BY STEVE PEDERY
When then-President Theodore Roosevelt safeguarded millions of acres of America’s forests, parks, wildlife refuges and other public lands more than a century ago, he did so based on a desire to preserve these treasures as a legacy for future generations. Roosevelt understood that without a strong system of national safeguards, local political and economic interests would clear-cut or strip-mine every last acre.
Unfortunately, as The Register-Guard’s Aug. 21 editorial (“A different tack on timber”) on privatizing Bureau of Land Management lands demonstrated, the pressures Teddy Roosevelt fought a century ago are alive and well today.
The editorial was in response to a proposal that has been floated by Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., Rep. Greg Walden R-Ore., and others to privatize, through long-term leases, up to 1 million acres of public lands in Western Oregon currently managed by the BLM. The rationale for this proposal is to provide funding for Western Oregon counties should Congress fail to extend, for a third time, payments from U.S. taxpayers.
While conservationists long have supported the county payments program and efforts to diversify the economies of logging-dependent communities, we must oppose strongly privatizing America’s public lands.
Those lands belong to all Americans and are not a private bank account to be liquidated to solve a Western Oregon political problem. Worse, doing so could open a Pandora’s box of copy-cat proposals around the country. In the current political climate, we could see parks, wildlife refuges, national monuments and other special places also put up on the privatization chopping block.
Already, some politicians want to expand the privatization trust concept far beyond Western Oregon. On a tour in Eastern Oregon last month, Walden proposed putting Forest Service lands into similar privatization trust arrangements. And in Idaho, a number of county commissioners and Idaho Gov. Butch Otter have floated their own idea to privatize Forest Service lands to generate money for local government budgets.
Proposals to privatize America’s public lands fail to recognize the many values our forests, wildlife refuges and parks provide.
BLM lands in Western Oregon, like other public lands around the nation, represent more than timber to be liquidated to raise money. They also represent clean drinking water, habitat for fish and wildlife, and outstanding opportunities for Oregon families to enjoy activities such as hiking, hunting, fishing, and camping. Countless Oregon businesses, from whitewater rafting guides to outdoor equipment manufacturers, also benefit from public lands.
Backers of the trust concept claim that the formerly public lands would be responsibly managed. Unfortunately, their arguments don’t hold water.
These lands likely would end up in the hands of private timber management operations, who would need to raise enormous amounts of money to finance their acquisition. That money would come from Wall Street fat cats, who would expect a quick return on their investment. If such a scheme went through, the result would be hundreds of thousands of acres of public land in Western Oregon clear-cut within five to 10 years.
And that is a very big “if.” With the collapse of the housing bubble, demand for timber in the United States is at an all-time low.
It seems highly unlikely that a plan to privatize public lands by selling or leasing them to logging interests is really going to generate the kind of money needed to solve the county payments problem.
In reality, these proposals don’t represent “a different tack on timber.” They represent the same wishful thinking that got counties into the financial mess they face today.
Finding a real solution to the county payments problem is a serious political challenge. It will require Congress to step up with a final funding package that recognizes commitments made to Western Oregon counties, but also mandate reforms to reduce their dependence on federal taxpayers. It will require the state of Oregon, local governments and county residents to institute and follow those reforms.
And it also should require the federal government to take a serious look at whether the BLM should be managing these lands; taxpayers could save millions by transferring management to the Forest Service.
Solving the county payments problem won’t be easy, just as it was not easy for Teddy Roosevelt to take on logging and mining interests in the early 1900s. But we owe it to future generations to solve our fiscal problems without liquidating their natural heritage.
Steve Pedery is conservation director for Oregon Wild.
