Ask 'em, ask any one of them. Ask a Park Superintendent what his job and
the job of his staff is and he'll tell you "to protect this national
treasure". Be it a battlefield, a mountain, a historic site, or a
natural
phenomenon; the "national treasure" is the thing.
Ask a National Wildlife Refuge Manager the same thing and she'll tell you
"to protect 'this native ecosystem' or 'this wetland'".
Ask a National Forest Superintendent and they'll tell you "to protect
this
forest from encroachment" or "to protect the resources of this
'public trust'".
Ask a Bureau of Land Management the question and he/she will say "to
protect
these public lands from overgrazing and mining and to ration public
access".
Shakespeare may have thought the "play is the thing" but "the
thing" has
evolved in the most bizarre fashion here in the United States in the past
thirty years.
Whether it is the US Forest Service telling us on national TV that the
problem with forest fires is "all the people moving into rural
America" or
the National Park Service telling us that our roads, parking lots, and
access to Parks are their biggest problems or the US Fish and Wildlife
Service whining that only when more Federal funding and authority are given
them will they be able to begin controlling State fish and wildlife
agencies: the "thing" is the same. "It" is always
some non-human,
anti-Citizen, bureaucracy-driven goal that does not benefit society and
increases the cost and authority of central government in our lives.
National Wildlife Refuges were purchased or set aside for stated wildlife
management purposes. National Forests were likewise set aside or
purchased
for specific "multiple" uses in and around a managed forest setting.
Bureau
of Land Management lands have remained in the public domain to assure the
best management and use of those lands and their resources for the benefit
of local communities, States, and the nation. The National Parks were
set
aside and purchased to maintain certain features or sites for future
generations.
All of these lands were and could again be public lands where waterfowl are
raised and maintained and forests are managed and used and national
treasures are preserved and all manner of renewable and non-renewable
natural resources are used and managed WHILE providing the maximum amount of
uses to the maximum number of Citizens. Active management of the natural
resources of these public lands was intended to provide for ranchers and
loggers and hunters and campers and firewood cutters and fishermen and
trappers and shooters and hikers and picnickers and automobiles and horse
riders and mushroom pickers and all manner of taxpayers.
The past three decades have seen just the opposite increase. Wilderness
Areas, Roadless Areas, Closed Areas, Critical Habitats, Predator releases
and protection, timber sale reductions, grazing restrictions, Native
Ecosystem areas, Invasive Species-caused use restrictions, firewood cutting
restrictions, reduced game management (elk, grouse, woodcock, etc.),
low-fishing value native fisheries, restrictions on pets, increased permit
requirements, Forest Plans and Refuge Plans that de-emphasize human uses and
active management in deference to "natural" (i.e. no-management)
processes,
purposefully ignoring Congressional authorization purposes in favor of
bureaucratic agendas, and an abundance of "new" bureaucratic
mandates such
as "corridors". "wildlands", and "rewilding".
The real irony here is that as the Federal agencies close areas and shut
down uses they simultaneously request and get MORE money and people and land
each year. This increasing funding goes to closing public roads on
National
Parks and Forests. It goes to reduced grazing and farming for wildlife food
on Refuges and for more acreage closed to mining, energy development, and
public use. The money is used to keep oil from being removed under a
Refuge
in Alaska. The money goes to buy off State agencies that might otherwise
object to the Federal trend toward Federal government evolving like European
governments where the "State and local" governments are little more
than
central government appointees.
If these four Federal land managing agencies cannot be recalibrated to
answer the question about their job being that they protect the land and it's
resources for the benefit of the people of the United States, then those
lands should be auctioned off to States or private owners. The Park
"treasure" can be but an easement on a private deed or a condition
to a new
State or private owner (like The Nature Conservancy "saves" some
resource).
The wetland or habitat can likewise be a condition for some future deed to a
State or private owner. The forests could not be any more ill-managed by
a
private owner that wanted sustainable timber harvests or to sell
hunting/fishing rights. Grouse hunters and woodcock hunters could encourage
habitat for their species through groups that would really represent them.
While access to current public lands is restricted more each year and
admissions are charged more every year, in the long run land transfer to the
public or State sector would generate MORE hunting and MORE access AND it
would NOT be subject to the whims of the next Federal environmental crew of
radical political appointees that will just restrict more and more until
they shut it all down.
People thought it was a pipedream when Theodore Roosevelt started the
concepts of National Parks, National Wildlife Refuges, National Forests, and
western grazing lands. But he made it happen.
These lands have become tools for oppressors and radical agendas. They
are
no longer managed for US or our interests. They are weapons to be used
not
only against western ranchers and loggers but hunters, fishermen, and
trappers nationwide. For many reasons from reinvigorating State
governments
and putting the Constitution (not "the ecosystem") back "in
balance" to
making all our resources available for national needs and keeping hunting
and fishing a part of the American scene, Federal lands should either be
managed for all of US or returned to US. Paying more and more for less
and
less is a trademark of communism, not a Republic.
Jim Beers
16 October 2005
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