A Possible 'Third Way' To Use Wild Lands
According to a Juliet Eilperin article in the Washington Post, a recent U.S. Forest Service study predicted that more than 44 million acres of private forest, an area twice the size of Maine, will be sold over the next 25 years.
She goes on to report that the consulting firm U.S. Forest Capital estimates that half of all U.S. timberland has changed hands in the past decade. The Bush administration is in there swinging from the heels as well, thirsting to sell off forest land by auctioning more than 300,000 acres of our National Forest to fund a rural school program.
It’s been said that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
The Bush sell off certainly follows similar logic in getting rid of a national asset to fund a short-term shortfall, in schools of all things. One wonders what would be next? Advertising banners on the Washington Monument to fund No Child Left Behind?
But what’s happening to private timber sales is not only interesting, it opens up a kind of ‘third way’