Privitizing the Columia Gorge

[Blue Belle]

I just wanted to give everyone a heads up to this thread:

Posted by: Me.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x477778

<SNIP>The US Forest Service is proposing to put 300,000 acres of what they call "disposable public lands" out to the highest bidder, including 730 acres in the Columbia River Gorge Natl Scenic Area. <...>

Properties on both sides of the Columbia Gorge are named on the potential sale list. These include lands in Corbett, above Sheppard's Dell and near Cascade Locks in Oregon. On the Washington side, land near Cape Horn, Wind Mountain and above the flooded Celilo Falls would be available to the highest bidder.

The Columbia Gorge is one of the crown jewels of the Pacific Northwest. (Even Reagan apparently recognized this, as it was in 1986 that the Gorge was named as the first Natl Scenic Areas.) And, bizarrely, even someone in THIS seems to recognize its worth:
Ironically, 's 2007 budget also calls for $1 million for further land acquisition in the Columbia River Gorge Natl Scenic Area.

This entire privatization scheme needs to be halted. It's not just the Columbia Gorge... it is hundreds of similarly valuable places. Just because land appears to be "fragmented" on a topo-map, it often isn't when you look at a satellite view. And even isolated land can serve as a core for new conservation efforts in the future.

This scheme is simply a way to set precedent for future budgets... if they can sell off chunks of the Gorge now, just imagine what they might sell next year, or in 10 years.

[roguevalley]

1. oh god. they are beyond the pale aren't they.

[0rganism]

2. There's only one way to beat this thing: buy the land

Yep, that's right, buy the land and turn it into a wildlife sanctuary. Everything else has failed.

The US Forest Service is specifically designed to serve forests to timber companies. To pretend otherwise is to ignore history. Conservationists have to play the game too, or sit on the sidelines and watch the whole thing go up in clearcuts and landslides.

[sandnsea]

3. We can't buy ALL the land

We either stop them now or all our parks and wildernesses will be at risk. We're fighting to save the dune along the river in Florence right now. Our own county tried to sell it out from under us. We either stand up for protecting these lands, and recognize that this is OUR country, or we'll be fighting over every single acre for eternity. When land is set aside, that should be it. We shouldn't keep passing the fight onto the next generation.

[0rganism]

4. Then someone else will

Our parks and wilderness have ALWAYS been at risk, now moreso than any previous time I can recall, but they have always been negotiable. The controversy over ANWR should have taught us that much by now. America is currently in the process of liquidating the public trust for private sector profits and "economic stimulus", as doing so is an integral part of the Norquist agenda, carried out by his willing servants in all branches of government, from the federal level right down to the counties and townships.

This is not something we can deal with long-term through legislation or court injunctions. Statutory environmental protections are always in play, from year to year. Even legal institutions like the ESA are going to fall to the buzzsaw before too long. The best we can hope for, governmentally speaking, is a sweep of the 2006 and 2008 elections. OK, let's suppose that happens, then what? Do we suppose that it will always be thus?

The only way we can "stop them now" is to buy back our birthright at wholesale prices. Granted, there's still the possibility that a local government would use eminent domain to strip them away and make way for condos and strip malls, but it's the best we can do in the current circumstances. We need the fabled "liberal elite" to set up trust funds which will acquire these lands and hold them in perpetuity, providing desirable local jobs through tourism and outdoor recreation. Otherwise, the wild lands will surely be turned into clearcuts and stripmines by careless corporatists who've already paid their money for policy influence.

We can stand up to protect our lands, but big money stands taller than we ever will. If big money says "exploit" then the land will be exploited, and we will find ourselves brushed aside in the name of progress. But back our position with heavy finances, suddenly it becomes feasible.

[sandnsea]

5. We who?

The land is already ours. There is no "we" that won't find a need to sell land at some future date. Some land trusts are already nothing more than conduits to trade off public lands for development as it is. Land that somebody fought to protect 40 years ago, and did some sort of deal to protect it, is now on the auction block anyway. The entire gorge isn't for sale, only 500 acres. So what about the next 500 acres, and the next and the next. It's ours and we need to change the mentality that disconnects US from the agencies that are designated to do our work.

[0rganism]

6. "We" the people who aren't looking to make a buck, apparently

> There is no "we" that won't find a need to sell land at some future date.

Tell you what. You find a solution that protects land from legislative insanity, present and future, that will never ever risk a selloff by unscrupulous trustees or a policy change by short sighted politicians, and get back to me.

> Some land trusts are already nothing more than conduits to trade off
> public lands for development as it is.

Then we need to find one that isn't. There's no other way, every other approach is closed to us.

> It's ours and we need to change the mentality that disconnects
> US from the agencies that are designated to do our work.

That's the problem right there -- not the disconnected mentality, but the notion that certain agencies were ever designated to work for anyone but the industrialists. The US Forest Service and the BLM are structured to respond to the desires of timber and mining interests. NOT mine, not ours, not the wildlife, not the future generations, not the biosphere at large. They work for the resource extraction industries, pure and simple, now more than ever. Disconnection is nothing less than accurate assessment of the situation, for us non-incorporated peons.

So we should reform the agencies in the interests of the general population? Well, good luck making that last; every critique you can apply to the trusts holds double for statutory policy changes.

> So what about the next 500 acres, and the next and the next.

Money talks, bullshit walks. Buy it or someone else will. It's just that simple. Yeah, it sucks that we've come to this point, but that's where we are. :shrug:

[sandnsea]

7. 106.6 million acres

And that's just Wilderness. There's 85 million acres of national parks, historic sites, seashores, recreation ares, etc. We can't buy 200 million acres of land and we shouldn't have to. It's OURS and we need to fight to make ironclad laws that make protection of that land the only mission of the National Park Service.

That doesn't even include Forest Service and BLM land, which is even more land that you propose we buy. It's unworkable. While you're trying to find a trust to buy parcels of land, they're off and gone on the next batch they want to destroy. Time for people to stand up for what our parents and grandparents spent their lives and tax dollars leaving to us, our inheritance, what we're supposed to leave to future generations.

[0rganism]

8. Look, if you have a better way to fight back, spit it out already

Original post:
'The US Forest Service is proposing to put 300,000 acres of what they call "disposable public lands" out to the highest bidder, including 730 acres in the Columbia River Gorge Natl Scenic Area.'

A trust might not be able to buy it all back, but maybe it can get those 730 acres. I don't see a political solution in the near future, but maybe I'm just blind.