Are the feds
land-grabbers?
According to a federal report,
agencies such as the Forest Service, BLM and National Park Service
manage 34 million acres more today than than they did in 1964. But
that’s only if you exclude Alaska, where 112 million acres left
federal control due to statehood land promises and treaties with
native Alaskans. If you include Alaskan land transfers, the total
acres under federal management dropped by 77 million over the last
30 years. So how do you interpret the statistics? Rep. Don Young,
R-Alaska, who requested the study, says the report reveals alarming
trends in the growth of federal land ownership. The report by
Congress’ research arm, the General Accounting Office, also finds
that 44 percent of federal land is now protected by conservation,
compared to 7 percent in 1964. But conserved lands include national
parks, wildlife refuges, wilderness areas, protected habitats and
wild and scenic areas. The largest increases of federal land
occurred in Nevada, Arizona and California, primarily due to the
California Desert Act of 1994. For a free copy of Federal Lands:
Information on Land Owned and on Acreage with Conservation
Restrictions, GAO/RCED-95-73FS, write to the U.S. General
Accounting Office, P.O. Box 6015, Gaithersburg, MD 20884-6015, or
call
202/512-6000.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Are the feds land-grabbers?.
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