America’s public lands are the backbone of our country. It’s a defining American attribute to have these lands, though owned by the federal government, to be for the people. In other countries non-private land is owned by the government but not for people to use as it is in the US. American culture and our economy are held up by the preservation of these lands. For all the environmental preaching that occurs in the media, it amounts to nothing if the public lands of the United States aren’t kept in their entirety.
Spending time in and being able to look upon untouched land increases the awareness people have for the impact humans have on our environment; increasing strides for conservation. Public lands keep us connected to how our earth once was. They encompass crucial watersheds and fish/wildlife habitats that preserve clean air and water, allowing animal species to thrive. Non-developed wilderness maintains carbon control, pushing back human caused climate change. Even land that has been used by lumber companies or mined for minerals have been held to high ecological safety standards because the land is owned by the federal government and therefore controlled by the people. Were the lands held privately there would be fewer standards the companies would have to comply with and more land and water would be contaminated by the logging and mining processes.
“…It struck me then, in the kind of epiphany that takes living in another country to appreciate, that the public land endowment of the United States is one of the greatest perks of this democracy. Rich or poor, every citizen of the United States of America has title to an area almost the size of Italy.”*
In recent years there have been eight attempts to try to sell off public lands into private hands or to individual states. The theory being that the money spent to maintain the lands by the federal government compared to what the land gives back is uneven. The opposite is true. In every single economic performance measure (income growth, property value, employment, etc), communities near public lands outperform those not near public lands. The amount of people that public lands attract to communities is staggering; new innovative businesses, educated workers, government outfits, and non-resident visitors all pour money into communities surrounding public lands. The outdoor recreation industry alone (businesses that cater to hunters, fishers, campers, hikers, etc.) generates more than $650 billion to the US economy every year and support upwards of 6 million jobs. The benefits of having public lands a part of the American economy, culture, and conscious are too important to sell off to the highest bidder.
*Timothy Egan, The Geography of Nope, The New York Times, The Opinion Pages (September 27, 2012).
Eco-Minded 