Criteria and Conditions for Public and Private Ownership of Range Resources

Abstract

By way of introducing a complex and controversial subject, one may raise the question why it is that in range resourcesand also in forest resourcespublic ownership is a live and hotly debated issue in a country which, in its basic ideology and institutions, relies on private ownership. Public ownership of agricultural or m i n e r a 1 resources, on the other hand, is not a controversial issue in this country. In range and forest resources, public ownership is not only an issue, but most people would concede that public ownership should play at least some role. Is this attitude determined only by the momentum of historical experience, by the fact that, in the relatively short history of this country, public ownership has played such an important role in range and forest resources? Without denying this influence, there are more important reasons for the attitude toward public ownership of range and forest resources. In order to get at these reasons, one has to clarify certain basic assumptions with respect . to the over-all role of ownership in natural resources. For the purposes of this paper, a particular form of ownership-public or private-will be regarded not as an “end” of community welfare nor as a necessary condi-