The Public-Land Bills We Can All Agree On

Outsideonline.com - Full Article

Two bipartisan bills show how the left and the right can converge on public land policy

Jake Bullinger
Dec 4, 2017

It would seem Republicans and Democrats are wholly divided on public land policy. During the 2016 campaign, the GOP platform called on Congress to “immediately pass universal legislation” to “convey certain federally controlled public lands to states,” while Democrats sought “policies and investments that will keep America’s public lands public” by prioritizing access and environmental safeguards.

But, believe it or not, some consensus exists. A pair of bills introduced this year—including one that would make it easier to transfer federal land to states—shows that Republicans and Democrats can actually agree on certain aspects of public land management.
The land transfer bill, dubbed the Advancing Conservation and Education Act, was introduced on November 6 in the House by Chris Stewart, a Utah Republican, and Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat. An identical measure in the Senate is backed by Democrat Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Arizona Republican Jeff Flake. The bill would allow western states to ask the Department of the Interior to swap state-held trust lands surrounded by federal conservation plots for federal parcels that are easier to develop...

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https://www.outsideonline.com/2266181/public-land-isnt-just-fighting

A Private Landowner Almost Cut Off the PCT

Outsideonline.com - Full Article

David Ferry
Nov 29, 2017

The association that manages the West's premier national trail just paid $1.6 million to prevent a property owner from putting up a fence 150 miles shy of the Canadian border

In January 2015, the Pacific Crest Trail Association received a letter from the owner of a 402-acre plot of land near Stevens Pass, roughly 75 miles east of Seattle. The landowner, a family trust, held one of the few remaining privately held patches of the Pacific Crest Trail—a parcel that thousands of Washingtonians use each year to reach alpine wilderness areas and thru-hikers traverse on their way up to the northern terminus at Manning Park. The family trust, the letter said, wanted to sell.

It was good news for the PCTA, a nonprofit that’s been laboring to preserve and protect the 10 percent of the long-distance trail that, surprisingly, still sits in private hands. But the landowner, who remains anonymous, wanted to play hardball. The trust had divvied up the plot, which lies near the popular Stevens Pass ski area, into 16 different parcels, and according to a memo put together by the trust’s real estate adviser, the zoning meant a prospective buyer could build up to 748 dwellings in the pristine Cascade wilderness along the trail. Even more worrying, the letter made clear that the trust was willing to erect a fence across the section of the PCT that crossed its property, bisecting the trail 150 miles short of the border.

“For us, not only was it a big threat they could close the trail,” says Megan Wargo, director of land protection at the PCTA, “but we had done some fieldwork to look at what it would take to reroute the trail. It wasn’t just a simple loop around; it would have taken an extensive reroute to get around some serious topography. It would have had a significant impact on people’s ability to do a thru-hike.” Wargo estimates it would have taken a year to reroute the trail.

The PCT gets severed all the time, usually due to wildfires or the occasional newly discovered endangered species ecosystem on the route. But the threat to the Stevens Pass section of the trail underscores the little-known threat from private developers faced by the PCT and other long-distance trails...

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https://www.outsideonline.com/2264601/private-landowner-almost-cut-pct?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Dispatch-11302017&utm_content=Dispatch-11302017+Version+A+CID_d29c2ffec494d26a7c7cc44a090a7f7e&utm_source=campaignmonitor%20outsidemagazine&utm_term=READ%20MORE

How states generate money from the land they own

HCN.org - Full Article

From Arizona to Oregon, states have different tactics to make money off their state trust lands.
Anna V. Smith ANALYSIS Nov. 27, 2017

When Western states joined the Union, the federal government granted them parcels of land in order to provide sustained revenue for public institutions, primarily schools, and to spread democratic ideals in the growing region. Older states, such as California and Oregon, have little acreage left today because they quickly sold off their “trust lands” to generate money — a move that clashed with the federal government’s long-term vision for those lands. So when newer states like Arizona and New Mexico received their trust lands, the federal government, and sometimes the states themselves, placed restrictions on sales, such as minimum prices. Today, these states retain much of their original acreage, and generate money primarily by leasing parcels to developers and the extractive industry. There are 46 million acres of state trust land in the U.S., most of it in the West. Here’s a look at the different approaches Western state take to these lands...

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http://www.hcn.org/issues/49.20/infographic-how-states-generate-money-from-trust-lands?utm_source=wcn1&utm_medium=email

Colorado: Forest seeks comments on Boggy Draw trail plan

The-Journal.com - Full Article

By Jim Mimiaga Journal Staff Writer
Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2017

The Dolores Ranger District is accepting public comments on a preliminary environmental assessment for the Boggy Draw Trails expansion project.

The project would add about 25 miles of nonmotorized trails to the trails system, north of Dolores. The area currently includes 20 miles of motorized trails and 35 miles of nonmotorized trails.

The environmental assessment is available for public review and comment at: bit.ly/Boggytrails...

Read more here:
https://the-journal.com/articles/75924

In Utah, public access to state lands comes at a cost

HCN.org - Full Article

Public access to trust lands varies widely from state to state.

Emily Benson Analysis Nov. 27, 2017

How much is hunting and fishing access to 3.4 million acres of land in Utah worth? Last year, the answer was $776,000. That was the amount the Utah Department of Natural Resources paid another state agency, the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA), to secure public access to state trust lands, granted to Western states by the federal government to generate money for schools and other public institutions.

This fall, however, the deal between the Natural Resources Department and SITLA expired. In negotiating its renewal, SITLA wanted to raise its fee to market rates, estimated at $1.8 to $3.9 million a year for the 1 million acres that have commercial hunting value. If the department didn’t pay up, SITLA seemed ready to lease exclusive access to beloved places like the Book Cliffs — a vast wilderness of rugged bluffs and forested valleys teeming with elk, mule deer and cutthroat trout — to wealthy hunters. Access to prime areas would be scooped up mainly by customers willing to pay thousands of dollars for a single hunt, with only a handful of permits issued through a public lottery.

Kim Christy, SITLA’s deputy director, argued that the agency was merely fulfilling its obligation under the state Constitution to optimize revenue. But many sportsmen saw it differently. Bill Christensen of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation says access to state lands shouldn’t be reserved for the highest bidders. And SITLA’s demands underscored his fears about what could happen should federal lands be transferred to state control: privatization and loss of access...

Read more here:
http://www.hcn.org/issues/49.20/public-lands-in-utah-public-access-to-state-trust-lands-come-at-an-increasing-cost

Breaking Down the Silos - Bridging the barriers between trail user groups

AmericanTrails.org - Full Article

American Trails exists to help the trails community to communicate, share information, and work together to build the strength of our message that trails move the world.

Toward that end, American Trails introduces an ongoing series called “Breaking Down the Silos,” where we discuss the happenings and ideas that help to bridge the barriers between the different trail user groups and bring all members of our trails community together to ensure positive change in our trail world.

Mike Passo, American Trails’ executive director, recently attended the National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council (NOHVCC) Conference in Manchester, NH.

“It was a truly superb event,” Mike said. “While there, I learned a lot about what moves the motorized trail community, what their struggles are, and how other constituency groups can work with NOVHCC.”

Mike hosted an American Trails Town Hall listening session as a part of the conference, and over the course of the weekend, heard several themes emerge around the motorized trail community and its relationship to the rest of the trails world. Below is a synopsis of the themes that arose:

There is a need for a common message that ALL trail constituencies can rally behind. As a coalition of trail organizations, we can develop agreed-upon goals and messaging and promote that vigorously for the betterment of trails as a whole...

Read more here:
http://www.americantrails.org/views/Bridging-barriers-trail-users-Mike-Passo.html

How to Help Keep Horse Trails Open – California's Reyes Creek Horse Camp

Trailmeister.com - Full Article

July 3 2017
by Robert Eversole

Paradise. For some that’s an image of a tropical beach, for me, it’s a dirt trail that twists and meanders to a backcountry camp deep in the wilderness. It’s a quiet solitude punctuated by the peaceful clip clop of hooves and the far scream of an eagle aloft. It’s the sweet perfume of pine on a warm summer day. It’s the companionship of a trusted horse who will faithfully take you home.

Unfortunately, in a growing number of cases paradise is padlocked.

In only a few short generations we’ve “improved” a lot of backcountry and rural areas into suburbia and shopping malls. Trail Closed signs are both dreaded and unfortunately frequently encountered. Least we lose them, we’d better take care of the equine friendly country that remains. Paradise needs protecting.

You don’t have to be a trail rider, or even have your own horse, to recognize the importance of conserving horse trails. There are many things that each of us can do to preserve equine trails. Here’s one easy thing that you and I can do to help keep our trails open.

Avoid Wet Trails

I count this under the headings of both good stewardship and good relations with other trail users.

Rain will be in the forecast. Throughout the spring season, trails tend to be more saturated and hold more water, sometimes taking days to dry. Simply put, if mud or wet trail is sticking to your shoe or your horse’s shoes, you should turn around.

I understand that “stuff” happens. Through either bad circumstance or poor judgment, we’ve all found ourselves in situations and on trails we shouldn’t have been on. I‘m not here to place blame, or be a trail Nazis, but simply to spread awareness and encourage everyone to be considerate trail users. After all, these are our trails, paid for largely by our tax dollars, donations, and volunteer labor. It’s up to us to protect and sustain them for years to come.

Here are two reasons not to ride wet trails...

Read more here:
https://www.trailmeister.com/how-to-help-keep-horse-trails-open-reyes-creek-horse-camp/?cat=1