The Appraisal
What is access worth to the 70 percent of sportsmen and women who hunt and fish on public land?
By Greg McReynolds
The selfish interests are fighting to take our public lands, couching their arguments in the false premise of transferring our land to their states.
Much has been made of individual state’s inability to afford maintenance, fire fighting and preserve access to lands they might receive. That question is not even worth discussion. States have definitively shown that they will sell lands under their management. They have proven that they will limit access (Colorado) prevent camping (Wyoming, New Mexico) and lease state lands to exclusive hunting clubs (Idaho).
Arguing states’ ability to manage America’s public land is a mute point, because they won’t manage them. They will lease them for exclusive use and sell the choicest parcels to the highest bidders, just as they have done time and time again. Transfer equals sale.
The larger question to transfer proponents is, if you want our lands, what will you give us in return? What do you have to offer the 320 million hard working Americans and the ten generations of American tax-payers who proceeded us in exchange for the lands bought with American blood and sweat?
The national forests where we hunt and fish, where we camp, hike, graze cows and ride ATVs, they belong to inner city kids from Illinois and accountants from Minneapolis. These lands belong to all Americans and efforts to take them without payment is attempted theft of the highest magnitude.
What is access worth to the 70 percent of sportsmen and women who hunt and fish on public land?
If Utah wants the Ashley National Forest, what do I get in return for lost opportunity to hunt ptarmigan above tree line in the rocky, willow-lined draws of the high Uintas?
If Idaho wants the Caribou National Forest, what will they give my Alabama-dwelling nephew for the meadow where he shot his first ruffed grouse or for the freestone stream where he caught his first cutthroat trout?
Can you appraise the freedom to cross a wide landscape, unfettered by fences and “no trespassing” signs? How do put a value on camping under a night sky filled with stars? What is a fair price to watch raindrops falling on the southwest desert, kicking up puffs of dust and giving hope to the quail season ahead?
How much for a blue grouse flush from a stand of aspen on the first cool fall day? Put a price a bugling 6x6 bull or a pot of cowboy coffee under a rock overhang on a cold spring day in the Gila National Forest? What will you give for my son’s first fish, a gleaming trout held in a tiny hand beneath the ponderosa pines? What will my boys get in lieu of muddy faces and handfuls of stonefly nymphs on the no-name creek a few miles from our house?
What will the American tax-payers receive in exchange for the lands where they are currently free to hunt and fish and ride and hike and camp?
What will future generations get in exchange for their lost opportunity to enjoy the public lands that were gifted to us by those who came before?
Those seeking to transfer our American public lands to individual states as a stepping stone to sale cannot answer these questions. Instead, they run down the agencies we depend on to manage our lands. They cut Forest Service and Bureau of Lands Management budgets with one hand while pointing a finger at budget-related failures with the other. These are nothing but the tactics of shrewd negotiators hell-bent on profiting from America’s treasures at the expense of its citizenry.
You cannot put a price on the places that define our American heritage. You cannot replace our national forests with anything so elementary as money. You cannot take 200 years of conscious American effort to preserve and protect lands for the American people and throw it out the window for a pittance.
The National Wildlife Federation along with Trout Unlimited, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, TRCP and dozens of other hunting and fishing organizations have developed a pledge for public lands. If you hunt and fish, go sign the pledge. Then get your hunting and fishing buddies to sign. Most importantly, make sure you ask your elected representatives to sign the pledge and publicly oppose transfer or sale of the lands that belong to all of us.
As hunters and anglers — and more importantly as Americans — we must not allow our public lands heritage to be transferred and sold. We must demand that those we elect to represent us stand not for the selfish interests, but for our shared inheritance.
From the NWF Sportsmen team: We are working hard in these last days of the election to make sure our elected officials and candidates know that protecting public lands is a priority for hunters and anglers across the country. You can suggest this post by liking it below. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Sign up for our National Wildlife Federation Sportsmen Newsletter.
You can take the pledge to protect our public hands, and ask your candidates to do the same, at www.nwf.org/pledgeforpubliclands.
Greg McReynolds lives in Idaho, serves on the board of the Idaho Wildlife Federation, works for Trout Unlimited, and blogs at www.mouthfuloffeathers.com
