Opinion
Preservationist Forces Are Counterproductive
It seems obvious to many people that, by locking up vast stretches of federal land at the end of his term, President Clinton favored the future over the present. Instead of using up all of our natural resources today, we have set large pieces of the country aside for future generations. But is it really an act of generosity towards the future to lock up federal lands?

Consider an example from close to home. Preservationist forces recently tried to ban future expansion of Stanford campus into the foothills, the purpose being to save the foothills for future generations. By this logic, if the present Stanford campus did not exist, we should ban it from being built. Indeed, un-built flatlands are far rarer on the peninsula than un-built hills. Thus the case for preserving un-built flatlands would seem to be overwhelming.

But in this example we are the future and we can state categorically that we are many times better off for Stanford having been built. There is every reason to expect the same result if Stanford doubles its size up into the foothills. It is virtually certain that people at every point in the future will judge that this expansion has rendered many times more value than the undeveloped hills would have.

How can this be? If the resource is "set aside" for future generations, how can future generations not be better off? Because land is not "used up." At any point in time it has alternative uses, some more valuable than others. True, some uses can actually despoil or "use up" land, such as strip mining or dumping toxic waste. But most uses are what are properly called "improvements." They enhance the economic value of the land (that is, its value to people) both now and into the future.

Houses and towns built today are lived in in the future. The lives that a town supports are valuable both to the people who live them and for what they contribute to the future in the form of physical capital, human capital (offspring), and intellectual capital (progress in discovering how we can all live more productively so as to purchase more of what we all value: more health, more goods, more free time, and a healthier environment). The way to a prosperous mankind and a flourishing natural environment is by making progress, not by stopping progress.

In general, to lock-up land is to keep it from its best use. There can be instances where setting land aside for parks and other purposes IS its bes t use, but this depends on an analysis of the value of different uses (marked to market wherever possible). The idea that setting land aside for the future is in itself a justification is simply wrong.

How much land is there valid reason to set aside? Certainly there is a call for a substantial amount of parkland for public recreation. To this end we already have a vast national park system. But Clinton's many "wilderness" designations take land that was available for recreation and make it far less accessible. All motorized access is banned and no new roads can be built. For most of the territory so designated, recreational opportunities are greatly diminished.

Another valid reason to set land aside is to preserve animal habitat. There are a couple of North American species that cannot easily co-exist with humans, such as the Grizzly Bear, the Wolf and the Bighorn Sheep. They exhibit the unique property that their survival is threatened by the first increments of human encroachment. Such species warrant sufficient range of their own, and they have it, in the great undeveloped north as well as in huge existing national parks.

Most species are threatened only by extensive encroachment, if they are threatened at all. The limited amount of "improvement" type economic development that might be viable on federal lands poses no plausible threat to any species. Consider the planned mountaintop observatory that is on hold because someone identified a previously unknown species of squirrel on the site. Even if by some miracle the squirrel does not actually inhabit a much broader range, humans and squirrels easily live side by side. What is the fear? That they won't get out of the way of the tractors?

As for economic development that is non-improving, tote up the costs and benefits. Viable mineral extraction operations would affect only a tiny percentage of federal lands. In the rare case that they might infringe on sensitive species this harm should be accounted. To the extent that mining operations would "use up" land, the value of the operation should have to exceed the value of the land for other purposes. To inhibit inefficient levels of pollution, miners should be required to pay for the costs they impose on others. But these requirements are no different than what mining operations must meet to be viable on non-federal lands.

Where lumber management is the issue federal lands should be sold off, since private logging companies have proved to be far more efficient and responsible than the federal government at managing forest growth. Similarly for federal grazing lands. The reason this land is overgrazed is because it is not privately owned.

For people who live near federal lands, the enforced economic backwardness of these regions is a serious issue. It should be a serious issue for all of us. When a town that would exist does not exist we should understand it as a tragedy.

The mentality of "saving the land for the future" thinks that it is not necessary to account the value of what one causes not to exist. This is particularly true when it comes to human life. Environmental doomsayers like Stanford Biologist Paul Ehrlich are so fixed on the idea that people are the problem that they refuse to grasp the evidence that people are also the solution. Probably no single person has done as much harm: convincing whole generations of intellectual families to have fewer children, the very social group that has done the most to solve the world's problems. If mankind does perish in the breach, a decade too slow in our technical understanding of some looming threat, the cult of Ehrlich will be largely to blame.

The goal should be to see all resources, human and natural, put to their most valued uses, including value for the future. For the most part that means letting individuals and markets decide. In the rare case when a government role is called for, government should be required to do the best it can to proceed on a full accounting of value. That means NOT locking lands up but leaving their use open to intelligent discretion.

Alec Rawls' writings on most subjects can be found at www.rawls.org

Page last modified on Wednesday, 01-Mar-2006 23:57:41 MST.