Federal layoffs are throwing public lands into chaos. It’s not an excuse to sell them | Opinion
Ask your friends and neighbors what they did for fun this month or what their summer plans are, and they will likely tell you about some adventure on Idaho’s public lands. Ask your friends and neighbors who are ranchers and loggers how their week was, and they’ll likely tell you about moving livestock or thinning trees on public land.
Multiple-use public lands define our adventures, our economy and our way of life. Things we do over the weekend are what folks in other states, with little or no public land, would plan their whole summer vacation around.
We can all agree that federal agencies can improve the management of public lands. However, the firing, rehiring and upcoming reductions in force for the “boots-on-the-ground” workers who manage our public lands will only create even more problems and put our way of life at risk.
Public bathrooms will go uncleaned. Noxious weeds and invasive species will take over more areas. Critical work like clearing hazard trees along roadways and thinning hazardous fuels around homes will slow down or even stop. This summer Idahoans may well find campgrounds in disrepair, visitor center hours cut short and trails criss-crossed with deadfall.
As if all this isn’t bad enough, there are political opportunists in our midst who are ready to take advantage of the resulting dysfunction as an excuse to take over and sell off public lands.
Some politicians will say this deterioration proves that the BLM and Forest Service cannot manage these resources and that the state should seize these lands. But in Idaho, state lands are managed for maximum long-term returns for state beneficiaries — not for traditional multiple uses such as wildlife habitat, clean water or recreation.
Compared to our federally-administered public lands, we don’t have a say in how state lands are managed. If our public lands are taken over by the state, Idaho couldn’t afford to handle the hundreds of millions of dollars in annual fire fighting costs and would be forced to sell them off.
Selling off public land because of bureaucratic inefficiencies is like selling your truck because the air pressure is low in your tires.
You may also hear public lands described as being somehow unconstitutional, or as assets needed to pay off national debt or tackle our housing crisis; none of these arguments withstand scrutiny. To be clear: the Boise Foothills, Owyhees, Lower Salmon River, Camas National Wildlife Refuge, St. Anthony Sand Dunes, South Fork of the Snake and so many other amazing places belong to the American people. They are more than lines on a balance sheet. They are part of Idaho’s heritage and our children’s inheritance. Once privatized, these places are gone forever— no matter how long we’ve camped, hunted, fished or worked there.
Idahoans have already found success in public land management through collaboration. Whether through restoration groups, Rangeland Fire Protection Associations or other partnerships, the solution for inefficiencies is to keep public lands in public hands, invest in local collaborative efforts, and put our friends and neighbors back to work to improve these beloved landscapes.
The only way to save Idaho’s special way of life is to save the land that provides for it. Tell your elected officials what your public lands mean to you. Ask them to invest in solutions that improve the way we manage them, not to end their management altogether. Ask them to support Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke’s Public Lands in Public Hands Act and to oppose selling off public lands in the upcoming reconciliation process.
Finally, join us at 11 a.m. on March 22 at the Statehouse in Boise to rally for our public lands. This is our chance to show that we won’t stand by while our state’s greatest treasures are defunded, dismantled and put up for sale.
Our public lands give us so much. It’s time to stand up for them.