Trump on Public Lands-Maybe Not the Ally You Thought Edition

[Hunting Wife]

For people who don't understand what role the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture play in public land acquisition/disposal, this might be enlightening:

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34273.pdf

They are the people with primary authority to determine what to acquire, and what to dispose of. You should also notice the very broad justifications for disposal of federal land, and that disposal of any parcel less than 2500 acres doesn't need approval from anyone other than the Secretary. Flipping a Congress person or two won't matter at that point.

 

[RobG]

Thanks Hunting Wife, I didn't know any of that.

 

[LuketheDog]

Then you make it a contest of who is the biggest, which wasn't the point. You clearly don't need to be a wealthy country to have environmental protections, which means we don't have to constantly strive for the singular goal of economic enrichment in order to justify environmental protections.

But it is the point, many of the poor nations on the list in your link with 'better' environmental protections have those protections on paper only. The general public in many of those places doesn't give a crap about how many acres are in their 'protected' lands, it's all firewood and food to them, they're just trying to survive. Also, if you're going to make arguments that size doesn't matter, you'd better throw out all the outliers. I.e. Monaco has 53% of their public land protected, that's great for them! It's also only a grand total of 264 square acres, probably not big enough for a healthy ecosystem. The US has over 109,000,000 acres in wilderness areas alone...Don't assume size doesn't matter...

 

[Ben Lamb]

Speaking of scale & wilderness:

http://www.wilderness.net/NWPS/chartResults?chartType=AcreageByStateMost

 

[Irrelevant]

But it is the point, many of the poor nations on the list in your link with 'better' environmental protections have those protections on paper only. The general public in many of those places doesn't give a crap about how many acres are in their 'protected' lands, it's all firewood and food to them, they're just trying to survive. Also, if you're going to make arguments that size doesn't matter, you'd better throw out all the outliers. I.e. Monaco has 53% of their public land protected, that's great for them! It's also only a grand total of 264 square acres, probably not big enough for a healthy ecosystem. The US has over 109,000,000 acres in wilderness areas alone...Don't assume size doesn't matter...

That's fine throw out the outliers. The trend is still clearly there. You simple don't need to be a rich nation to have environmental protections. I spent almost a month in and around the Cockscomb Jaguar preserve in Belize. It is protected, the locals don't cut the trees for firewood, being a ranger is a prestigious job that they take serious, and Belize ranks 146 in GDP per capita.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Something else to consider: We're wiping out grasslands faster than Brazil wipes out rainforests.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...forgotten-threat-to-americas-last-grasslands/

The upside is that Sting is going to release an album featuring native songs of german and dutch farmers that are traditionally sung as the sod gets busted.

 

[LuketheDog]

That's fine throw out the outliers. The trend is still clearly there. You simple don't need to be a rich nation to have environmental protections. I spent almost a month in and around the Cockscomb Jaguar preserve in Belize. It is protected, the locals don't cut the trees for firewood, being a ranger is a prestigious job that they take serious, and Belize ranks 146 in GDP per capita.

Jaguars are cool, I was fortunate enough to see the tracks of one in Costa Rica. Belize is slightly smaller than New Hampshire though, sooooo...I think to continue this argument though you'd need to define what 'protected' means and a host of other things pertinent to the debate, and I'm not sure it's worth my time this afternoon...

 

[Elkmagnet]

But it is the point, many of the poor nations on the list in your link with 'better' environmental protections have those protections on paper only.

Any chance I can see the data on this so I can become so enlightened?

The general public in many of those places doesn't give a crap about how many acres are in their 'protected' lands, it's all firewood and food to them, they're just trying to survive.

I'm glad you asked them I wouldn't have known that without someone asking them. I was under the impression that most native peoples treasurer there lands.
On second thought nevermind my question. You seem well traveled so I will take your word on it.

 

[TheDudeAbides]

One thing that Trump is prone too is populism.

I imagine if we could get a coalition to tweet at him with a 1,000 tweets in an hour about public lands, he will think it is in his best interest.

Just a thought.