[HN Gopher] Can we protect land for nature and carbon by simply ...
___________________________________________________________________
Can we protect land for nature and carbon by simply buying it up?
Author : mooreds
Score : 138 points
Date : 2022-07-21 13:32 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (whoownsengland.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (whoownsengland.org)
| lbriner wrote:
| This is one issue like others where we have gone wrong a long
| time ago and don't have an easy way back. I think Scotland got it
| right when they passed a law that required a landowner to sell to
| a not-for-profit at the market rate if they were selling and they
| couldn't be outbid by a private buyer.
|
| I would be interested to know the proportion of non-wilded land
| and how much is private farming land, national parks, private
| estates etc. and realistically how much of each would need
| turning back to nature to make it worthwhile. I don't think that
| buying from farmers is impossible, there must be plenty who would
| happily sell for market rate + 25% or something, something that
| could easily be done by a combination of crowd-funding and
| government grants.
| radford-neal wrote:
| "...a law that required a landowner to sell to a not-for-profit
| at the market rate if they were selling and they couldn't be
| outbid by a private buyer"
|
| Why would a law be required for this? Wouldn't the landowner
| just naturally be willing to sell to the not-for-profit entity
| if they were willing to pay as much or more than someone else?
|
| I have to suspect that this is really about forcing the
| landowner to sell at _less_ than market rate, with some sort of
| camouflage to conceal that that 's what's happening.
| obowersa wrote:
| TL;DR: Sometimes!
|
| So its a little more complex and a little bit more nuanced.
|
| The mechanism is part of the land reform policy and called
| the 'Community Right To Buy'.
|
| Ahead of time, a community body (which has a legal
| definition) can register an interest in buying qualifying
| land. All of these notes of interest are available from the
| registers of scotland and has to be renewed regularly/etc.
|
| At the point that a landowner indicates to the land register
| that a piece of land is to be transferred (which could be due
| to public sale, or a private sale or direct transfer), the
| bodies with notes of interest are notified.
|
| This then kicks off a whole process, including an independent
| market price evaluation, reviewing of land
| development/business plans and if that all goes through,
| final ministerial approval.
|
| It can lead to land being sold at less than the offers over
| price (scotland has a weird way of doing land/property
| sales), or for more, depending on if the land transfer was a
| public sale or a private shift around.
|
| Its not a perfect system and has a lot of flaws, but its
| worth being aware of the implementation.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| So if I want to give land to a friend, I can be forced to
| sell it if one of these groups have shown interest? That
| sounds very strange
| obowersa wrote:
| At a high level, yes.
|
| However there are a lot of checks and balances to it. Not
| all land falls under the criteria and there's a lot of
| requirements around forming a group and the proposed use
| of the land ( such as being geographically local /etc ).
|
| When I last looked into it, I think there'd only been 2
| occurrences of the right to buy happening over a 4 year
| period.
|
| Which does raise the question on 'Does the act achieve
| the goals it was setout to achieve' or is it mainly
| political posturing.
|
| That's not something I can really comment on (nor would I
| want to).
| rlpb wrote:
| If it's not possible to sell to a private buyer, how is it
| possible to determine a "market rate"? There would be no
| market.
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| In the US, almost certainly, you would probably get a few bad
| actors though coming in and using the land thinking it was a free
| for all.
|
| Can't see it happening in places like Holland or Japan where
| every inch of land is worked relentlessly. In fact in Holland
| someone would probably complain.
| michaelt wrote:
| Eh, densely populated countries have some of the most
| enthusiastic protection of public parks, woodlands, and so on.
|
| For example, when a disused airport in Berlin was converted
| into a public park then there was a plan to build apartments on
| parts of it, Berlin's voters passed a referendum blocking
| development of any kind. [1]
|
| The major downside to buying up land in countries like Britain
| and Germany is you can get much more land for the same money in
| less developed countries (although of course there have been
| 'buy an acre of rainforest' companies in the past that have
| just pocketed the money, so buying land in distant countries
| isn't an ideal solution).
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Tempelhof_Airport#Publi...
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| Yeah, I was there in Berlin when all that ruckus started, and
| had kept bubbling up again and again every few years.
| Templehof is held in too much regard by Berliners to be
| auctioned off by lot, but that doesn't stop real estate
| developers from trying. I hope they never succeed.
|
| But it's not a wild area, and it's probably as well looked
| after as most folks front lawns. What I can't see is places
| like Templehof being just closed off from any kind of access
| to allow re-wilding. Sort of like Pripyat after Chernobyl
| blew. It'd be cool, but I just can't see people keeping out
| and letting nature take over.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| The Peconic Land Trust is one of the biggest conservation land
| trusts in the US, they're doing something similar.
|
| https://peconiclandtrust.org/about-us
| citboin wrote:
| Can we create a nonprofit to do this for the Amazon rainforest?
| adammarples wrote:
| I remember a documentary about a guy who did this, but came
| back next year to find they'd logged it anyway. Turns out you
| have to actualy enforce the law or it'll get broken! In the end
| he paid the guy who was logging his land to guard it anyway,
| the guy was dirt poor and just looking out for his family.
| hedora wrote:
| The current leader of Brazil is known as the Trump of South
| America. He's actively encouraging illegal logging in the
| rainforest, and the rate at which the Amazon is being clear
| cut is accelerating rapidly.
|
| If ever there was a good case for the use of pre-emptive
| military force, it's this clown; his actions are directly
| destabilizing the world economy and will lead to trillions of
| dollars of damage / countless lives lost.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| The big problem, at least in the US, is that we don't build
| things anymore. The homeless camp 2 blocks from me is one glaring
| proof.
|
| The lack of power generation, power transmission, and pretty much
| any infrastructure you can think of is another.
|
| I agree that there is some conflict of interest between humans
| and untouched nature, and I am firmly on the side of us,
| humanity!
|
| What side are you on?
| carapace wrote:
| We do build things. I'm in SF where we have recently replaced
| the Bay Bridge, dug a big ol' tunnel, put up skyscrapers and
| luxury condos, etc.
|
| What we don't do is build housing. (A lot of people blame
| NIMBYism for that but the situation is complex.)
|
| > The lack of power generation, power transmission, and pretty
| much any infrastructure you can think of is another.
|
| A friend of mine drives a Tesla, he says charging stations are
| cropping up all over. 5G is rolling out. There is a lot of
| aging infrastructure that needs to be repaired, rebuilt, or
| retired, but we're not quite Mad Max yet.
|
| > I agree that there is some conflict of interest between
| humans and untouched nature, and I am firmly on the side of us,
| humanity!
|
| I don't agree with that framing.
|
| First of all, tactically, you're siding with the underdog! :)
|
| Nature could literally wipe us out in the blink of an eye. A
| single hurricane can devastate a whole city in a few hours,
| Godzilla-style.
|
| However, that's not the real reason why I don't think there's a
| real conflict of interest.
|
| The reason is that untouched nature is the only baseline (in
| the entire known universe) for _sanity_. We _need_ nature.
|
| As we enter a computer-mediated "metaverse" or cyberspace, and
| especially as we allow our infants and children to grow up in
| it, _untouched nature_ will become exponentially more important
| as (literal!) grounding for humanity.
|
| That's why something like E. O. Wilson's Half Earth proposal is
| so important ( https://www.half-earthproject.org/ )
|
| We only have one biosphere in the entire universe, of course we
| should try to preserve it intact and in working order! After
| all we have the rest of the solar system to do human stuff, eh?
| BurningFrog wrote:
| You're probably giving a more thoughtful answer than my rant
| deserved :)
|
| What I was trying to express was said better by Marc
| Andreessen "It's Time to Build" manifesto. Read that instead:
| https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/
|
| The Bay Bridge only got built because the old one proved
| seismically unsafe, and that took 24 years, with a 2500% cost
| overrun, according to Wikipedia. No other bridges will be
| build in the SF bay, despite huge needs.
| [deleted]
| dougmwne wrote:
| Yes, but it's a bad approach.
|
| Source: I have worked in environmental policy. See The Nature
| Conservancy, a large nonprofit that does this.
|
| But it is an inefficient use of funds. The US government has
| massive land holdings and the biggest budgets in the world. For a
| paltry amount, you can lobby them and convince them to use their
| resources for environmental protection, not yours. Basically the
| entire US environmental protection community takes this approach
| with just a few outliers like TNC.
| hedora wrote:
| I've often wondered if it is possible for environmental groups
| to buy oil drilling rights at auction (to prevent oil companies
| from buying the wells).
|
| At the very least, it would run up the cost of the mineral
| rights, making the resulting oil/coal more expensive. In the
| best case, it would prevent drilling/mining.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I am pretty sure that's not possible, as the government won't
| sell the rights to just anyone, you need to qualify to
| participate. Making the government look foolish is not
| appreciated and the goal is to incentivize energy production,
| not enable trolls and political opponents. Besides, the
| rights are expensive and it is comparatively cheap to find
| some endangered corals or tie the whole thing up in court.
| The extractive industries have way more money than the
| greens, so best to skip the bidding war.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| In Colorado, those rights are detached from land ownership. A
| state commission chooses lease parameters and, with some
| local consequence, those leases fund rural schools. A better
| system might:
|
| - Fund schools in a different way - Permit mineral rights to
| be owned just like private land - Require an insurance policy
| for exploration in the event it destroys a well or other
| water source
| hgomersall wrote:
| Land ownership as a concept sits uneasily with me. Much of the
| land is owned by people who are descendents of Henry VIII's
| cronies after it was taken from the monasteries. More is owned by
| descendents of those that got wealthy through the slave trade.
|
| Given that land is essentially finite, my view is that the
| closest thing to ownership should be a form of stewardship with
| certain rights.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Been a long time since ya'll had a populist revolution.
| nibbleshifter wrote:
| Short answer: yes.
|
| Long answer: you need to put in a bit more work than "just"
| buying it up.
|
| In the UK, Ireland, and other countries with out of control
| deer/grazer populations and no large natural predators, this
| means enclosing the land with deer fencing (allows smaller
| animals to pass, but not large grazers) and probably doing some
| initial remedial work (scattering seeds of native species,
| planting a few native trees, etc) to kind of "get things going".
|
| Usually after 5-6 years you can just let nature take over and go
| with traditional "ignore it" rewilding, once some kind of life is
| established. After maybe 10 years you can consider removing the
| fence.
| lwswl wrote:
| this is wrong
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Absolutely!
|
| https://www.landtrustalliance.org/what-you-can-do/conserve-y...
| shadowgovt wrote:
| There's one aspect of this that the article doesn't note, which
| is enforcement.
|
| On a small scale, this sort of thing can work (modulo the
| criticisms the post highlights). On massive scales... It's not
| just the cost of land, it's the cost of paying people to patrol
| that land to prevent poaching.
| zekrioca wrote:
| Exactly, I was going to mention this. Sometimes in large areas,
| like the Amazon, it is extremely difficult to monitor and
| secure these lands. Regardless if you have satellites and
| everything watching it. It is even more complex to safely reach
| the areas to stop someone from doing unlawful things.
| theptip wrote:
| Another option for the UK would be to abolish or substantially
| reduce the monarchy, and include a one-off wealth tax on the
| aristocracy.
|
| A huge swathe of the land in the UK is owned by the crown and
| individual royals, with ownership lineage being extremely dubious
| if you don't accept the concept that the monarchy has a God-
| granted right to dominion over the people.
|
| Taking the crown estate back into the trust of the people would
| be a good start.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finances_of_the_British_royal_...
| photochemsyn wrote:
| You can protect land for habitat, and you can preserve existing
| stores of carbon, but any notions about nature being a carbon
| sink capable of offsetting fossil fuel use are best discarded.
| Take a look at UK energy consumption (it's mainly gas and oil
| these days, with most coal phased out):
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_Kingdom#/...
|
| The only carbon solution is figuring out how to not need fossil
| fuels for energy, because there's absolutely no way biological
| photosynthesis can make more than a tiny dent in that figure.
|
| I'd also look at Canada's abject failure on the 'natural carbon
| sink' front. Their idea was that Canada's pine forests would
| somehow serve as an offset for Alberta tar sands fossil carbon
| emissions (among the highest in the world, as they use gas to
| melt the tar to process it into syncrude for refineries). Climate
| change however increased temperatures, leading to pine beetle
| outbreaks and fires, and those forests became net atmospheric
| carbon sources, not sinks:
|
| https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/beetles-t...
| dogcomplex wrote:
| While I agree that natural forests are unlikely to make a
| significant dent in CO2 through biological photosynthesis, that
| is not necessarily true for all plants. Kelp and Bamboo farming
| can do quite a lot more than the average tree with their
| extremely high growth rates. Just need to figure out what to do
| with the resulting product. Source: I'm in a working group
| looking at circular economies with net CO2 loss per cycle,
| using kelp for fuel and plastic production, scalable to
| Gigatonne levels.
| mellavora wrote:
| > Take a look at UK energy consumption
|
| I think you are missing the big picture.
|
| Look at all of the oil/gas pumped out of the Earth by the UK
| (North Sea). Guess what, most of it gets burned.
|
| Measured this way, UK contribution to carbon is even larger
| than the very nice source you provide.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| It's true that not burning fossil fuels is the simplest and
| best place to start, but land use changes can add up, so
| shouldn't be totally neglected.
|
| https://www.wri.org/insights/7-things-know-about-ipccs-speci...
|
| Methane released from destroying Peatland for example.
| [deleted]
| midislack wrote:
| This is a great scheme to make sure we drive the peasant class
| into their pods in their walkable cities. The only thing that
| remains is to buy up and destroy all ranch lands and meat
| production infrastructure, so these pathetic, scum sucking
| peasants are forced to eat the bugs. Until they commit suicide,
| assisted or no.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| > a million acres of peat is owned by just 124 individuals and
| organisations
|
| Probably even more concentrated, since multiple organizations are
| likely to be controlled by the same individual(s).
| derwiki wrote:
| James Hetfield of Metallica was doing something like this in
| Marin:
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/metallica-james-he...
| nightshift1 wrote:
| According to the article, he gave the land to preserve it for
| agricultural use after failing to build houses on it.
|
| I guess it's better than nothing but I dont think we should
| label this as "Preserved Land".
| 0000011111 wrote:
| In the US we struggle to protect the land that is already owned
| by state and federal agencies.
|
| For example, each year we spend billions on fire suppression on
| public land. And most year more acres burn and the cost
| increases.
|
| https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/statistics
|
| 5,510,675 Acres Year-to-date Acres Burned
|
| FY 2021 suppression cost $4,389,000,000
|
| Conservation his hard especially in a landscape where we fail to
| manage fire effectively.
| Mtinie wrote:
| While I agree with your assessment given the available data you
| shared, I have to wonder if we really have to spend that much?
|
| From what I understand it's hard to separate how much of that
| spend is effective vs. how much of it is "bad money" tied up in
| modern forestry cargo cult practices carried over from the last
| 100 year.
|
| With the increasing frequency of megafires in the Western
| United States (and other locations around the world) the
| discussion has shifted to reconsidering if the existing
| paradigm of prioritizing fire prevention over active fire
| management (planned burns, building code improvements, etc.) is
| in our best interests.
|
| For example:
|
| https://www.ctif.org/news/modern-forestry-practices-may-be-p...
|
| http://www.roosevelthouse.hunter.cuny.edu/?forum-post=preven...
| GavinMcG wrote:
| This presupposes that fire suppression is an important goal.
| Obviously carbon storage is only possible if it isn't all
| routinely released as smoke, but it's not obvious to me that
| fire reduces carbon capture so much that other alternatives are
| better--and preservation may be a net good if other
| conservation/recreation/quality-of-life goals are accomplished
| alongside carbon capture.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| No. Most places have 'immanent domain' type laws were the gov can
| essentially seize your property (forcing a sale) to give to
| someone else. A rich developer could see all that sweet sweet
| natural land and make a strong case (with lobbying, backroom
| deals, the usual) that it would be better used with a new condo
| or factory or strip mine and get it anyway.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I have also read about cases where foreign owners just have
| their land straight up taken.
|
| Locals just assume the property while the owners are away and
| force them into a court unfriendly to foreigners.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Devil's advocate - if you don't even live in the country
| should you have the right to own property there?
| bananarchist wrote:
| If you don't live on the property should you have the right
| to own it?
| RajT88 wrote:
| It happens to people who live on the property too, and
| have to leave for a while.
|
| I read about a person who had to go to the US for cancer
| treatment and in the interim his otherwise full-time
| primary residence was stolen.
| donatj wrote:
| So you get your money back, and then you use it to buy other
| land. Same same?
| dotancohen wrote:
| Land is not fungible.
| pibechorro wrote:
| That is a problem of immanent domain and lobby. Remove that and
| private reserves work perfectly fine.
| arethuza wrote:
| Scotland has what is pretty much the opposite - communities can
| register interest in land and get a "right to buy" if the land
| is ever going to be transferred:
|
| https://www.gov.scot/policies/land-reform/community-right-to...
| TrueGeek wrote:
| Note that this article is about the UK. It discusses your point
| in part 3 and goes on to discuss an alternative solution at the
| end. There are complex laws as almost all of the land is
| privately owned by either private citizens or the crown.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| Eminent Domain is nearly never used in the USA for private
| development, since Kelo v. City of New London. The City won in
| court, but lost massively in the court of public opinion. Many
| states passed laws restricting or prohibiting that type of
| eminent domain use following that case.
| jker wrote:
| And even in that case, Kelo's land ended up not being used
| after all.
| cduzz wrote:
| The reverse also works.
|
| People see a block of land that's "unused" so they simply move
| there and start "developing" it. Sometimes they'll legally own
| the land ("adverse possession") but usually it doesn't matter.
| It's theirs because they're there and they're willing to defend
| themselves and "their" land even if they don't have a deed.
|
| So sure, go ahead and buy a bunch of land, in the USA or
| elsewhere; you'll need to be prepared to enforce your ownership
| stake or lose it.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| Which is why it is important for the states to pass laws
| forbidding this activity after the Supreme Court deemed it
| legal (or not prohibited by the constitution) a few years ago.
|
| And there's a bunch of land for sale outside of the UK which
| can be bought and let to go back to prairie or whatever. You
| can get 10,000+ acre ranches for a few million in places like
| Nebraska and just let some buffalo lounge around.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Eminent domain is close to dead in the US. We nearly always
| lack sufficient political consensus to use it. It is partly why
| new infrastructure projects are increasingly rare and
| significantly more expensive.
| xeromal wrote:
| It's probably for the better. It generally just gets used on
| people who lack the resources to fight back. It just doesn't
| sit well with me that a government can force you to sell your
| land at a price they determine.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Exactly. The more justified infrastructure use cases of the
| 20th century gave way to "economic development" crap where
| the city takes land it thinks the current owner isn't using
| effectively enough and then sells it to their cronies who
| promise to build a strip mall or a mixed use development or
| whatever (and some number of useful idiots support it
| because they like the idea of more taxable commerce). The
| government has zero business stomping on people to do the
| latter. Just buy the F-ing land outright the normal way if
| that's what you want to do.
| timmg wrote:
| > It's probably for the better.
|
| Until you want to build a train line (or some other form of
| public transportation).
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I don't disagree, but there are ramifications. A big one
| being sprawl. If existing urban/suburban areas are to
| remain stagnant, then development will just push outward
| into areas where land is cheap and landowners more than
| happy to pocket a nice chunk for their former farmland.
| Wrap an urban growth boundary around the city, and then you
| can stop some of that and instead watch your housing prices
| skyrocket.
|
| Wait a second, I think I just described Portland.
| Bloating wrote:
| Land Conservation Easements May Prove Misguided
|
| https://www.law.virginia.edu/news/2001_02/easements.htm
| amelius wrote:
| Sounds well-intended, but I oppose the idea of 1% of people
| owning 99% of the land ...
|
| And what do we say if Nestle buys all natural water sources to
| "protect" them?
| stochtastic wrote:
| A cautionary tale from personal experience: My parents retired to
| a rural area and wanted to ensure that their area would remain a
| healthy old growth forest. They have been actively involved in a
| land trust that has successfully created large, continuous
| corridors throughout the area. One of their contributions was a
| continuous strip of about 20 acres. Their community has stitched
| these together to create wonderful cycling/walking paths through
| the woods, linking up different areas.
|
| At the start of the pandemic, a developer bought up a large (~200
| acre) tract neighboring them and the corridor. They immediately
| clearcut the whole thing, and are building hundreds of tract
| houses, cheek by jowl, and have consequently forced the local
| government to build additional roads. Guess the big selling point
| they use in their website and listings? 'Neighbors a wilderness
| trust with extensive woodland paths.'
|
| Knowing all of this, I'm not sure whether I'd still go through
| with the land trust purchases or not. They couldn't have afforded
| the 200 acre parcel, and who knows if the developer would have
| bought the other 50 acres. All I can say is that it is
| dispiriting to see people doing the right thing and having a net
| increase in clearcutting at their doorstep.
| dogman144 wrote:
| Well rural living and by extension preservation has to be
| joined with land ownership maps. First thing to check with a
| rural purchase must be what it borders. The more
| BLM/federal/state/county land, the more likely stuff like the
| above doesn't happen. Same issue for building trusts.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| Make the land private and only allow access to conservation
| workers, volunteers and financially contributing members. The
| less joggers disrupting the ecosystem the better.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| I know this may not help now, but to approve such a
| development, many counties would require that it is not down
| range from a historical or even prospective shooting range. You
| might offer every new resident subsidized membership because
| they live downrange.
| PretzelPirate wrote:
| We can also look into reducing the amount of monocropping we do.
| If the grain isn't profitable, the land it's grown on will drop
| in value, making it easier to purchase and use for re-wilding
| efforts.
| kickout wrote:
| Correct, problem is the most productive land isn't always the
| most profitable. That's how you end up with Maize grown in
| Western Kansas under dryland conditions.
| anonAndOn wrote:
| The super wealthy in the US sometimes pull off major conservation
| easements.
|
| Roxanne Quimby, of Burt's Bees fame, slowly purchased land in
| Maine over many years then donated an entire National
| Monument.[0] She wasn't the first to do this, though. JD
| Rockefeller pulled the same trick almost a century prior by
| donating a National Park in Wyoming.[1]
|
| [0]https://www.nationalparks.org/connect/blog/transforming-
| kata... [1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017
| /12/04...
| secretsatan wrote:
| I'm sorry, but this seems like a very libertarian view of
| conservatism. Like how they tried to solve these problems with
| the idea of personal action. We simply don't have the capital to
| combat the groups that really couldn't give a fuck
| throwaway2a02 wrote:
| In most places, including the UK, there's a legal principle
| called adverse possession
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession), where anyone
| can take possession of a property for free, if it's
| unoccupied/unmaintained by the owner, and the possession is not
| challenge for certain a period of time, i.e. actual owner doesn't
| evict the prospective occupier (12 years in the case of the UK).
|
| So people or the government don't really need to actually buy
| much of the land.
| arethuza wrote:
| That link actually only talks about England and Wales. Scotland
| has _positive prescription_ :
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prescription_(Scots_law)#Posit...
|
| Mind you the end result is similar - different legal systems
| though!
| rtkwe wrote:
| Depends a lot on what government you're dealing with. A few years
| ago some conservationists bid on and won some mineral rights but
| the government invalidated their bid when they realized they
| weren't going to be extracting it.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Are you going to put out the fires that appear on it from time to
| time and police it against illegal invaders?
| NiceWayToDoIT wrote:
| > "just 1% of the population own half the land in England"
|
| This is idea in same level as quantitative easing,
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing) "Lets give
| rich people money so they recover economy" what happens "Rich
| people use that money PS895 billion buy stocks, so they inflate
| market even more and not even penny trickles down to ordinary
| people, so they become even poorer.
|
| Paying rich people that own land to sequester carbon is equally,
| (not sure which word to use) ... evil, diabolic as QE scam for
| the rich. Probability is high that they will use that money not
| to plant trees but to buy more land, even more increasing gap
| between wealthy and poor.
|
| So, my question is when does wealthy people greed and naivety of
| poor ends?
| bmitc wrote:
| It should be pointed out that conservation and reserves are not
| enough. We have got to be _restoring_ land with native plants, in
| particular land in urban environments.
|
| https://homegrownnationalpark.org/
| hprotagonist wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumal%C3%ADn_Park
|
| sometimes!
| andrewmutz wrote:
| If they want to buy land for carbon capture, why restrict
| themselves to the UK?
|
| There are many countries with plenty of land for sale that will
| not require eminent domain laws to buy land.
|
| And of course, carbon is a global concern. Capturing carbon in
| specifically the UK is no better than capturing it elsewhere,
| from a climate change perspective.
| nimbius wrote:
| Its an unpopular opinion but no. Much as we cannot stop drowning
| in water with more water, we cannot extinguish climate change
| caused by technocratic neoliberal consumer capitalism with more
| of the same. The effort must exist outside a market. it cannot be
| commercialized, it exists as an inefficiency, and it remains a
| corrective action to right some of the most egregious hubris of
| mankinds existence on this planet. ideally it should be done in
| silence without marketing, discipline without aggrandizement, and
| with remorse.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| You say that as though no one outside of a market economy every
| burned coal or clear cut a forrest.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| That's a non sequitur. So what if bad things have happened
| outside of a market? The question is whether a solution can
| be found outside one.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| It's not a non sequitur at all. The original claim was that
| contemporary market economies caused the problem so markets
| can't be part of the solution. I think this is first and
| foremost a logical fallacy. I'm also pointing out that the
| need for energy and resources created the problem, which is
| orthogonal to markets.
|
| Markets are great for optimizing things that can be priced.
| Pricing carbon, and wild spaces can be really powerful
| levers for fixing some of these problems.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| It didn't say it was caused by. It said it couldn't be
| solved within.
| frobishercresc wrote:
| Technocratic neoliberal consumer capitalism isn't the only
| form of market economy, it's just the form that uses up the
| most land without regard to social and environmental impact
| because it is inherently focused on capital gains.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > uses up the most land
|
| How are you quantifying that?
| frobishercresc wrote:
| It's self evident, endless and unchecked profit motives
| (neoliberalism) are divorced from considerations of
| resource sustainability or genuine social need, it will
| always use up more land than market economies with a more
| social minded approach.
|
| If that isn't enough, loss of tree cover since 2001:
|
| Neoliberal capitalist USA: 16% [1]
|
| [1]
| https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/BRA
|
| Socialism with Chinese Characteristics China: 6.7% [2]
|
| [2]
| https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/CHN/
| hedora wrote:
| It's easily solved with markets: Charge a carbon recapture tax
| equivalent to direct air capture of 150% of the product's
| greenhouse emissions. (This is affordable; it'd end up being
| about $1/gallon of gas tax.)
|
| Getting our corrupt government to actually do that is another
| story, even with > 60% of the population calling for drastic,
| urgent action.
| qchris wrote:
| In the United States, the American Prairie Reserve [1] is doing
| something along these lines in the area around the
| Wyoming/Montana border. In particular, their purchases (which
| often include private ranches that come up for sale) focus on
| building those corridors between existing public lands,
| effectively creating much larger continuous ecosystems that this
| article mentioned.
|
| It's probably easier to do in the United States (a lot more land
| than in England, and with fewer entrenched ownership
| considerations), but I'd really be interested to see if similar
| projects would work in other parts of the country that are more
| densely populated, or in areas like the California central basin
| to where public water resources are being abused to farm a
| desert.
|
| [1] https://www.americanprairie.org/
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| > where public water resources are being abused to farm a
| desert
|
| You are incredibly short-sighted and your implied policy
| direction seems to favor human extinction.
|
| "Over a third of the country's vegetables and two-thirds of the
| country's fruits and nuts are grown in California."
|
| https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/
| amalcon wrote:
| It would be tricky in more densely populated areas, thanks to
| the ruling in _Kelo vs. City of New London_. "The local
| government thinks they'll get more economic activity from
| someone else" is a valid reason to exercise eminent domain
| powers for some reason. It works in more rural places because,
| frankly, it's generally not worth the trouble of litigation
| there.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| As someone who lives in a county with National Forests, this
| is a huge issue. Originally the deal was the Feds could have
| national forests, but make up for missing property
| tax/economic activity with logging grants, mineral right
| grants, and paying a portion of the money the feds made from
| that to the local community. Then for environmental reasons
| the feds just stopped allowing anything on the land and
| paying what they promised AND killed all those local
| community jobs. Double whammy. Personally I think the Feds
| should have to sell all the national forests now since they
| did not keep to the promises they made, or at least
| renegotiate with the local community. But unlike when these
| deals were made, the USA is now a Federal system without any
| state rights power, so we just try to keep the roof from
| leaking on our school and vote to increase our own taxes to
| educate kids. Meanwhile people talk trash about rundown rural
| communities and all the unemployed millworkers/miners that
| turned to drugs when they lost their job opportunities and
| ignore that the entire country broke it's promise to those
| people. Imagine the weight of the country choosing to break a
| promise and ruin you while making fun of your rundown
| ignorant small town po-dunk life, an ant crushed with no-
| power to do a thing about it. Lumber is through the roof, yet
| the mills are all closing. Because the country hates you,
| your way of life, and TOOK all of the land and locked it up
| even though it promised not to do that when it took the land.
| cactacea wrote:
| I've spent the majority of my life living in rural areas.
| I've also spent a ton of time on public land in just about
| every state west of the Mississippi. The lack of historical
| context and understanding of the economics of resource
| extraction here is staggering.
|
| 1 - Guess who the land belonged to before the federal
| government? It wasn't the states. I reject your assertion
| that localities are even entitled to a say here beyond the
| federal democratic process. Almost all of the land in
| question was open to claim at one point - nobody did so and
| ownership was retained by the government.
|
| 2 - It's absolutely laughable to say that they "just
| stopped allowing anything on the land". In certain areas
| maybe but as a blanket statement that's absolutely
| incorrect. As a personal anecdote, one of my favorite spots
| to pick berries in western WA was clear cut just this past
| summer. I'll never visit that spot again in this lifetime.
| But hey, someone got paid a couple of bucks so I guess
| that's a net positive for the country. Don't even get me
| started about cattle ranchers and the damage they've done.
|
| 3 - Those jobs were based on extracting a resource that
| didn't belong to them and that takes decades to recover, if
| ever. Why should the rest of us let (in your words) some
| po-dunk town clear cut everything in sight when the rest of
| us can make our living without destroying everything from
| sea to shining sea?
|
| 4 - Should we help them out now that the economics have
| changed? Sure, absolutely, totally support that. However
| economies built on resource extraction have never been
| sustainable long-term, what's the point in doubling down on
| what already failed? I also disagree with your supposition
| that federal restrictions is what hollowed out these towns,
| the fundamental economics of resource extraction is why
| they've failed to be sustainable over the long term.
|
| 5 - I actually agree with you on one thing at least: put
| all it up for sale at a fair price. All national forests,
| all BLM land - everything that isn't wilderness or a
| national park. While the cattle ranchers, miners, and
| loggers will get a bit I can guarantee that
| conservationists will buy more. Leases are a sweetheart
| deal to extractors and always have been. Why should they
| buy what they can lease for basically nothing? The
| extractors would fight your proposal harder than anyone
| else.
| otikik wrote:
| I am sorry this has happened to you.
|
| I must point out that a lot of your post feels written by a
| Native American. Their story is also about broken promises
| and land (and other deplorable things)
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > valid reason to exercise eminent domain powers for some
| reason
|
| The reason is:
|
| (1) eminent domain isn't Constitutionally limited in purpose
| beyond that it must be a public purpose.
|
| (2) State governments under the US Constitution have general
| police powers, so any purpose they aren't expressly
| Constitutionally forbidden to pursue is a valid public
| purpose, as distinct from the federal government being one of
| granted powers where there must be a specific Constitutional
| basis for it pursuing a purpose for it to be valid.
|
| (3) Seeking revenue is not a thing prohibited to the states
| by the Federal Constitution.
|
| (4) Under the federal Constitution, subordinate entities
| within states don't have distinct powers from states; if they
| are limited, that is a matter of state law, not the federal
| Constitution.
|
| EDIT: Also, note also that some states do Constitutionally
| restrict the purposes of eminent domain, or have state laws
| limiting local use of it, some, IIRC, in Constitutional
| provisions that were proposed and passed directly in response
| to _Kelo_ , so that what happened there would not be allowed.
| voxic11 wrote:
| How is using property to profit private business "for
| public use"?
|
| > "[the decision eliminates] any distinction between
| private and public use of property--and thereby effectively
| delete[s] the words 'for public use' from the Takings
| Clause of the Fifth Amendment."
|
| > "This deferential shift in phraseology enables the Court
| to hold, against all common sense, that a costly urban-
| renewal project whose stated purpose is a vague promise of
| new jobs and increased tax revenue, but which is also
| suspiciously agreeable to the Pfizer Corporation, is for a
| 'public use.'"
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > How is using property to profit private business "for
| public use"?
|
| Because, as the Supreme Court has consistently held since
| interpreting the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause to
| apply the 5th Amendment's protections against the states
| in the first place (without which, the issue would be
| moot since absent such application there would be no
| federal constraint at all) use in which the state action
| is pursuing a legitimate public _purpose_ has been held
| to be a "public use".
|
| Which presumably you already know, because surely you
| read the majority opinion in _Kelo_ in the course of
| locating and quoting (without attribution) O'Connor's
| dissent.
| [deleted]
| Semiapies wrote:
| Some states have set up more restrictive eminent domain laws
| since that ruling.
| silon42 wrote:
| they don't have to use eminent domain, adding/increasing
| property tax is enough.
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| I can't imagine that would actually work if the political
| system isn't completely corrupt.
| dbingham wrote:
| There are actually quite a few community land trusts [1,2] out
| there. They can be conversation focused, housing focused, or
| focused on other priorities. But they all have similar
| structures - non-profits that are focused on acquiring some
| level of ownership over large tracts of land so that they can
| manage that land to achieve a goal (conservation, keeping
| housing affordable, etc).
|
| My local conservation focused [3] one has been very successful
| and is the source of many of the best hikes in my area as well!
|
| If you want to find similar projects, search for "conservation
| community land trust" and you'll find them! Alternately, here's
| a handy tool provided by the Land Trust Alliance a quick search
| turned up: https://www.landtrustalliance.org/find-land-trust
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_land_trust
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_trust
|
| [3] https://sycamorelandtrust.org/
| gerad wrote:
| Here in the Bay Area in Marin County, we have the Marin
| Agricultural Land Trust [1].
|
| [1] https://malt.org/
| spurgu wrote:
| Similar initiative for preserving ancient forests in Finland,
| originally founded by legendary Finnish environmental activist
| Pentti Linkola:
|
| https://luonnonperintosaatio.fi/en/
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Natural_Heritage_Found...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentti_Linkola
| cromulent wrote:
| Also the Helsinki Foundation buys land and then distributes
| veto rights to ensure it is never re-sold.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Wow, TIL the Missouri river flows through Montana (from the map
| on the American Prairie site).
|
| It's not clear from a cursory glance at the site whether
| American Prairie is giving the land to the public, or whether
| they retain ownership and are simply allowing public access. I
| would think giving it to some federal parks/wildlife agency
| would come with stronger protections than an NGO could provide.
| I'm also curious if anyone can just give their private land to
| the public for use as a wildlife preserve?
|
| EDIT: I also found this map of protected lands, but I'm having
| a hard time discerning between the different colors and I'm
| _not_ colorblind. http://www.protectedlands.net/map/
| toast0 wrote:
| > I would think giving it to some federal parks/wildlife
| agency would come with stronger protections than an NGO could
| provide.
|
| Not really. Federal agencies sell parklands from time to
| time. It's easier to have an NGO that won't sell the land for
| a long time.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| There's two parts. The conservation easement strips the
| land of its development capacity, and that restriction
| rides with the land to future owners in perpetuity, while
| the non profit stewards the land and enforces those legal
| claims if necessary.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > in perpetuity
|
| Or until the current owners convince a court of law to
| extinguish the conservation easement.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| You should research what's required to do so and the odds
| of it occurring. Only in rare/limited circumstances can
| the easement be terminated, and the IRS has some
| oversight into this because of the tax consequences of
| these easements (as you can claim a charitable tax
| deduction for donating and extinguishing the development
| capability of the parcel).
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I've done the first part [0]. But I don't know an easy
| way to assess the second part. Clearly congress intended
| for it to be difficult, but the idea that a conservation
| easement is in fact permanent should always have an
| asterisk next to it.
|
| [0]: https://www.landcan.org/article/extinguishing-
| transferring-a...
| giantg2 wrote:
| I hate this process. It effectively gives someone else
| rights over the current owners land. The person becomes a
| tenet farmer in effect and is responsible for the taxes
| and upkeep while under the control of the organization.
| And the land is not accessible to the public.
|
| It's much better for the land to be organization-owned
| and open to public use.
|
| Just my opinion.
| atourgates wrote:
| I volunteer with a regional land trust, and I think
| you're maybe misunderstanding the conservation easement
| process, or at least it's typical application.
|
| The typical process is:
|
| Private Landowner Decides they want to conserve their
| land.
|
| They work with a Land Trust to define, and put in place
| the restrictions of that conservation easement. Those
| typically restrict development (though the landowner can
| in some cases "carve out" future building sites), and
| depending on the goals of the landowner and land trust,
| could allow things like agriculture, forestry, recreation
| etc..
|
| I'm sure there's a conservation easement somewhere that
| restricts public access, but I've never seen one. Most
| commonly, the land stays inaccessible to the public just
| like it was before the easement, but nothing in the legal
| language of the easement prohibiting future public
| access.
|
| (One conservation easement manager half-joked that every
| easement we do has public access potential, it just might
| take a few generations for that potential to be
| realized).
|
| Next, that easement goes through the legal process of
| being put into place. Now, that land is subject to the
| restrictions of that easement forever. And it's the job
| (legal responsibility) of the Land Trust that holds the
| easement to regularly monitor the easements they hold,
| and make sure they're followed.
|
| However, the original landowner still owns the land, just
| like before. If they sell the land, or someone inherits,
| it's still (de facto) private land, just private land
| with restrictions as to what can be done on it.
|
| Now, there are private landowners who want to open their
| land to public access, and that's amazing. (We did our
| first few public access-specific easements this year at
| our comparatively-small land trust, and we're super
| excited). There are also times where a landowner puts an
| easement on their property, and then sells it to someone
| like a local, regional or state institution to be managed
| specifically for public access. There was recently a
| great story about how private individuals stepped in to
| conserve land, and then later transferred it to
| Washington State Parks[1].
|
| There are also times when a property might transfer
| ownership, as well as the easement, to a Land Trust. We
| actually have one of these that we basically operate as a
| public park. But, that's like less than 2% of the total
| easements we hold.
|
| So, to your points, I guess I would say:
|
| The process of conservation easements by large
| _increases_ the amount of land available for public
| access and recreation, not decreases it. And if anyone is
| becoming a tenant farmer, it's the landowner choosing to
| become a tenant themselves.
|
| There are times when an outside entity might purchase the
| easement from the landowner, but again, the landowner's
| not forced into that transaction.
|
| 1. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-
| states/washington/articles/...
| wolpoli wrote:
| Thanks for the detailed information. I am curious here:
| After an easement is added to the property, who has the
| ability to cancel the easement? Or is an easement non-
| removable forever?
| atourgates wrote:
| I don't work on the legal side, but easements are
| generally designed to be permanent forever, with some
| caveats.
|
| For example, I believe most conservation easements have
| some language that allows them to be essentially "moved"
| in certain circumstances. Say the city needed to build a
| road through an easement - than that easement could be
| exchanged for a similar parcel that was conserved in a
| similar manner nearby or similar.
|
| But outside of that and similar narrow exceptions,
| conservation easements are generally designed to be
| forever.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I understand all that perfectly fine.
|
| I didn't say that I would decrease public land, simply
| that these organizations should focus on making the
| conserved land public. Often times land is willed to the
| trust and then the trust sells it. This keeps it in
| private circulation when it could be made public access.
|
| Why would a private individual go through the legal risks
| of opening their land to the public? I highly doubt these
| lands will become public access in the future as there's
| zero incentive for it, despite the joke you stated.
|
| Land is finite. By placing the restriction on some
| parcels, that makes it much less likely to find
| unrestricted parcels due to the demand. Also, people
| don't live forever. Putting a restriction on future
| generations is not something of their choosing.
|
| My experience with these land trusts has been negative. A
| friend bought one that permits agricultural use. They
| wanted to put down gravel in an area for that purpose.
| The trust said that couldn't do that because it's
| _impermeable_... perhaps we can go to the desert and
| leave you there for a few days with 5 gallons of water
| poured on a gravel pile. If it 's really impermeable,
| then you'll be fine. The point is, you have to deal with
| idiots like this and risk getting into legal battle that
| will exhaust your resources to enforce your (limited)
| rights on the land.
|
| If effect you end up with extremely powerful
| organizations that have rights over an increasing amount
| of land, while the "owners" have to bear all the costs
| and comply. Sounds a lot like being a serf or tenant
| farmer to me. Is there some choice in there? Not much if
| you want land. The vast majority of people can't afford
| real land in the areas where these trusts (and
| billionaires) are operating, pricing them out due to the
| constrained supply.
| atourgates wrote:
| > "Why would a private individual go through the legal
| risks of opening their land to the public? I highly doubt
| these lands will become public access in the future as
| there's zero incentive for it, despite the joke you
| stated."
|
| Because they're community-minded, and doing that aligns
| with their values?
|
| Our small local land trust is currently in the final
| stages of two easements brought to us by private
| landowners who wanted to open their land to the public.
| One of them was I would say "community" oriented, in that
| their land had been informally open to the public, and
| they wanted to formalize that access, and use it to
| educate the public on the value of the ecosystems in
| place there.
|
| The other is I would say is also community minded, but
| coming more from a place of principle in that they
| believe more people opening their land to public use is
| the right thing to do, and what we should be doing as a
| society.
|
| It also helps that in our state, liability for public
| access is essentially zero, and we have very strong legal
| protections for landowners who open their land.
|
| > Is there some choice in there? Not much if you want
| land.
|
| Don't buy land that's encumbered by an easement? But it's
| gonna cost you more.
|
| IDK about your friend's specific situation, but one of
| the big benefits of agricultural easements is that they
| significantly reduce the value of the land, allowing
| (perhaps) people like your friend to afford to buy farm
| land who wouldn't otherwise be able to.
|
| In the area we operate, agricultural land has shot up
| from about $5K/acre, to $20K+/acre in less than a decade.
| At those prices, no family farmers can afford to buy farm
| land, and the only people who can farm are multi-
| generational farming families who bought land decades ago
| and haven't sold out yet, or large corporate farms.
|
| But that price increase is being driven by developers who
| want to build houses. Take away that ability, and
| suddenly new farmers just starting out can afford to buy
| some land to farm on.
|
| True, they don't have the freedom to turn around and sell
| that land to housing developers, but I think that hardly
| turns them into serfs.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| The land absolutely can be open to the public in this
| model, it just can't be developed.
| giantg2 wrote:
| At least in my experience, th orgs near me buy the land,
| place restrictions on it, then sell it. Only rarely do
| they hold it and open it to the public.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| This seems like it would inevitably lead to a limited
| number of entities owning almost all the conservation
| land. Stripping it of development value in perpetuity
| ought to lower the value considerably, making it easier
| for an interested party to accumulate it. Maybe in hopes
| that some day they'll figure out how to undo that
| restriction.
|
| Edit: On second thought, after doing a quick bit of
| research, the conservation easement can be removed. So
| the value will be impacted, but the land will still have
| some residual development value.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Generally the easement can't be removed except by the
| trust that owns those rights, and that's not something
| they will want to give up. So yes, these organizations
| will eventually hold the rights to vast amounts of land,
| with limited oversight (compared to a municipality or
| other democratic org), while the "owner" paying the taxes
| and upkeep on the land can be individuals (not the org).
| And yes, the value of _that land_ tends to go down
| slightly. But it constrains supply which causes _all the
| other land_ to increase.
| mcguire wrote:
| Several years ago there was a kerfuffle in Texas: The
| Nature Conservancy had traded a piece of land, that had
| been donated to it, to the state parks and wildlife
| department with the understanding that the land was going
| to be under their conservation regime. Several years later,
| TPWD was reportedly considering selling the land to a group
| to form a hunting reserve. I don't recall how it ended (but
| I suspect the sale did not go through), but there were
| threats floating around that the Nature Conservancy would
| no longer make those kinds of trades with Texas.
| yonaguska wrote:
| Interesting, because a hunting reserve is probably one of
| the easiest ways to actually monetize conservation and
| allow it to pay for itself.
| jen20 wrote:
| > I would think giving it to some federal parks/wildlife
| agency would come with stronger protections than an NGO could
| provide.
|
| This largely depends on whether an NGO is more trustworthy
| than the party in control of the federal government when it
| comes to conservation. Half the time, the answer seems to be
| "yes".
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| To be clear, my intended implication wasn't "NGOs are
| untrustworthy", but rather that "the federal government is
| a lot more likely to be around in 50 years than an NGO". I
| was also assuming that donating the lands to a federal
| program implied that the federal government couldn't just
| turn around and sell the land a few years later, although
| that might be naive on my part.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| >TIL the Missouri river flows through Montana
|
| Not only flows through it, but originates it! That's where
| rocky mountain snow turns into the mighty Missouri river.
|
| Another interesting fact is that the world's shortest river
| also dumps into the missouri close to it's headwaters in
| central Montana. The river flows from Giant Springs in great
| falls, Montana for a little over 200 feet and then dumps a
| substantial flow of crystal clear, clean water into the
| sometimes muddy Missouri. The mixing is sometimes a striking
| thing to watch and there is a neat little park there that
| also has a trout hatchery and you can feed the enormous
| number of ducks and canada goose that spend large portions of
| the year in Great Falls. Underrated town with some neat stuff
| :)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_River
| ekidd wrote:
| > _I would think giving it to some federal parks /wildlife
| agency would come with stronger protections than an NGO could
| provide._
|
| There is supposedly an island on the Maine coast that was
| given to the federal government for conservation purposes
| (probably for migratory birds). The feds later sold it off.
| Last I heard of it, people were raising money to buy it back
| and protect it again. Federal protection really only works in
| the long term if the land becomes part of a national park or
| other protected reserve.
|
| In the US, conservation is often handled by "land trusts,"
| private non-profits that protect land, and make it available
| for public uses. One common strategy is for two land trusts
| to work together: One will own the land, and the second will
| own a "conservation easement" that prevents the land from
| being developed. This reassures land donors that their wishes
| will be protected.
|
| Local land trusts are often very popular. Almost everybody
| likes to have some scenic walking paths. Local businesses
| also like being able to hand out trail maps to their
| customers. But some land trusts also protect working land: I
| know of a protected fishing warf that is used by many small
| commercial fisherman. In other towns, land trusts may protect
| a certain amount of farmland.
|
| The most entertaining case I know of is a land trust that
| maintains a trail system for ATV vehicles. They acquired the
| land to protect some key bird habitat. But the parcel also
| included a separate wooded area that was popular with ATV
| users. So they said, "Hey, ATVs are a public recreational
| use, and we have plenty of other land that _doesn 't_ allow
| them. So why not let people keep doing that here?"
|
| I think that's one important trick to running a successful
| land trust: Make sure that you serve a wide variety of
| community needs. Set aside land for conservation, for
| walking, and to preserve traditional working land. And try to
| support a wide variety of recreational uses.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "So why not let people keep doing that here?"
|
| Because loud ATV engines are opposite to the goal of
| protecting bird habitats?
|
| In general I agree for multi recreational use, but maybe
| with something less disturbing?
|
| (like using electric engines only for example)
| ekidd wrote:
| Happily, they actually closed all the existing ATV trails
| that went anywhere near the bird habitat. And the ATV
| woodlot itself was not a significant conservation target.
| (And the ATV use was long-standing.)
|
| A successful local land trust relies on both small
| donations _and_ a certain measure of political support.
| Many towns exempt them (partially or fully) from property
| taxes, so I feel it 's admirable for them to look for
| ways to serve the entire community. Probably very few
| land trusts will ever find themselves owning ATV trails.
| But it's good for them to think about what public needs
| they _can_ serve, even if the answers are sometimes
| surprising.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| > I would think giving it to some federal parks/wildlife
| agency would come with stronger protections than an NGO could
| provide.
|
| The Federal government is not a reliable steward of public
| wilderness lands. Their incentives and motivations are quite
| different from a purpose-built NGO. In practice an NGO can
| offer a much more consistent and aligned implementation of
| objectives.
| aporetics wrote:
| Example: Bears Ears National Monument
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bears_Ears_National_Monument?
| w...
| loonster wrote:
| It's just as hard to undo something as it is to do
| something. A proclamation by a president is a very low
| bar.
|
| A better method would be by law. That would require a
| future president, house, and Senate to agree.
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