As another WTW'er who has never lived more than 140 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, I follow events and news pertaining to Gummint land in the West with a certain perspective and a great interest. Over the decades since the early 1970s I've observed:
- Consistent complaints from Western states about how Federal lands are managed and about the mere fact that the Federal Gummint owns X% of their state.
- Regular reference to legislation or other actions having the goal of "taking it back".
- Neither of the above ever gaining traction in Congress or generating much support/sympathy from non-Westerners.
- Substantial, material, and regular use of Executive Branch law to establish new controls on Federal lands, principally declarations related to NMs. Chief Executives from both parties tend to do this in their lame duck periods.
- Constant debate concerning mining, oil/gas development, and logging on Gummint lands.
As Bill humorously notes above, I firmly believe "we are our own worst enemies", but in a somewhat expanded sense than relates only to abusers of government lands. It appears to this Easterner that virtually any proposal to mine, drill, or cut timber from the Western public lands is met with a storm of activists' protests decrying the adverse impacts on the environment/wildlife habitat/water quality. While nobody, including this former mining geologist, wants a return to the bad old days of unmitigated damage caused by natural resource extraction activities, we seem to have lost the fact that to make an omlette, some eggs must be broken. The mere fact that most of us sleep at night in a heated or cooled structure, and don't go to bed hungry, requires some disturbance of the soils, forests, and waters. And we also seem to have lost the fact that, like it or not, the US Gummint stole the Western States from the Native Americans, the French, and the Spanish fair and square, and large portions of the population are best served by generation of income from those assets thus acquired.
With this in mind, when some folks see virulent protests against a mine or an oil well outside of, but in the "viewshed" of a National Park or NM, they see a pushing of the envelope and wonder just what the Gummint is supposed to do with valuable public resources if they can't be developed within certain areas or even within sight of certain areas. It's also almost amusingly ironic to see considerable acreage encouraged to be removed from the green energy equation by Congressional representatives of the very state which mandates generation of substantial portions of their enormous energy consumption requirements from renewable sources. Back here in the East, the Audubon Society led the charge to ban driving on beaches within the Cape Hatteras National Seashore (an NPS asset). The argument was that shorebird nesting sites and sea turtle nesting sites were disturbed by surf-fishermen's, surfer's, and beach-goer's vehicles. And they were absolutely correct about that. Missing from their talking points was the simple fact that over 99% of the East Coast beaches are off limits to motorized vehicles, have been for decades, and, correspondingly the very few miles accessible within the Cape Hatteras and Cape Lookout NS units are the sole access point for vehicle-borne beach users. The restrictions at Cape Hatteras which resulted from settlement of the lawsuit filed by the Audubons, et al, are severe, getting worse, and are now spreading to Cape Lookout. One result is that the Audubons, as fine of a conservation organization as there is, is seen regionally as "elitist bullies from California and New York" who have foisted their views as to how NC's beaches can be enjoyed upon everybody else.
All of this just to suggest that there are other ways by which we may be "loving our public lands to death". Large portions of the population see zealous opponents of development of public natural resources under any circumstances as obstructionists. Similarly, locking up lands such that only a very few have any opportunity to see, touch, and experience them is seen as elitist. I think they have some meat to their arguments, and we'd be collectively well-advised to consider how strict preservationists' positions are seen by others, since we ultimately need to be able to work with others for the greatest common good.
Foy
