Public Lands Quotes

“...it is disquieting to feel that the conversion into a National Forest or Park always means the esthetic death of a piece of wild country.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

“DeVoto observed in the 1940s that no rancher in his right mind wanted ownership per se of the public lands. That would entail responsibility, stewardship, and worse, the payment of property taxes. What the rancher who is farsighted has always wanted, and what extractive industry wants in general, is private exploitation with costs paid by the public.”
― Christopher Ketcham, This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption are Ruining the American West

“One of the beautiful things about the US National Parks is that they created specifically for the enjoyment of all people -- in the beginning, now, and for the future.”
― Stefanie Payne, The National Parks Journal: Plan & Record Your Trips to the US National Parks

“Attack the value of public lands as a national birthright, reduce their worth in the public eye, diminish the institutions that protect the land, cut down their authority, bring them into disrepute, undermine public confidence, neuter enforcement, create a climate of uncertainty and disorder, demoralize the land managers--this is the long game now being played.”
― Christopher Ketcham, This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption are Ruining the American West

“Public lands seizure, conceived as a fell swoop of the sword, will likely never come to pass. The law bars it, precedent bars it, and the Supreme Court has spoken to this effect repeatedly. FLPMA, unless amended by Congress, establishes that the land shall remain in the hands of all citizens in perpetuity. I think the seizure will require more delicate schemes, slowly moving and imperceptibly violent. In Congress it starts with an amendment to an appropriations bill here and there. A rider or two or three to bills that otherwise must pass to maintain the budget. It’s easy to curtail the protection of seeming irrelevancies like grass, soil, water, air, and wildlife when the public is distracted with the question of whether the government will go on functioning.”
― Christopher Ketcham, This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption are Ruining the American West

“The acreage of our federal public lands is equivalent to the entire country of Germany seven times over. These lands provide space for hunting, fishing, and leisure activities; wildlife habitats; clean-water protection; sustainable industry; and much more. All for the public. It's about as profoundly American an idea as you can find: the democratization of land and resources and food and recreation and wildlife and scenery and space and solitude.”
― Mark Kenyon, That Wild Country: An Epic Journey through the Past, Present, and Future of America's Public Lands

“It was easy to see what Bundy and anti-public-land politicians really wanted: for public lands to be given to certain people. People who want land for their own gains--to mine it, graze it, drill it, or sell it--people who want to exploit it.”
― Mark Kenyon, That Wild Country: An Epic Journey through the Past, Present, and Future of America's Public Lands

“There are some wild places across our nation's public lands that physically move you, creating a tightening in the chest, a loss of breath, or a tingling along the spine.”
― Mark Kenyon, That Wild Country: An Epic Journey through the Past, Present, and Future of America's Public Lands

“Hitting off-the-beaten-trail landmarks, trail systems, and road routes can offer a taste of the uncommon and unfamiliar while minimizing the impact at heavily trafficked locations.”
― Stefanie Payne, The National Parks Journal: Plan & Record Your Trips to the US National Parks

“Our public lands are sold in ways that benefit neither the public nor the land.”
― Dillon Osleger, Trail Work: Restoring the Paths and Stories of America's Public Lands

“The word usufruct, both in its original Latin meaning and in the way Thomas Jefferson employed it in his writings, refers to a form of use that allows one to derive value from land without diminishing or damaging the resource itself. It implies that reserved lands belong to the living generation only insofar as they are cared for and passed on intact. Yet even by 1789, the year George Washington was elected president, this principle—meant to ensure that future generations inherit land of equal quality—was already regarded as a relic, an ideal abandoned a century earlier. Over the next hundred years, the concept—perhaps only truly honored before the onset of colonialism—was further eroded. For some, this abandonment was inadvertent; for others, it was deliberate. The result has been an ever-growing intergenerational debt, incurred to satisfy short term interests. And this debt continues to haunt efforts at genuine conservation and preservation, undermining any lasting vision for public lands as shared, enduring commons.”
― Dillon Osleger, Trail Work: Restoring the Paths and Stories of America's Public Lands

“The BLM today manages more than 8,000 miles of trail under a recreation budget 25 percent lower than 2006 levels, and with 20 percent fewer staff. Over the same time period, visitations to BLM lands--largely at national monuments--have increased 46 percent. The USFS, whose 168,000 miles of trail have seen a 17 percent increase in visitation since 2010, operates on a budget 23 percent lower than 2010, leaving 120,000 miles of trail in unmaintained condition and with 29 percent fewer staff to restore them. These statistics and cuts are merely part of a decades-long period of declining funding that is largely aimed at separating people from public lands.”
― Dillon Osleger, Trail Work: Restoring the Paths and Stories of America's Public Lands

“Public lands are struggling—not for lack of love, but for lack of reciprocity. In the collective imagination, recreation is benign. We do not consider hiking, biking, birdwatching, or skiing to be extractive in the same way as mining, timber harvest, or livestock grazing. And yet, we extract all the same--from scenery, solitude, opportunity, and access—without returning anything close to an equivalent investment. Unlike resource industries, recreation is rarely held accountable for the wear it places on public infrastructure or for the environmental footprint of its own growth.”
― Dillon Osleger, Trail Work: Restoring the Paths and Stories of America's Public Lands