The follow are the meeting times for the FWP bison proposal.
The Bureau of Land Management has agreed to purchase a 652-acre piece of property within the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument from a conservation group that acquired the land from private owners.
Gates Watson of The Conservation Fund said the group bought the land from the Brink family that was homestead by Nellie (Brink) Whitcraft in 1925.
“It’s been for sale for some time,” said Watson. “We started talking with the BLM and Brink family last year.” Continue reading
What began as a benign effort to allow financially strapped property owners to receive tax benefits in exchange for specified development rights, has morphed into a government land grab. The chief culprit here is The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a well-funded 501(c) (3) organization founded in 1951 that is closely partnered with the federal government. TNC is flush with revenue in excess of $700 million, according to its recent tax forms, and has active chapters in all 50 states.
All told, land trusts control almost 40 million acres of land throughout the U.S. with at least nine million of this amount held in conservation easements, according to the Land Trust Alliance. TNC figures most prominently into this equation as it controls over three million acres in conservation easements, according to congressional testimony. They are described as “powerful, effective tools” on the TNC web site and that much is true. But the selfless, benevolent motives TNC attaches to its vigorous pursuit of easements in its public relations pitch belie its own financial incentives and its relationship with government officials, policy analysts and private property advocates have observed.
Conservation easements are legally-binding agreements between property owners and nonprofit organizations such as a land trust or government agency that restrict development in exchange for tax benefits. The property owner who sells the easement maintains partial ownership but relinquishes certain rights to use the property for development. The purchasing entity holds interest in the property and oversees the restrictions. Continue reading
Like much else in government, U.S. public land policy is a vestige of the past, established in 1910 when America’s population was just 92.2 million and a Western state such as Nevada had only 81,000 residents.
Today our needs are much different and much greater. The United States can no longer afford to keep tens of millions of acres of “public” land locked up and out of service. Some of these lands have great commercial value; others are environmental treasures. We need policies capable of distinguishing between the two.
Few Easterners realize the immense magnitude of the public lands. The federal government’s holdings include about 58 million acres in Nevada, or 83% of the state’s total land mass; 45 million acres in California (45% of the state); 34 million acres in Utah (65%); 33 million acres in Idaho (63%); and more than a fourth of all the land in Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon and Wyoming. Continue reading