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"This story is, admittedly, a relic. But it’s an important one, because it encapsulates most of the arguments people continue to make against parkland. Opponent

"This story is, admittedly, a relic. But it’s an important one, because it encapsulates most of the arguments people continue to make against parkland. Opponents claim the land could be made more economically productive." Its a corporate effort to privatize public lands and extract wealth. Despite broad bipartisan support LWCF funding was not renewed, spearheaded by anti-conservation Congressman Rob Bishop: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/09/land_and_water_conservation_fund_is_out_of_budget_and_will_expire.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201... "Bishop’s attack on LWCF is a part of larger effort, backed by special interests, to lock up more federal lands and sell them off for mining, drilling and other development." Related http://wilderness.org/blog/bishop-aims-gut-americas-top-parks-conservation-program-lwcf http://wilderness.org/blog/bishop-aims-gut-americas-top-park...

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
smazga 11y ago
I'm not trying to defend Congressman Bishop here. I certainly didn't vote for him. But as a minor counterpoint to those (pretty biased) articles, it's important to understand who he represents. The Federal government owns 66% of Utah. That's a lot of land. Most of that is managed under the BLM, which is very permissive as far as public use, but every once in a while, someone scores a political hit with "we made more National Parks" by carving out a chunk of that and severely restricting access.[1] I have family that live in south/central Utah and from their point of view the only thing that changes when a monument/park is created is that local recreation is limited by people across the country who will likely never even see what they've done. "The common man being oppressed by the suits in their downtown DC ivory towers" is the general feeling. Right or wrong, it's a more complicated matter than simply trying to exploit the lands for money. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Staircase-Escalante_National_Monument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Staircase-Escalante_Nati...
- brwnll 11y ago
  Read the linked Wikipedia article. Not sure what you're using it to reference "severely restricting access". Under the "Controversy" section, it seems to be referring to two topics: 1. Who owns the roads within the protected area. 2. That a planned Coal mine was prevented from happening in the now protected area. Care to elaborate?
  - davidw 11y ago
    Small random point: you can take a rifle into a wilderness area. Or a horse. But not a mountain bike, to say nothing of something like an offroad motorcycle. I wouldn't want to see coal mines on land I enjoy using, and I don't ride dirt bikes, but I do love mountain biking. I can imagine other people have other recreational priorities. The US is a bit weird in how NIMBY it can get over stuff - or going overboard in how much it exploits some natural resources.
    - smazga 11y ago
      > But not a mountain bike, to say nothing of something like an offroad motorcycle. Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. I visited my farmer family, and of course they have a bunch of 4 wheelers. We went on some expeditions to see petroglyphs and things miles into BLM land. Once the park is closed, that's no longer allowed. The locals often know the cool, secret things far off the beaten path. What annoyed my family in particular is that now they can't go enjoy those things in certain areas because someone a thousand miles away decides it should be so.
      - justinator 11y ago
        <em>The locals often know the cool, secret things far off the beaten path. What annoyed my family in particular is that now they can't go enjoy those things in certain areas because someone a thousand miles away decides it should be so. </em> Actually they can, just not on the 4WD Vehicles. They can, say: walk. The Antiquities Act was originally made to protect such things. So, job done, I guess.
erikpukinskis 11y ago
Anyone who is against this "privatization of public lands to extract wealth" can you explain what is different about this than, say, Tesla's gigafactory or your family home, or Giant Stadium, or literally every other piece of property in the world? I don't understand how someone could be against this kind of thing and yet feel that they are entitled to their quarter acre lot just because they were able to make a deal with someone who made a deal with someone who murdered the native people who are arguably the only legitimate inheritors of the land. The conclusion I've come to is that no land deed has any moral claim, and they should all be invalidated. Other people who are open proponents of manifest destiny and acknowledge that it's essentially just a violent power struggle and you protect your land with whatever means you have... these days being in good standing with the police force and other people with weapons... That also seems like an internally consistent position. But people who think one piece of land can be owned by a person but another one can't... I just don't get it. How does that make sense in your head? Is it just a statute of limitations thing?

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

smazga 11y ago

I'm not trying to defend Congressman Bishop here. I certainly didn't vote for him. But as a minor counterpoint to those (pretty biased) articles, it's important to understand who he represents. The Federal government owns 66% of Utah. That's a lot of land. Most of that is managed under the BLM, which is very permissive as far as public use, but every once in a while, someone scores a political hit with "we made more National Parks" by carving out a chunk of that and severely restricting access.[1] I have family that live in south/central Utah and from their point of view the only thing that changes when a monument/park is created is that local recreation is limited by people across the country who will likely never even see what they've done. "The common man being oppressed by the suits in their downtown DC ivory towers" is the general feeling. Right or wrong, it's a more complicated matter than simply trying to exploit the lands for money. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Staircase-Escalante_National_Monument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Staircase-Escalante_Nati...

brwnll 11y ago
Read the linked Wikipedia article. Not sure what you're using it to reference "severely restricting access". Under the "Controversy" section, it seems to be referring to two topics: 1. Who owns the roads within the protected area. 2. That a planned Coal mine was prevented from happening in the now protected area. Care to elaborate?
- davidw 11y ago
  Small random point: you can take a rifle into a wilderness area. Or a horse. But not a mountain bike, to say nothing of something like an offroad motorcycle. I wouldn't want to see coal mines on land I enjoy using, and I don't ride dirt bikes, but I do love mountain biking. I can imagine other people have other recreational priorities. The US is a bit weird in how NIMBY it can get over stuff - or going overboard in how much it exploits some natural resources.
  - smazga 11y ago
    > But not a mountain bike, to say nothing of something like an offroad motorcycle. Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. I visited my farmer family, and of course they have a bunch of 4 wheelers. We went on some expeditions to see petroglyphs and things miles into BLM land. Once the park is closed, that's no longer allowed. The locals often know the cool, secret things far off the beaten path. What annoyed my family in particular is that now they can't go enjoy those things in certain areas because someone a thousand miles away decides it should be so.
    - justinator 11y ago
      <em>The locals often know the cool, secret things far off the beaten path. What annoyed my family in particular is that now they can't go enjoy those things in certain areas because someone a thousand miles away decides it should be so. </em> Actually they can, just not on the 4WD Vehicles. They can, say: walk. The Antiquities Act was originally made to protect such things. So, job done, I guess.

erikpukinskis 11y ago

Anyone who is against this "privatization of public lands to extract wealth" can you explain what is different about this than, say, Tesla's gigafactory or your family home, or Giant Stadium, or literally every other piece of property in the world? I don't understand how someone could be against this kind of thing and yet feel that they are entitled to their quarter acre lot just because they were able to make a deal with someone who made a deal with someone who murdered the native people who are arguably the only legitimate inheritors of the land. The conclusion I've come to is that no land deed has any moral claim, and they should all be invalidated. Other people who are open proponents of manifest destiny and acknowledge that it's essentially just a violent power struggle and you protect your land with whatever means you have... these days being in good standing with the police force and other people with weapons... That also seems like an internally consistent position. But people who think one piece of land can be owned by a person but another one can't... I just don't get it. How does that make sense in your head? Is it just a statute of limitations thing?