U.S. Forest Service land at Lake Tahoe is threatened by a bill circulating in the U.S. Senate. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
In the last couple of days I fired off more emails to my two U.S. senators and representative in the House.
Fortunately, they make it easy to do so via their respective websites.
My issue this time is the threat of selling off public lands—land owned by the people and managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.
This has been reported in major news sites. It’s alarming. It’s scary. It’s unconscionable.
In places like the Lake Tahoe where at times it already feels like paradise has been paved over, it will only get worse.
Yes, housing is a problem, but selling off pristine land is not the solution. The one good thing is wilderness areas would be exempt, as well as national monuments, and wild and scenic river corridors.
Land for sale would include parts of the Lake Tahoe Basin, acreage near Yosemite and in the Trinity Alps.
The Senate’s version of the bill calls for mandating the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management sell between 0.5 and 0.75 percent of their 438 million acres of land. This equates to about 3 million acres.
Most of the land is in the West, with California, Nevada, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming to be hit the hardest.
Write your representatives to stop this nonsense. Our public lands should not be for sale.
Thank you for highlighting ” The one good thing is wilderness areas would be exempt, as well as national monuments, and wild and scenic river corridors.”
The targeted lands need to be more thoroughly discussed and not just lumped in to one Bill.
I sure hope these emails help this situation! I think the U.S. representatives should all take a camping trip to those public lands – lands owned by us, the people, the taxpayers and managed by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.
It was the naturalist John Muir who took President Roosevelt on a three day camping trip in the wilderness back in the 1900’s. They worked hard to advocate for the future of conservation and expand federal protections. Why is the wilderness preservation, national park conservation and federal protection of the forests for our future generations currently not worthwhile!
The current U.S. government has no boundaries.