Introduction

Abstract

I doubt that Woody Guthrie had public lands specifically in mind when he wrote “This land is your land.” But I am sure he’d be pleased that each American citizen, through the agency of the federal government, is part owner of some six hundred million odd acres, roughly one quarter of the nation’s land. To be sure, a good deal of it would strike most of us as uninviting and not at all “made for you and me.” Guthrie couldn’t have been thinking of the Great Basin when he wrote of “the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts.” Even so, his words do fit the public lands. There we may be uplifted by natural wonders such as the Grand Canyon and what’s left of the “redwood forest.” There we are free to roam and ramble, for the signs read not “Private Property—No Trespassing” but “Please close the gate.” There, far horizons and the “endless skyway” can release us for a time from the narrowness of our lives. The federal estate is also rich in resources of a more conventional and coveted sort: timber, minerals, coal, oil, livestock forage, damsites, etc. Of course, sharing title with a couple hundred million other people would not give you or me much to say about how these lands and resources are used, even if they were managed by public referendum and not, as they are, by federal agencies. Except for weapons test sites and other military reservations, the public generally has free access to federal lands, but that does not mean that we may do whatever we like there. Private use is regulated in various ways. Rights to graze livestock, strip-mine coal, cut sawtimber, gather firewood, drill for oil, develop a ski resort, backpack into certain areas, excavate a prehistoric site, and so forth, are controlled by permit or lease, and some areas are closed to activities that some of us would dearly love to pursue. Extensive public lands and resources, whose use is governed by regulations rather than the wishes of those willing to pay most to satisfy their desires, may seem anomalous in a country ideologically committed to individual freedom, private property, and the free market.