The Public Land Sellers Try Again:

[hillsidedigger]

This is an outrageously stupid proposal!



http://www.wilderness.org/NewsRoom/Release/20070205.cfm

[Bearfootfarm]

LOL! ONLY if you dont READ the details. What they are REALLY proposing is selling
0.14% of National Forest Land, with 50% of the money to be used to aquire NEW LAND, and improve access to what is already there. The other 50% of the money will go to States and Counties for schools and road improvements.

The sites for sale are "adminstrative sites" All the complaints about "selling off the forests" are a knee jerk reaction without taking the time to find out the details.

0.14% is hardly a "massive selloff"

[hillsidedigger]

300,000 acres is a large sale and the sites are not merely 'administrative sites'. There are a few truly small, isolated, of no signifigance sites that the USFS might well dispose of, but generally no one would desire to purchase those places at hardly any price.

A look at the properties proposed for sale, whether they be 20 acres, 200 acres or 2,000 acres reveals many if not most of them are a complete natural setting.

Also realize, this is not a money making venture for the administrative costs of conducting such a sale will negate the revenue so I really doubt any signifigant new acreage will be acquired with the proceeds.

If this administration desired to purchase additional national forest lands, they would use the Land and Water Conservation Fund for its intended purpose, which they do not.

I am not against a tydying up or consolidating of the national forest boundaries but this would better be done with additional purchases or land exchanges which have commonly been done.

For 100 years the trend has been to establish new protected areas and if the neocons in power have their way they intend for the next 100 years to yield a liquidation of protected areas. The current scheme is an attempt to 'get a foot into the door'/ 'to crack the sacred egg' and set the precedent for truly large scale looting of the public lands.

[fishhead]

It's just another attempt to privatize everything and leaving the "public" out of it. There's also the attitude that undeveloped land is waste land. Convert it to cash ASAP.

I'm glad that our past politicians understood the value of public lands.

[CGUARDSMAN]

Originally Posted by Bearfootfarm

LOL! ONLY if you dont READ the details. What they are REALLY proposing is selling
0.14% of National Forest Land, with 50% of the money to be used to aquire NEW LAND, and improve access to what is already there. The other 50% of the money will go to States and Counties for schools and road improvements.

The sites for sale are "adminstrative sites" All the complaints about "selling off the forests" are a knee jerk reaction without taking the time to find out the details.

0.14% is hardly a "massive selloff"

this is not entirely true last year some of the Mark Twain National Forest in SW MO was part of what was to be sold and it was primarily forest land not administrative land as you suggest.

[hillsidedigger]

If a look is taken at the list of proposed sale properties, it appears that numerous small insignifigant parcels are to be sold. (The sellers have cleverly and deviously described larger tracts as being several smaller, supposedly isolated tracts).

But in reality, many of these smaller tracts adjoin other small tracts that are also proposed for sale, so as in one case in the Nantahala National Forest near here, several different 20 to 100 acre tracts at one location totalling over a square mile are listed, a mountaintop in the Cowee Mountains no less, which I'm sure some developer buddy of some Republican would just love to pick up for a song.

This proposed sale stinks of corruption.

[Bearfootfarm]

There are maps that show the parcels. And the LAW states they are "limited to administrative sites"

And 300,000 acres out of 193 MILLION is still just 0.14%, no matter how big it sounds when stated by itself.

http://www.fs.fed.us/land/staff/rural_schools.shtml
http://www.geocommunicator.gov/NILS-...p.jsp?MAP=USFS

If there is any PROOF its going to the "developer buddies of some Republcan" Ill be happy to look at it . Otherwise Ill have to believe the FACTS that Ive found so far

[elkhound]

national forest lands are for the use of the public.it sgould only be added to no taken away from.they dont make land anymore and yes som developer will try and pick-up some of this land.it should never be sold for any reason....look at europe and all the people and someday it will be that crowded here....so all the land that stays in the national forest or blm system should so forever.i dont care f they chop the forest down or what ever but they must keep it all.it will grow back sooner or later.teddy roosevelt is rolling over in his grave.if teddy was alive he would jerk aknot in someones --- for even considering this.sorry teddy we got idiots in charge of the usfs instead of people with great vision for the future.

when he became president when whoever it was that got killed or died he was in n.y . and he ran the horses until they couldnt go anylonger.he ripped the latern off the side of carriage and continued on foot.now that is a MAN of value and stubborness.if he was in d.c. now he would turn those folks over his knee and give them a good whipping.what a bunch of guttless people we have in the system with no honor or backbone about doing the right thing.

a public thanks to teddy for a job well done.i have ran all over the national forest in the country from coast to coast.i am glad theree are wild palces left to still see and visit .places for the wild creatures to roam.elk dont do good on main street u.s.a. they have a hard time digesting the asphalt and dodgeing cars.

[hillsidedigger]

Then apparently, all most parcels of USFS lands are considered administrative sites, I suppose thats logical and it doesn't excuse anything.

I am very familiar with several national forests from the East to the West and have studied the proposed sale maps closely and almost all of the 300,000 acres are desirable to remain as public land.

If the current administration is allowed to get away with this scheme this year, you can bet they will try to 'privitize' an even larger percentage of the public land next year.

[fantasymaker]

I take it none of you protesting the sale live on private land?

[beowoulf90]

Do you believe in the Constitution or not?
The Federal Government isn't allowed to own land, except to house the Military, Offices etc.
The States are the ones that are allowed to own the land.

[hillsidedigger]

The legal precedent of a portion of the land being held in the public trust for perpetuity by the federal government was established, and rightfully so in my opinion, 135 years ago.

A large scale privitization of federal lands now would result over the long term in:

Lowered water and air quality, decreased timber supplies and vastly reduced biodiversity and wildlife habitat (not to mention reduced hunting and fishing opportunities).

[Bearfootfarm]

"A large scale privitization of federal lands now would result over the long term in:

Lowered water and air quality, decreased timber supplies and vastly reduced biodiversity and wildlife habitat (not to mention reduced hunting and fishing opportunities)."

While your statement may be true, 0.14% ( the amount of land proposed for sale) is NOT "large scale" Most of the areas shown are ALREADY outside the park boundaries.

And if portions of the monies from sale are used, as the law states, to IMPROVE ACCESS to exisiting park lands, then there will be MORE opportunites for hunting and fishing, not less

[hillsidedigger]

These lands are national forest lands, not park lands.

While the 300,000 acres of the proposed sale may seem trivial to some people, I say again this is just the beginning of a movement in this country for large-scale privitization. Its funny, they claim the 300,000 acres to be sold this year will generate $800 million. Last year the proposed sale of about twice as much national forest land was to generate about the same amount of money. That doesn't compute. I still say there will be virtually no revenue resulting from this sale if it happens due to the nature of administrative cost for such activities.

If they really desired to acquire other lands or access to lands, the Land and Water Conservation Fund could be used for its intended purpose, yet this administration had rather loot the LWCF to apply the money to the general treasury.