/election/article61349767.html">confirmed this position</a> on a recent fundraising stop in Idaho, a state with a significant percentage of public land.</p>
<p>While Trump’s viewpoints on public land ownership seem fairly consistent, his viewpoints on energy development on public lands, climate change and environmental protection policies are more <a href="https://www.outsideonline.com/2117796/donald-trump-environmental-scorecard">compatible</a> with the GOP platform.</p>
<p>In an interview with candidates in <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-do-the-presidential-candidates-know-about-science/">Scientific American</a>, Trump wasn’t very specific on public lands, but he was quick to criticize the executive branch and federal government’s reach. He advocated “shared governance” with federal, state and local governments regarding public lands and fish and wildlife protection. In his written response, he was unclear, however, on what that entails and how it differs from the current collaborative model.</p>
<p>On energy development on public lands, Trump seems consistent with the GOP platform. He <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-promises-deregulation-of-energy-production-1474566335">promises</a> removing regulations for energy development on federal lands, particularly for oil and gas. Indeed, according to <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/forrest-lucas-trump-interior-secretary-228364">Politico</a>, oil executive Forrest Lucas is one potential candidate for Secretary of Interior. This idea has certainly worried conservation groups who are consistently against increased fossil fuel development in public lands.</p>
<p>On public lands policies, it’s safe to say that Trump is wildly unpredictable.</p>
<h2>Importance of state and local elections</h2>
<p>In what is turning out to be an unpredictable election, it’s understandable for those who care about public lands to worry. A party platform may not create policy, but it can certainly inspire it. Similarly, presidents can’t legislate, but can drive policy.</p>
<p>Regardless of who sits in the White House next year, though, the direction of public lands management also depends on who occupies key executive and administrative positions in the Department of Interior and Department of Agriculture, as well as how they interact with agency staff on the ground.</p>
<p>Importantly, Congress and state and local policymakers also hold significant power over public lands policies. These policies could include facilitating public lands transfers in one direction, or if Democrats gain seats, oppose Republican efforts to transfer or privatize public lands. The GOP platform recognizes this, calling on Congress to pass legislation to facilitate the transfer of “certain lands” to states and “national and state leaders and representatives to exert their utmost power and influence to urge the transfer of those lands…” </p>
<p>We already see such controversial bills pop up in Congress. For example, recently, Congressman Rob Bishop’s (R-UT) Public Lands Initiative Act, which <a href="http://naturalresources.house.gov/newsroom/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=401235">would</a> designate “millions of acres of federal land for conservation and recreation,” allow for the “exchanges and consolidates certain federal and non-federal land” and provide “economic development within the State of Utah,” passed the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources. The proposed legislation received <a href="http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865663052/Bishops-Public-Lands-Initiative-advances-from-committee.html?pg=all%5d">significant criticism</a> for not properly including Native American consultation and paving the way for public lands transfers.</p>
<p>Public opinion can also set the mood for political action. For this reason, it is critical for those who care about public lands to stay informed of emerging policy on all levels. Voting for the next president is undoubtedly important, but voting for the next congressional, state and local leaders is equally vital when it comes to the future of our public lands because major policy changes such as land transfer must come from Congress.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65772/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Freemuth receives funding from USGS and BLM . He is affiliated with the Cecil Andrus Center for Public Policy. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mackenzie Case is a student board member on the Public Lands Foundation. She worked for Defenders of Wildlife from 2013-2015 and interned for Idaho Conservation League in the summer of 2016. </span></em></p>Debates over federal lands, from the Malheur Refuge takeover to fossil fuel leases on public land, are back in the news. How do the two parties line up on public land policy?John Freemuth, Professor of Public Policy and Senior Fellow Cecil Andrus Center for Public Policy, Boise State UniversityMackenzie Case, Graduate Assistant in Public Administration, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/649472016-10-10T12:16:02Z2016-10-10T12:16:02ZWhat if nature, like corporations, had the rights and protections of a person?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140611/original/image-20161005-20110-9ipkfz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The forest around Lake Waikaremoana in New Zealand has been given legal status of a person because of its cultural significance.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/58611670@N04/6090717440/in/photostream/">Paul Nelhams/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has solidified the concept of corporate personhood. <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/raisins-hotels-corporate-personhood-supreme-court/396773/">Following rulings</a> in such cases as <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/sebelius-v-hobby-lobby-stores-inc/">Hobby Lobby</a> and <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/01/21/5-years-later-citizens-united-has-remade-us-politics">Citizens United</a>, U.S. law has established that companies are, like people, entitled to certain rights and protections.</p>
<p>But that’s not the only instance of extending legal rights to nonhuman entities. New Zealand took a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/14/world/what-in-the-world/in-new-zealand-lands-and-rivers-can-be-people-legally-speaking.html?_r=0">radically different approach</a> in 2014 with the <a href="http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2014/0051/latest/DLM6183601.html">Te Urewera Act</a> which granted an 821-square-mile forest the legal status of a person. <a href="http://maorilawreview.co.nz/2014/10/tuhoe-crown-settlement-te-urewera-act-2014/">The forest is sacred</a> to the Tūhoe people, an indigenous group of the Maori. For them Te Urewera is an ancient and ancestral homeland that breathes life into their culture. The forest is also a living ancestor. The Te Urewera Act concludes that “Te Urewera has an identity in and of itself,” and thus must be its own entity with “all the rights, powers, duties, and liabilities of a legal person.” Te Urewera <a href="https://vertigo.revues.org/16199?lang=en#bodyftn5">holds title to itself</a>.</p>
<p>Although this legal approach is unique to New Zealand, the underlying reason for it is not. Over the last 15 years I have documented similar cultural expressions by Native Americans about their traditional, sacred places. As an anthropologist, this research has often pushed me to search for an answer to the profound question: What does it mean for nature to be a person?</p>
<h2>The snow-capped mountain</h2>
<p>A majestic mountain sits not far northwest of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Like a low triangle, with long gentle slopes, Mount Taylor is clothed in rich forests that appear a velvety charcoal-blue from the distance. Its bald summit, more than 11,000 feet high, is often blanketed in snow – a reminder of the blessing of water, when seen from the blazing desert below.</p>
<p>The Zuni tribe lives about 40 miles west of Mount Taylor. In 2012, <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/saa/aap/2014/00000002/00000004/art00001">I worked with a team to interview 24 tribal members</a> about the values they hold for Dewankwin K’yaba:chu Yalanne (“In the East Snow-capped Mountain”), as Mount Taylor is called in the Zuni language. We were told that their most ancient ancestors began an epic migration in the Grand Canyon. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140766/original/image-20161006-32727-1ssijxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140766/original/image-20161006-32727-1ssijxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140766/original/image-20161006-32727-1ssijxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140766/original/image-20161006-32727-1ssijxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140766/original/image-20161006-32727-1ssijxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140766/original/image-20161006-32727-1ssijxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140766/original/image-20161006-32727-1ssijxc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mount Taylor in New Mexico, a sacred site to the Zuni who believe it is a living being.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chip Colwell</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over millennia they migrated across the Southwest, with important medicine societies and clans living around Mount Taylor. After settling in their current pueblo homes, Zunis returned to this sacred mountain to hunt animals like deer and bear, harvest wild plants like acorns and cattails, and gather minerals used in sacrosanct rituals that keep the universe in order. Across the generations Dewankwin Kyaba:chu Yalanne has come to shape Zuni history, life, and identity no less than the Vatican has for Catholics.</p>
<p>But unlike holy places in the Western world, Zunis believe Mount Taylor is a living being. Zuni elders told me that the mountain was created within the Earth’s womb. As a mountain formed by volcanic activity, it has always grown and aged. The mountain can give life as people do. The mountain’s snow melts in spring and nourishes plants and wildlife for miles. Water is the mountain’s blood; buried minerals are the mountain’s meat. Because it lives, deep below is its beating heart. Zunis consider Mount Taylor to be their kin.</p>
<p>There is a stereotype that Native American peoples have a singular connection to nature. And yet in my experience, they do see the world in a fundamentally different way from most people I know. Whether it is mountains, rivers, rocks, animals, plants, stars or weather, they see the natural world as living and breathing, deeply relational, even at times all-knowing and transcendent.</p>
<p>In my work with Arizona’s Hopi tribe, I have traveled with cultural leaders to study sacred places. They often stop to listen to the wind, or search the sky for an eagle, or smile when it begins to rain, which they believe is a blessing the ancestors bestow upon them. </p>
<p>During one project with the Hopi tribe, we came across a rattlesnake coiled near an ancient fallen pueblo. “Long ago, one of them ancestors lived here and turned into a rattlesnake,” the elder Raleigh H. Puhuyaoma Sr. shared with me, pointing to the nearby archaeological site. “It’s now protecting the place.” The elders left an offering of corn meal to the snake. An elder later told me that it soon rained on his cornfield, a result from this spiritual exchange.</p>
<h2>Violent disputes</h2>
<p>Understanding these cultural worldviews matters greatly in discussions over protecting places in nature. The American West has a long history of battles over the control of land. We’ve seen this recently from the Bundy family’s <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/01/05/461997746/how-protests-turned-into-an-armed-takeover-of-a-wildlife-refuge-in-oregon">takeover of the federal wildlife refuge</a> in Oregon to the <a href="http://www.salon.com/2016/07/12/war_on_federal_parks_radicalized_republicans_try_prevent_turning_bears_ears_in_utah_into_a_national_monument/">current fight over turning Bears Ears</a> – 1.9 million acres of wilderness – into a national monument in Utah.</p>
<p>Yet often these battles are less about the struggle between private and public interests, and more about basic <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-nature-have-value-beyond-what-it-provides-humans-47825">questions of nature’s purpose</a>. Do wild places have intrinsic worth? Or is the land a mere tool for human uses? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140767/original/image-20161006-32734-tw46du.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140767/original/image-20161006-32734-tw46du.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140767/original/image-20161006-32734-tw46du.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140767/original/image-20161006-32734-tw46du.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140767/original/image-20161006-32734-tw46du.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140767/original/image-20161006-32734-tw46du.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140767/original/image-20161006-32734-tw46du.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Hopi elder making an offering to a snake to protect a sacred space.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chip Colwell</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Much of my research has involved documenting sacred places because they are being threatened by development projects on public land. The Zuni’s sacred Mount Taylor, much of it managed by the U.S. National Forest Service, has been extensively mined for uranium, and is <a href="https://www.hcn.org/issues/41.21/dueling-claims">the cause of violent disputes</a> over whether it should be developed or protected.</p>
<p>Even though the U.S. does not legally recognize natural places as people, some legal protections exist for sacred places. Under the National Historic Preservation Act, for example, the U.S. government must take into consideration the potential impacts of certain development projects on “traditional cultural properties.” </p>
<p>This and other federal heritage laws, however, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-native-american-pipeline-resistance-in-north-dakota-is-about-climate-justice-64714">provide tribes a small voice in the process</a>, little power, and rarely lead to preservation. More to the point, these laws reduce what tribes see as living places to “properties,” obscuring their inherent spiritual value.</p>
<p>In New Zealand, the Te Urewera Act offers a higher level of protection, empowering a board to be the land’s guardian. The Te Urewera Act, though, does not remove its connection to humans. With a permit, people can hunt, fish, farm and more. The public still has access to the forest. One section of the law even allows Te Urewera to be mined.</p>
<p>Te Urewera teaches us that acknowledging cultural views of places as living does not mean ending the relationship between humans and nature, but reordering it – recognizing nature’s intrinsic worth and respecting indigenous philosophies. </p>
<p>In the U.S. and elsewhere, I believe we can do better to align our legal system with the cultural expressions of the people it serves. For instance, the U.S. Congress could amend the NHPA or the American Indian Religious Freedom Act to acknowledge the deep cultural connection between tribes and natural places, and afford better protections for sacred landscapes like New Mexico’s Mount Taylor. </p>
<p>Until then, it says much about us when companies are considered people before nature is.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64947/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chip Colwell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An anthropologist argues for new ways to value sacred landscapes.Chip Colwell, Lecturer on Anthropology, University of Colorado DenverLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/640972016-08-25T09:53:15Z2016-08-25T09:53:15ZCorporate sponsors at Yosemite? The case against privatizing national parks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135433/original/image-20160824-30228-utiecb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Camping under the Milky Way, Canyonlands National Park, Utah.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/canyonlandsnps/21522072870/in/album-72157658673065869/">Emily Ogden, National Park Service/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The centennial of the National Park Service is inspiring an impressive amount of <a href="https://www.hcn.org/issues/48.14">soul-searching</a> about the agency and the lands for which it is responsible. This is timely and appropriate, as the NPS faces serious challenges that affect the preservation of these precious lands. </p>
<p>We both study the history of conservation efforts in the United States, and have also worked as rangers at national park sites in Utah, Arizona and California. Based on our experience with the park system, its stewards and its visitors, we caution against many major changes to the overall institutional structure of national park management. These proposals are neither persuasive nor popular, and they could cause unforeseen damage and loss of support for the system.</p>
<h2>Risky reforms</h2>
<p>Some observers have suggested significantly restructuring or even replacing NPS by privatizing the parks or transferring them to state control. Indeed, the <a href="https://www.gop.com/platform/americas-natural-resources/">Republican Party platform</a> calls on Congress to “immediately pass universal legislation providing for a timely and orderly mechanism requiring the federal government to convey certain federally controlled public lands to states.” It also calls for amending the Antiquities Act of 1906 to require congressional approval for designation of national monuments, such as the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine that President Obama <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/08/24/fact-sheet-president-obama-designates-national-monument-maines-north">designated just this week</a>, and would require approval from the home state for creating any new national parks or monuments.</p>
<p>Legislators in nearly a dozen states are already pressing for <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Environmental-Politics-Policy-West-Third/dp/1607324563">greater state control over public lands</a>. Such proposals may have helped to inspire the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-twisted-roots-of-u-s-land-policy-in-the-west-52740">takeover of a national wildlife refuge</a> in Oregon earlier this year. But while individuals have called for privatizing or transferring federal public lands to state control for many years, units of the national park system <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resources/this-land-is-whose-land.aspx">have usually been excluded</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135434/original/image-20160824-30228-w6i9lw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135434/original/image-20160824-30228-w6i9lw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135434/original/image-20160824-30228-w6i9lw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135434/original/image-20160824-30228-w6i9lw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135434/original/image-20160824-30228-w6i9lw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135434/original/image-20160824-30228-w6i9lw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135434/original/image-20160824-30228-w6i9lw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 1954 Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas led journalists on a 185-mile hike along Maryland’s historic C&O Canal to protest plans to turn the adjoining path into a highway. The canal and path became a national park in 1971.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalparkservice/5657197251/in/album-72157626582929504/">National Park Service/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Any such proposals involving national park lands should be cause for concern. The empirical record regarding state parks is illustrative. Most states have either cut their funding for state park systems substantially in recent years or required them to be <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/17580/summary">more self-sustaining</a>. This trend has <a href="http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2016/04/14/state-parks-find-new-ways-to-save-make-money">increased pressure on state park managers</a> to generate revenue. </p>
<p>State parks thus have added hotels, lodges, golf courses, ski resorts and various forms of commercial sponsorship. Now the National Park Service reportedly is considering <a href="http://lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/weird-news-blog/americas-national-parks-now-brought-corporate-sponsors/">selling corporate sponsorships</a> to raise money for unfunded maintenance projects. </p>
<h2>National parks are valuable public resources</h2>
<p>Critics often assume that national parks are too costly, and it is true that the United States spends <a href="https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/upload/FY-2016-Greenbook.pdf">about US$3 billion yearly</a> on the park system. But parks <a href="https://www.nps.gov/subjects/socialscience/vse.htm">generate more than five times that amount</a> in spending by visitors in communities within 60 miles of a park, and create hundred thousands of jobs.</p>
<p>In a recent study, scholars at the Harvard Kennedy School and Colorado State University calculated that Americans <a href="https://theconversation.com/americans-think-national-parks-are-worth-us-92-billion-but-we-dont-fund-them-accordingly-57617">value the national parks at $92 billion annually</a>. That figure represents what Americans would pay to preserve the parks intact, not an actual flow of dollars to the U.S. Treasury. Nonetheless, we can only wish that Americans thought all government expenditures were so worthwhile.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135435/original/image-20160824-30259-13i3lc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135435/original/image-20160824-30259-13i3lc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135435/original/image-20160824-30259-13i3lc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135435/original/image-20160824-30259-13i3lc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135435/original/image-20160824-30259-13i3lc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135435/original/image-20160824-30259-13i3lc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135435/original/image-20160824-30259-13i3lc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children meet a park ranger on a field trip to Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalparkservice/21461033062/in/album-72157658301470718/">National Park Service/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reasonable reforms</h2>
<p>We are not suggesting that the NPS is doing everything right. As we and many other analysts have <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/To_Conserve_Unimpaired.html?id=Rx-uo4Erq6EC">argued</a>, the national park system is contending with <a href="http://lawschool.unm.edu/nrj/volumes/56/index.php">significant challenges</a>, including deteriorating infrastructure and micromanagement from political authorities. </p>
<p>But many reforms are possible without privatizing parks or transferring them to state control. First, NPS could pay greater heed to lessons learned by state parks. The agency has often been somewhat insular and unreceptive to different ideas. State park managers, consistent with the tradition of innovation in a federal system, have tried various approaches to problems that could be useful at the national level. </p>
<p>As one example, California developed <a href="https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=25417">clear criteria for accepting corporate sponsorships</a> in response to serious budgetary shortfalls a few years ago. The National Park Service currently is considering a similar policy, and weighing California’s approach could help NPS address <a href="https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2016/05/19/a-look-at-the-brouhaha-on-donor-naming-rights-in-u-s-national-parks/">concerns from park supporters</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135436/original/image-20160824-30212-1pbhztu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135436/original/image-20160824-30212-1pbhztu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135436/original/image-20160824-30212-1pbhztu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135436/original/image-20160824-30212-1pbhztu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135436/original/image-20160824-30212-1pbhztu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135436/original/image-20160824-30212-1pbhztu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135436/original/image-20160824-30212-1pbhztu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Logo available to corporate supporters of California state parks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=24417">California Dept of Parks and Recreation</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, the current national park fee system is generous to a fault. For instance, any American age 62 or older can buy a Senior Eagle Pass that is valid for the rest of his or her life for a one-time fee of $10. With the park system facing a $12 billion backlog of unfunded maintenance projects, NPS should not be virtually giving away access, especially to people like us who would be more than willing to pay more for this lifetime pass. Large fees increases are controversial and unlikely to pass Congress, however. </p>
<p>In some ways the National Park Service is a captive of its own popularity and success. Many writers have <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Repairing-Paradise-Restoration-Americas-National/dp/0815722702/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1472061224&sr=1-3&keywords=national+parks+lowry">argued</a> that the NPS needs to focus on protecting park resources, and it has done so. Now the agency is also tackling new challenges, such as <a href="https://www.nps.gov/kids/index.cfm">bringing more young people to parks</a>, <a href="https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1244/index.htm">building a more diverse workforce</a> and ensuring that the park system <a href="https://www.nps.gov/subjects/tellingallamericansstories/index.htm">reflects the experiences of all Americans</a>. </p>
<p>These all are admirable goals, but they add to the core mission that Congress wrote for NPS in its <a href="https://www.nps.gov/grba/learn/management/organic-act-of-1916.htm">1916 charter law</a>: providing for the enjoyment of the parks while preserving park resources “unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”</p>
<p>Radical proposals for restructuring the NPS are not as popular as advocates may think. In a 2012 Hart Research survey, 88 percent of voters – including 81 percent of Republicans – stated that it was either quite or extremely important for the federal government to <a href="https://www.npca.org/resources/2566-poll-strong-bipartisan-support-for-national-parks">protect parks</a>. In 2013 another Hart poll of western voters – who might be expected to favor the idea of restructuring parks – found that 65 percent supported <a href="http://westernpriorities.org/2013/06/13/poll-of-westerners-on-drilling-on-public-lands-65-protection-30-drilling/">permanent protection</a> for wilderness, parks and open spaces. </p>
<p>And in 2014, when the Center for American Progress asked 1,600 voters in Rocky Mountain states whether public lands should be managed by the federal or state governments, <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/press/release/2013/06/17/66706/release-poll-shows-voters-want-public-lands-protected-campaign-launched-to-put-energy-and-conservation-on-equal-ground/">62 percent chose federal control and only 17 percent favored state control</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135437/original/image-20160824-30209-htruhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135437/original/image-20160824-30209-htruhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135437/original/image-20160824-30209-htruhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135437/original/image-20160824-30209-htruhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135437/original/image-20160824-30209-htruhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135437/original/image-20160824-30209-htruhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135437/original/image-20160824-30209-htruhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Photographing Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/yellowstonenps/24301818341/in/album-72157648796243414/">Jim Peaco, National Park Service/Flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As some commentators have <a href="http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/commentary/article/National-parks-trails-define-public-good-4783854.php">pointed out</a>, national parks fit the classic economic definition of a <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/public-good.asp">public good</a> – something from which no one is excluded, and that one person can consume without reducing its value to other people. Author Wallace Stegner put it more elegantly when he noted that without national parks <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Uws_hCokSW4C&pg=PA135&lpg=PA135&dq=wallace+stegner+millions+of+lives+would+have+been+poorer&source=bl&ots=LrVpN99pAp&sig=_dmjsn6F286gWQ_R_7JMf5lJjew&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjmnM_DldvOAhUISyYKHXmzDwwQ6AEINDAE#v=onepage&q=wallace%20stegner%20millions%20of%20lives%20would%20have%20been%20poorer&f=false">“millions of lives would have been poorer.”</a> </p>
<p>Fundamentally, the national parks belong to us all. As environmental historian Alfred Runte observes, they were inspired partly by pride and the desire to show that we had <a href="https://www.amazon.com/National-Parks-American-Experience-4th/dp/1589794753/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1472061944&sr=1-1&keywords=national+parks+the+american+experience">landscapes rivaling the cathedrals of Europe</a>. Today that system is the envy of the world, and cause for a different kind of national pride. It still celebrates those awe-inspiring landscapes, but it also tells the world a more complex story, from precolonial times to ongoing struggles for equality today. </p>
<p>As former NPS rangers, we’re proud to have participated in protecting what many observers call <a href="http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/">“America’s best idea</a>.” Privatizing the parks or turning them over to the states runs directly against the idea that they are for all Americans, forever.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64097/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Freemuth receives funding from USGS and BLM. He is the Executive Director of the Cecil Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Lowry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the National Park Service turns 100 years old, two conservation scholars and former park rangers respond to critics who support privatizing national parks or putting them under state control.John Freemuth, Professor of Public Policy and Senior Fellow Cecil Andrus Center for Public Policy, Boise State UniversityWilliam Lowry, Professor of Political Science, Washington University in St. LouisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/564542016-06-07T10:03:57Z2016-06-07T10:03:57ZHow the Antiquities Act has expanded the national park system and fueled struggles over land protection<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125399/original/image-20160606-13074-ljiigc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, built by Anasazi c. 1200. The Antiquities Act was passed to protect such sites from looters.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nps.gov/meve/learn/historyculture/cliff_dwellings_home.htm">National Park Service</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Americans anticipate summer vacation, many are planning trips to our nation’s iconic national parks, such as the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/grca/index.htm">Grand Canyon</a>, <a href="https://www.nps.gov/zion/index.htm">Zion</a>, <a href="https://www.nps.gov/acad/index.htm">Acadia</a> and <a href="https://www.nps.gov/olym/index.htm">Olympic</a>. But they may not realize that these and other parks exist because presidents used their power under the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/54/320301">Antiquities Act</a>, enacted on June 8, 1906, to protect those places from exploitation and development. </p>
<p>The Antiquities Act has saved many special places, but at times its use has angered nearby communities. Some critics argue that presidents have used the act to restrict natural resource development. Others simply do not like the fact that the president has such power – even though Congress gave it to presidents by passing the law. </p>
<p>As a seasonal park ranger at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in the 1970s, I hiked through areas that were first protected under the Antiquities Act. They include Zion and <a href="https://www.nps.gov/care/index.htm">Capitol Reef national parks</a>, <a href="https://www.nps.gov/nabr/index.htm">Natural Bridges National Monument</a> and the area that would become the <a href="http://www.blm.gov/ut/st/en/fo/grand_staircase-escalante.html">Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument</a>. Much of the scenic redrock <a href="http://geomaps.wr.usgs.gov/parks/province/coloplat.html">Colorado Plateau</a> region, which covers 140,000 square miles in the <a href="http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/road-trips/four-corners-southwest-road-trip/">Four Corners</a> region of the Southwest, has been protected from development under the Antiquities Act. </p>
<p>While the Antiquities Act has played a crucial role in the growth of our national park system, it has become a flashpoint for disputes from Alaska to Maine over protection and use of public lands. For that reason, it works best when it is not used arbitrarily or too often, and when the public understands and supports its use. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125403/original/image-20160606-13074-sa9fvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125403/original/image-20160606-13074-sa9fvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125403/original/image-20160606-13074-sa9fvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125403/original/image-20160606-13074-sa9fvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125403/original/image-20160606-13074-sa9fvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125403/original/image-20160606-13074-sa9fvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125403/original/image-20160606-13074-sa9fvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Bill Clinton signs a proclamation creating the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah 1996. Because the act was unpopular with Utah politicians, the signing ceremony was held at the Grand Canyon in Arizona.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://clinton3.nara.gov/CEQ/Record/091896quote.html">National Archives and Records Administration</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Looting and vandalism</h2>
<p>The Antiquities Act was passed to conserve the stunning archaeological treasures of the American Southwest. As settlers, prospectors, ranchers and explorers pushed into the region in the late 1800s, they discovered unique and spectacular sites left by <a href="http://www.blm.gov/co/st/en/fo/ahc/who_were_the_anasazi.html">Anasazi</a> – ancestral Pueblo people who lived in the area from about A.D. 700 to 1600. Examples included dwellings such as the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/meve/learn/historyculture/cd_cliff_palace.htm">Cliff Palace</a> and <a href="https://www.nps.gov/meve/learn/historyculture/cd_spruce_tree_house.htm">Spruce Tree House</a> at what would eventually become <a href="https://www.nps.gov/meve/index.htm">Mesa Verde National Park</a>. </p>
<p>These <a href="http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/Books/bid1649.htm">discoveries</a> led to pot hunting, looting and shipping of artifacts to institutions in the east and abroad. Scholars began to call for controls. J. Walter Fewkes, a prominent archaeologist, <a href="http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/1302">warned in 1896</a> that unless this plundering of ancient sites was curbed, “many of the most interesting monuments of the prehistoric peoples of our Southwest will be little more than mounds of debris at the bases of the cliffs.” </p>
<p>Congress passed the “Act for the Preservation of American Antiquities” on June 8, 1906. Its key provision states: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[T]he President of the United States is hereby authorized, in his discretion, to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments, and may reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>How fortuitous it was for the national park system that Theodore Roosevelt – who strongly believed in using his authority to conserve precious natural resources – was president in 1906. Over the next three years Roosevelt designated 18 national monuments, some of which Congress later elevated into national parks or national historical parks. They include Arizona’s <a href="https://www.nps.gov/pefo/index.htm">Petrified Forest National Park</a>, a landscape of fossilized trees and a “painted desert”; <a href="https://www.nps.gov/chcu/index.htm">Chaco Culture National Historic Park</a>, a stunning and complex Anasazi site in New Mexico; and <a href="https://www.nps.gov/pinn/index.htm">Pinnacles National Park</a>, a swath of rock spires and woodlands in California’s Central Coast Range. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125407/original/image-20160606-13091-6i42ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125407/original/image-20160606-13091-6i42ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125407/original/image-20160606-13091-6i42ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125407/original/image-20160606-13091-6i42ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125407/original/image-20160606-13091-6i42ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125407/original/image-20160606-13091-6i42ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125407/original/image-20160606-13091-6i42ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, the first national monument, designated by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/beth_day/3998001539/in/photolist-76hNz2-6EsSBx-bsUQ7n-aLPg62-3HLigd-4ZFq6v-cXKWB7-8KTyEU-a6pqH3-a6pfhd-987ZC9-6TQncA-a6pb1b-76BaKP-6MEHje-aLPkkR-a6mB3g-6TPZrd-55uYmd-8fy5C3-aLPAia-bn4Sc7-aLQ2pH-6UrJXS-aLP2MX-a6mvcn-a6pqgL-6XMQzM-a6mjZB-aLPYNr-6XMQLV-5cCGSW-6RrAMj-a6pmnj-4jTiyu-qfBKZZ-aLNZmx-fzfozi-a6p9Ru-8RvwUp-57LPBV-aLP9rX-5KobBR-puxQNz-a6miVT-cSTrFw-97pB8H-a6mtuZ-6Qibap-6TQ4V3">Beth Day/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Every U.S. president in the past century except for Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush has used his authority under the Antiquities Act to create new national monuments. Both Congress and the president can take this step, but in practice most monuments have been designated by presidents. (In contrast, only Congress can designate national parks.)</p>
<p>Both national monuments and national parks can be large in size. The original Grand Canyon National Monument, proclaimed by Theodore Roosevelt in 1909, covered more than 800,000 acres. Although the law explicitly says that monuments should be as small as possible consistent with conservation, courts have <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2003/oct/08/local/me-sbriefs8.4">upheld the creation of large monuments</a> if the proclamations justify protecting large areas. </p>
<h2>Power struggles</h2>
<p>Use of the Antiquities Act has fueled tensions between the federal government and states over land control – and not just in the Southwest region that the law was originally intended to protect. Communities have opposed creating new monuments for fear of losing revenues from livestock grazing, energy development, or other activities, although such uses have been allowed to continue at many national monuments. </p>
<p>In the 1930s Wyoming residents objected when John D. Rockefeller offered to donate land that he owned near Jackson Hole to enlarge the original Grand Teton National Park. When Rockefeller threatened to sell the property instead, President Franklin Roosevelt combined the land with 179,000 acres from Grand Teton National Forest to create a national monument in 1943, which later was added to the national park. Wyoming Republican Senator Edward Robertson <a href="http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/Books/bid1649.htm">called the step</a> a “foul, sneaking Pearl Harbor blow.” In 1950 Congress amended the Antiquities Act to require congressional approval for any future monuments designated in Wyoming.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125409/original/image-20160606-13067-f1imok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125409/original/image-20160606-13067-f1imok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125409/original/image-20160606-13067-f1imok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=646&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125409/original/image-20160606-13067-f1imok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=646&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125409/original/image-20160606-13067-f1imok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=646&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125409/original/image-20160606-13067-f1imok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125409/original/image-20160606-13067-f1imok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125409/original/image-20160606-13067-f1imok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">T-shirt protesting President Jimmy Carter’s designation of Gates of the Arctic National Monument in Alaska, 1978 (click for larger view).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nps.gov/gaar/learn/historyculture/creation-of-gates-of-the-arctic-national-park-and-preserve.htm">National Park Service</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The next controversy flared in 1978 when President Jimmy Carter, acting on advice from Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus, <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=30228">designated 17 national monuments</a> in Alaska totaling more than 50 million acres. Carter took this step after one of Alaska’s senators, Mike Gravel, <a href="https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/rothman/chap11a.htm">delayed action</a> and threatened to filibuster pending legislation to create national parks, national forests and wildlife refuges on these lands. </p>
<p>Alaskans <a href="http://www.adn.com/commentary/article/thirty-five-years-ago-carter-drew-wrath-many-alaskans/2013/12/01/">protested</a>, but in 1980 Congress passed compromise legislation that converted the lands to parks and refuges. Once again, Congress amended the Antiquities Act to require congressional approval for any future national monuments larger than 5,000 acres in Alaska. </p>
<p>In 1996 President Bill Clinton designated the <a href="http://www.blm.gov/ut/st/en/fo/grand_staircase-escalante.html">Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument</a> in Utah, a spectacular swath of redrock canyons and mesas in the Colorado Plateau. Clinton administration officials sought to protect the areas from proposed coal mining nearby. The Interior Department tried to soften local opposition by offering Utah access to coal resources elsewhere through land exchanges. But Clinton proclaimed the monument without much advance consultation with local communities, leaving some Utahans feeling <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/20/us/politics/20utah.html">blindsided and resentful</a> years later.</p>
<h2>Proceeding with caution</h2>
<p>The Antiquities Act is still a valuable tool. President Obama has used it to protect <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/13/us/obama-california-national-monument.html">several million acres</a> in Nevada, Texas and California. But future designations will succeed only if federal agencies consult widely in advance with local communities and politicians to confirm that support exists. </p>
<p>Invoking the Antiquities Act inevitably raises broader conflicts over preservation versus use of land and state versus federal land management. These issues are <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-twisted-roots-of-u-s-land-policy-in-the-west-52740">deeply rooted in Western states</a>, and have flared up in recent years, most recently in the standoff at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/malheur-occupation-is-over-but-the-war-for-americas-public-lands-rages-on-54943">Malheur National Wildlife Refuge</a>. </p>
<p>Sometimes these debates produce compromises. In Idaho, <a href="http://magicvalley.com/app/projects/BWC/BWC.html">pressure from conservationists</a> to create a national monument in the Boulder White Clouds Mountains spurred passage of a bill last year that created several <a href="http://simpson.house.gov/issues/issue/?IssueID=121113">wilderness areas</a> there. No new roads will be built in these zones, but existing grazing and most recreation activities will continue. </p>
<p>A similar controversy is generating heated debate in <a href="https://www.hcn.org/articles/bears-ears-monument-gets-closer-to-reality">Utah</a>, where conservationists and tribes are lobbying for the federal government to designate a scenic area called Bears Ears as a national monument. The region is <a href="http://www.bearsearscoalition.org/">sacred to Native Americans</a> and contains thousands of archaeological sites, many of which have been <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/3856162-155/op-ed-protect-bears-ears-before-the">looted and vandalized</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125410/original/image-20160606-13074-vldhkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125410/original/image-20160606-13074-vldhkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125410/original/image-20160606-13074-vldhkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125410/original/image-20160606-13074-vldhkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125410/original/image-20160606-13074-vldhkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125410/original/image-20160606-13074-vldhkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125410/original/image-20160606-13074-vldhkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bears Ears, Utah, has been proposed for national monument status by tribes and conservation advocates.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/brewbooks/5422149370/in/photolist-zxM6eM-9g8W6Y-9jDRH7-9jALaD-9jAKWv-9jDRad-9jALuH-9jALCp-9TfoZB">J. Brew/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Maine, businesswoman Roxanne Quimby has tried for more than a decade to donate land she owns to the federal government to <a href="http://katahdinwoods.org/about/">create a new national park and recreation area</a>. Opponents say this step would harm the timber industry and force federal authority on a region that prizes local control. Now the family is proposing to have the land designated as a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/proposed-national-park-is-a-multimillion-dollar-gift-wrapped-up-in-distrust/2016/05/22/0f036aa0-1d0b-11e6-b6e0-c53b7ef63b45_story.html">national monument</a>. Environmental advocates openly call this action <a href="http://www.nrcm.org/projects-hot-issues/woods-wildlife-and-wilderness/a-new-national-park-recreation-area-in-northern-maine/">a first step</a> toward creating a new national park.</p>
<p>Another use of the Antiquities Act bears watching: using it to conserve and spotlight sites that mark important moments in American history, such as the new <a href="https://www.hcn.org/issues/48.7/how-to-build-the-second-century-of-american-conservation">Cesar Chavez National Monument</a> in California. Perhaps using the act to celebrate our history and learn from our failures can increase support for it as an enabling instrument of American conservation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56454/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Freemuth is affiliated with the Cecil Andrus Center for Public Policy as Senior Fellow for Environment and Public Lands</span></em></p>The 1906 Antiquities Act gives presidents unilateral power to protect land as national monuments. The law has saved important places, but has also fueled intense conflicts over land control.John Freemuth, Professor of Public Policy and Senior Fellow Cecil Andrus Center for Public Policy, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/604602016-06-06T16:24:15Z2016-06-06T16:24:15ZPublic spaces are going private – and our cities will suffer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125373/original/image-20160606-13067-r5e1mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewmalone/15297005832/sizes/l">andrewmalone/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recently, San Francisco’s parks department tested a policy which allowed groups to pay to reserve areas of grass in Dolores Park. Although the authority <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/24/san-francisco-dolores-park-reservation-policy-retracted">hurriedly backtracked</a> after an outcry from local residents, this incident represents a <a href="http://www.annaminton.com/#!ground-control/n8aal">worrying global trend</a> towards the privatisation of public spaces. </p>
<p>Across the world, parks, plazas and promenades – which were once in the hands of public authorities – are coming under the control of private corporations. </p>
<p>In some cases, you won’t even notice the difference. For instance, the recently regenerated area around Kings Cross in London features one of the <a href="https://www.kingscross.co.uk/parks-open-spaces">largest open spaces in Europe</a>; it is publicly accessible, but ownership remains <a href="https://www.kingscross.co.uk/development">in private hands</a>. </p>
<p>In other cases, the consequences are more troubling. Earlier this year in Little Stoke, south Gloucestershire, the parish council became the first in the world to vote to <a href="http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Little-Stoke-parkrun-cancels-Saturday-s-event/story-29109957-detail/story.html">charge Parkrun</a> – a free running event that is organised in 12 countries – a fee to use its grounds. The run was subsequently cancelled. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, in London, an old adventure playground in Battersea Park has been replaced by an ordinary swings and slides park, and a new “Go Ape” tree-top adventure ground, which costs £18 for a small child to use.</p>
<p>What’s more, open spaces are increasingly being created within gated communities, where access is restricted to those who can pay to live there. An extreme example of this can be seen in the branded housing projects, which are providing most new open space in Istanbul – a city where only 1.5% of the land is dedicated to public, green spaces.</p>
<h2>Why privatise?</h2>
<p>Part of the explanation for this trend is that local authorities are increasingly using existing public spaces to raise funds, by charging for events or leasing their spaces to companies. In many cases, cash-strapped authorities are suffering from <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Place-Keeping-Open-Space-Management-in-Practice/Dempsey-Smith-Burton/p/book/9780415856683">public sector cuts</a>, and trying to improve or maintain their open spaces by entering into deals with private organisations. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125372/original/image-20160606-13080-dun2qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125372/original/image-20160606-13080-dun2qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125372/original/image-20160606-13080-dun2qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125372/original/image-20160606-13080-dun2qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125372/original/image-20160606-13080-dun2qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125372/original/image-20160606-13080-dun2qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125372/original/image-20160606-13080-dun2qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kings Cross makeover comes at a price.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/erase/10007369123/sizes/l">erase/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For instance, the UK government has introduced <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/business-improvement-districts">Business Improvement Districts</a>, where local businesses pay a levy to secure extra developments or services in their area. But these arrangements <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2006.00643.x/full">have been criticised</a> for prioritising commercial interests, rather than focusing on what will benefit the community. </p>
<p>Internationally, the public sector is under no obligation to provide public spaces, so in many cases, there’s no incentive for authorities to forgo opportunities to privatise them. What’s more, many local governments have realised that attractively designed and well-maintained spaces can help to attract investors and certain types of users (namely, people with spending power).</p>
<h2>Exploring the options</h2>
<p>Universities and public sector organisations around the North Sea are researching alternative approaches to privatisation, as part of a project called <a href="http://www.mp4-interreg.eu/">Making Places Profitable</a>. </p>
<p>The Municipality of Emmen, in the Netherlands, experimented with a radical approach, giving power to the local people. Citizens were given responsibility for the management of public spaces, while local community councils were given budgetary controls, as well as the chance to test a locally-managed maintenance standard. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125375/original/image-20160606-13061-6j8tt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125375/original/image-20160606-13061-6j8tt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125375/original/image-20160606-13061-6j8tt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125375/original/image-20160606-13061-6j8tt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125375/original/image-20160606-13061-6j8tt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125375/original/image-20160606-13061-6j8tt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125375/original/image-20160606-13061-6j8tt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Open up, Unilever HQ.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mariano-mantel/14325027964/sizes/l">miradortigre/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And in Hamburg, the publicly-owned waterfront regeneration company – HafenCity GmbH – required Unilever to open up the ground floor of its new world headquarters to the public, as a condition for planning permission. These experimental approaches are still few and far between, and their long-term impacts are not yet clear. </p>
<p>Yet it’s vital for cities to find ways to preserve, manage and create new public spaces. For one thing, the physical and mental health benefits of using green open spaces are becoming ever <a href="http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/10/9/4086/htm">more apparent to researchers</a>. But perhaps more importantly, public spaces are the essence of a city. They are physical manifestations of the public sphere; places where different voices in society can be heard, and where people from all walks of life can meet – free of charge.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60460/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Harry Smith receives funding from the British Council Newton Fund and ESRC. He has also received funding from the Interreg IVB North Sea Programme. </span></em></p>Open public spaces are good for mind and body – we shouldn’t have to pay to use them.Harry Smith, Associate Professor and Director of Planning and Real Estate, Heriot-Watt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/549432016-02-19T16:39:13Z2016-02-19T16:39:13ZMalheur occupation is over, but the war for America’s public lands rages on<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112011/original/image-20160218-1233-1bb21vm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Author Peter Walker meets with Robert 'LaVoy' Finicum at the occupied Malheur National Wildlife refuge on January 20.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Occupier Jason Patrick</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: University of Oregon geography professor Peter Walker has just returned from Harney County, Oregon, where armed occupiers took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. He spent several weeks attending community meetings and watching the events unfold, which he describes here.</em></p>
<p>On January 2, 2016, some 300 local citizens and outside militia members <a href="http://www.opb.org/news/series/burns-oregon-standoff-bundy-militia-news-updates/">marched in Harney County, Oregon</a>, to protest the resentencing for arson of local father-and-son ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond. </p>
<p>At stake was far more than the fate of the Hammonds. In the works was nothing less than an armed insurrection against virtually all federal ownership of land in the United States – and even against the very existence of the federal government as we know it. Had the almost surreally audacious plan succeeded, communities and economies across the American West, and the entire country, would have been changed profoundly.</p>
<p>As a researcher in the politics of public land, I went to Harney County to see what was going on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/peter.walker.31542">firsthand</a>. Having spent five weeks going back and forth between my home and the community, I’m convinced that the Malheur occupation was part of a much larger, well-funded and politically connected movement to transfer public lands to private owners. I’m also convinced it is not over, and we must expect to see more violent attempts to seize public land in the future.</p>
<h2>The spark</h2>
<p>Among the protesters in Harney County that early January day were a small number of anti-federal government activists who had been involved in the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/16/us/cliven-bundy-bail-hearing-oregon/">April 2014 armed standoff in Bunkerville, Nevada</a>, between rancher Cliven Bundy and the federal government over Bundy’s nonpayment of fees for grazing on federal land. </p>
<p>Bundy and his supporters had in effect declared war on the federal government by pointing guns at Bureau of Land Management (BLM) employees to resist the removal of his cattle from federal land. For almost two years it appeared Bundy had won (he was <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/02/nevada_rancher_cliven_bundy_de.html">arrested</a> on February 10 in Portland, Oregon, while on his way to support the Malheur occupation). </p>
<p>Taking inspiration from that perceived success, a small splinter group among the protesters hoped to launch a larger-scale rebellion. The group would later <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqL9NGRTGss">state openly</a> that they intended to make Harney County the first “constitutional” county in America – by which they meant a county where the federal government owns almost no land and has almost no direct authority. Simply put, the goal was to overthrow the federal government of the United States as we know it, through force of arms. </p>
<p>What happened next was reported extensively by journalists and social media to a national and international audience riveted by what at times seemed a bizarre spectacle. Roughly a dozen heavily armed men left the protest in the city of Burns (the seat of Harney County) and seized the then-closed headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. </p>
<h2>The case for rebellion</h2>
<p>The Malheur Refuge is an expanse of 187,757 acres designated in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt to protect an astonishing variety of birds, including sandhill cranes, sage grouse, snow geese, tundra swans, ducks, grebes, ibises, egrets and pelicans – to name a few. The refuge provides opportunities for bird watching, hunting and grazing for local ranchers’ cattle, and is a key source of tourist revenue for the local economy. It is a critically important place for millions of migratory birds to rest and feed on their journey along the Pacific Flyway.</p>
<p>With the arrival of armed men from Nevada, Arizona, Montana and Idaho (none of the leaders were local, or even from Oregon), the Malheur Refuge was given a profoundly different role. It became center stage for the latest act in the long-running <a href="https://kuecprd.ku.edu/%7Eupress/cgi-bin/978-0-7006-1895-8.html">Sagebrush Rebellion</a> — a sometimes violent <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-twisted-roots-of-u-s-land-policy-in-the-west-52740">political movement with roots in the 1970s and 1980s</a> that aims to transfer federal land to private ownership. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112014/original/image-20160218-1236-e5s5si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112014/original/image-20160218-1236-e5s5si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112014/original/image-20160218-1236-e5s5si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112014/original/image-20160218-1236-e5s5si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112014/original/image-20160218-1236-e5s5si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112014/original/image-20160218-1236-e5s5si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112014/original/image-20160218-1236-e5s5si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112014/original/image-20160218-1236-e5s5si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Occupiers Ammon and Ryan Bundy ask Harney County Ranchers whether they will ‘live free or be a slave?’ just before imploring Harney County ranchers to break their BLM grazing leases. Taken in Crane, Oregon, on January 18.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The core leaders of the group were veterans of the 2014 armed standoff in Bunkerville, Nevada, led by Cliven Bundy, including his sons Ammon and Ryan Bundy, Arizona rancher Robert “LaVoy” Finicum and Montana militant Ryan Payne. While the occupiers at first spoke of a desire to see the sentences of Dwight and Steven Hammond overturned, in time they declared a much broader <a href="http://www.pacificpatriotsnetwork.com/downloads/Proposed%20Resoulition%20of%20Peacful%20Occupation%20-%20Malheur%20National%20Wildlife%20Refuge.pdf">agenda</a> – one consistent with the goals of national right wing groups that seek the handover of federal land to private ownership. These groups also seek the “<a href="http://krisannehall.com/nullification-the-duty-and-right-of-the-states-pt-1/">nullification</a>” of federal authority broadly and the establishment of so-called “constitutional” sheriffs who <a href="http://www.politicalresearch.org/2013/11/22/profiles-on-the-right-constitutional-sheriffs-and-peace-officers-association/#sthash.gsHC3qo4.dpbs">claim authority to keep federal authorities out of their counties</a>. </p>
<p>While the press often reported on the groups’ stated goals of freeing the Hammonds and handing over land in the Malheur Refuge to private owners, the occupiers’ goals were in fact far more ambitious. </p>
<p>At a community meeting that I attended near the town of Crane, Oregon, on January 18, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, LaVoy Finicum and Ryan Payne presented their grand vision in no uncertain terms. In the audience were roughly 30 local ranchers. The Bundy group gave a lengthy presentation of their interpretation of the U.S. Constitution in which they claimed the federal government has essentially no authority beyond the powers specifically enumerated in the verbatim text of the Constitution, and that the federal government cannot own land outside Washington, D.C. except with the consent of the states. </p>
<p>Based on this interpretation, the Bundys, Finicum and Payne told local ranchers that they had no obligation to pay fees for grazing on federal land because, in their view, federal ownership of land is unconstitutional. The group implored the Harney County ranchers in the meeting to tear up their grazing leases.</p>
<p>Their goal, ultimately, was to wrest virtually all power from the federal government through armed action in the name of “We The People.” Arizona rancher LaVoy Finicum said that he and Cliven Bundy were the only ranchers to have faced off against the federal government by refusing to pay grazing fees and that they had succeeded by using their Second Amendment right to bear arms – arms that they had literally pointed directly at federal employees. </p>
<p>Harney County ranchers at the meeting complained that the occupiers were asking too much – for example, if ranchers tear up their grazing leases, then the value of their former grazing rights is subtracted from their net worth and they cannot borrow against it. And none welcomed an armed standoff with federal authorities. </p>
<p>Finicum responded that his group was there to defend the ranchers from federal authorities by force of arms. Finicum insisted that if only half a dozen ranchers in the room stood together, with armed protection by the Bundy militants, they could defeat the United States government and start a national movement that would spread like wildfire. Revealing his frustration at the reluctance of the assembled ranchers to join the revolution, Finicum practically begged, saying, “If not now, when? If not here, where? If not us, who?”</p>
<h2>Tearing up grazing leases</h2>
<p>Not a single rancher from Harney County or the state of Oregon was persuaded. On Saturday, January 23, the occupiers <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/ostandoff/2016/01/post_1.html">held a ceremony</a> at the Malheur Refuge that symbolically represented the fruits of their revolutionary labors: in front of TV cameras and newspaper and radio reporters, a single rancher, from 1,300 miles away in New Mexico, stood beside Ryan Bundy and <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ec4fbc27f67a429982b500c539fe9c20/armed-group-plans-event-renounce-federal-land-policy">pledged to break his BLM lease</a>. </p>
<p>The New Mexico rancher, Adrian Sewell, had a violent criminal past that included <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/01/post_1.html">assault with an ax</a>. Another eight ranchers made similar commitments – all in Utah, where the movement to privatize public land is <a href="http://www.capitalpress.com/Nation_World/Nation/20160211/federal-land-ownership-battle-heads-for-court">particularly strong</a>. The Bundy group claimed, without presenting any evidence, that other ranchers would soon make the pledge to tear up their grazing leases, igniting a national movement. Three days later, the Bundys and Payne were arrested and <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/01/bundys_in_custody_one_militant.html">Finicum was killed, according to reports, after resisting arrest by state police</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112012/original/image-20160218-1243-r4cm05.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112012/original/image-20160218-1243-r4cm05.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112012/original/image-20160218-1243-r4cm05.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112012/original/image-20160218-1243-r4cm05.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112012/original/image-20160218-1243-r4cm05.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112012/original/image-20160218-1243-r4cm05.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112012/original/image-20160218-1243-r4cm05.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112012/original/image-20160218-1243-r4cm05.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harney County rancher Scott Franklin, left, tells Ammon and Ryan Bundy that they are asking for too much and disputes their political theory that the federal government has no constitutional governing authority in western states. Taken in Crane, Oregon, on January 18.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Walker</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Harney County’s ranchers were not the only ones to reject the Bundy group’s radical anti-federal agenda. </p>
<p>It is important to understand that for virtually all Harney County residents, the rally in Burns on January 2 was about the sentencing of the Hammonds – not about opposing federal ownership of land and certainly not about turning over the Malheur Refuge to private ownership. </p>
<p>Dwight and Steven Hammond were not universally well-liked in the community, and there was little dispute that they had committed crimes. But Harney County is a very close-knit community that takes care of its own. For the community, the rally was about supporting neighbors in need and redressing what they considered to be the Hammonds’ inappropriate sentences; it was not about any <a href="http://koin.com/2016/01/02/anti-govt-protesters-expected-in-burns-saturday/">broader political agenda</a>. </p>
<p>Later, at a community meeting on January 19, when the Bundy group arrived unexpectedly (causing much tension), some community members looked Bundy straight in the eye and accused him of taking advantage of the community’s distress about the Hammonds’ sentences to push a different agenda. Quietly and <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/01/bundy_militia_leader_plotted_o.html">behind the scenes</a>, even militia leaders <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/armed-takeover-oregon_us_568abc3ce4b0b958f65c4fa8">advised</a> the Bundys against using the community’s anger over the Hammonds’ sentences to create an armed standoff similar to the one led by Cliven Bundy in Nevada two years earlier.</p>
<h2>Community opposition</h2>
<p>After the Bundys seized the Malheur Refuge, it quickly became clear why the Bundys might have been wise to heed the militia leaders’ advice against an armed occupation. </p>
<p>The overwhelming majority of Harney County citizens were clearly opposed to the occupation and angry that their peaceful rally for the Hammonds had been hijacked to launch a violent campaign in pursuit of a broader agenda. </p>
<p>Even community members generally sympathetic to the Bundys’ goals were incensed that outsiders from afar were now telling them how to run their county and what to do with local land. No one failed to note the hypocrisy that outsiders claiming to cherish local control were now telling the community what to do. One resident whom I spoke with estimated that 97 percent of the community opposed the Bundys’ methods and goals.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112007/original/image-20160218-21502-kla3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112007/original/image-20160218-21502-kla3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112007/original/image-20160218-21502-kla3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112007/original/image-20160218-21502-kla3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112007/original/image-20160218-21502-kla3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112007/original/image-20160218-21502-kla3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112007/original/image-20160218-21502-kla3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112007/original/image-20160218-21502-kla3ii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A billboard in Harney County during the Malheur Occupation reflected most locals’ unhappiness with the occupiers from outside the county.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Walker</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The community’s opposition became very clear at community meetings, where Harney County residents almost unanimously voted to request that the occupiers leave. At one community meeting, when almost the entire leadership of the Bundy group arrived unexpectedly, citizens of Harney County stood on their feet, pointed fingers at the Bundys and chanted “Go home! Go home! Go home!” </p>
<p>When asked about the opposition by the community, the occupiers claimed that the “majority” of local people supported them but provided no evidence to support the claim. All <a href="http://www.opb.org/news/series/burns-oregon-standoff-bundy-militia-news-updates/harney-county-residents-speak-out-on-occupation/">objective observers agreed</a>: from the beginning, the community strongly rejected the occupation. Over time, the mood escalated from indignation to intense anger that an outside group claiming to speak for the county was ignoring repeated requests to leave. The community posted a large billboard on the main highway that read, “We are Harney County. We have our own voice.”</p>
<h2>Start of something?</h2>
<p>In the end, the unwillingness of the community to rally to the Bundys’ side was probably the group’s undoing. Had the community come to the aid of the occupiers at the Malheur Refuge in large numbers, as the Bundys seemed to have been counting on, it would have been much more difficult for law enforcement to bring about a mostly peaceful end. </p>
<p>Many believe the conflagration and mass causalities that resulted a generation earlier when law enforcement moved against a <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/federal-agents-raid-the-branch-davidian-compound-in-waco-texas">religious sect in Waco, Texas</a>, had made federal authorities extremely wary of using potentially lethal force. Had the Bundys succeeded in bringing large numbers of local people into the occupation of the Malheur Refuge, they might well have blocked law enforcement and set off a national wave of similar occupations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112029/original/image-20160218-1236-1qh8u4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112029/original/image-20160218-1236-1qh8u4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112029/original/image-20160218-1236-1qh8u4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112029/original/image-20160218-1236-1qh8u4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112029/original/image-20160218-1236-1qh8u4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112029/original/image-20160218-1236-1qh8u4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112029/original/image-20160218-1236-1qh8u4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112029/original/image-20160218-1236-1qh8u4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">At a memorial for killed occupier LaVoy Finicum, there were many guns openly displayed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Walker</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, on February 11, after 41 days of armed occupation, all the occupiers had fled or were arrested, and one was killed in a confrontation with police. Not a day was shaved off the Hammonds’ sentences, and not an acre of federal land was privatized. The sheriff of Harney County is still the kind recognized by established law, not a so-called “constitutional” sheriff. And the Harney County judge and commissioners – whom the Bundys demanded be removed – are still in charge. By the measure of its own stated goals, the Bundy occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was a dismal failure.</p>
<p>There are no guarantees, however, that similar attacks on the federal government will not happen in the future. In fact there is every reason to believe they will. </p>
<p>The national movement to transfer federal land to private ownership (including groups with direct ties to the Bundy family) remains as active as ever, and appears to have access to <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/02/11/3748602/koch-brothers-funding-bundy-agenda/">enormous resources</a> from wealthy conservative supporters with interests in oil, gas and coal development. Militia groups are active, angry and eager for a win.</p>
<p>Those who value public lands – for economic, environmental, recreational and aesthetic values – owe a debt of gratitude to Harney County. A violent branch of the Sagebrush Rebellion came to town in Harney County, and the community told it to go away. </p>
<p>This would-be revolution proved that geography matters: the people of Harney County are not the people of Bunkerville, Nevada – and on the whole they are not interested in overthrowing the federal government. In fact, Harney County is a recognized national leader in <a href="http://www.fws.gov/endangered/map/ESA_success_stories/OR/OR_story4/index.html">collaborative efforts</a> between local land users, conservationists and federal natural resource agencies designed precisely to avoid unnecessary hardships to local communities that can set off conflicts.</p>
<p>But other communities in the American West may be more welcoming to radical action, and those who want to see public land handed over to private interests are certain to seek them out. The war for western lands goes on.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54943/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A geography professor reports from the front lines of the Malheur occupation. Despite strong local opposition to occupiers, he foresees more conflicts to come.Peter Walker, Professor of Geography, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.