These are long overdue reforms. The states east of the mississippi did not have the lionshare of their land retained by the federal government when they became states. West of the river is a different story. With the federal government owning 2/3rds of the land in the west, things are way out of whack.
Are they? A huge portion of my state is federal or state park land, and people flock to these places to get away from the cities and the suburbs. If Lee had his way, the federal government could start selling lands in places like Mount Rainier National Park or the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. These areas host numerous trailheads, picnic areas, campgrounds, and the like.
I can't help but agree with the author of the article, that Lee just wants to sell these lands off to rich people who will deny access. We have a long history in Washington of exploring the Cascades and the Olympics and I want that to continue for the foreseeable future. These lands are the birthright of our children and we should steward them as such.
Having moved from the seattle area to the state of maryland, the lack of parks and public land feels very depressing. You drive by giant majestic horse pastures, but the parks are so small that you can still hear cars driving by.
Worse: We don't have the right to roam[1] here in the US and given how trigger-happy people are, the more land is privatized the more dangerous it is to explore.
I think "nature" in this article refers to actual natural treasures (Grand Staircase, Yosemite, etc.), not just some random forest on some rolling hills.
I don't think the Blue Ridge Mountains count as rolling hills, and I would count them among our national treasures.
That being said, the fact is that WV's natural resources have been subjected to some of the most profound (and least regulated) economic exploitation in the country. So I don't think the GP's point is correct.
Can you expand on this? I genuinely don't understand the "poor people are adjacent to trees" statement in the context of an entire country. Like genuinely this sounds like solid comedy unless I'm missing something here.
That's weird. A very large chunk of poor people I've met live in urban areas, and if they don't, often lack the time or resources to do those things. I must know a special type of poor person that OP hasn't bumped into.
I grew up in the northern end of Appalachia, with a lot of people that had less than an acre their doublewide sat on. Nothing stopped them using the ponds and lakes, the trail systems, or the technically private but defacto public access swathes of paper company land.
Not only did they use them for recreation, they often hunted for food. Technically illegal out of season, but national forest rangers tend to look the other way if you're hunting for sustenance, since those same poachers often would blow the whistle on more serious issues. (Illegal waste dumping, marijuana grows that abuse the forest with chemicals, meth labs that might explode and start fires, etc)
Plus as a practical matter, if someone takes one shot at a deer then moves regardless of success, it's pretty much impossible to pinpoint where the shot came from.
It's interesting because in Europe fishing has become an expensive pastime - that might prove the OP's point. When on vacation in Cape Cod I was pleased that fishing rights in sweetwater seem to be some kind of common property. In Europe it's state property that is licensed to private associations that sell things like daily permits which amount to around 15 to 30 euros.
And the fact that it has vast natural resources is part of why it's poor. If you can forage a meal of morels, trout, and ramps, what's the point of earning a lot of money to go to fancy restaurants? It's not like you're going to get a better meal than that even by dropping a couple hundred bucks in NYC. So you end up with lots of people who living on large parcels of inherited land but not making very much money per year, because that is actually somewhat sustainable, at least until it comes time for retirement or (more likely) you have medical issues that you can't afford to pay for.
West Virginia is precisely an example of only the wealthy enjoying nature.
The wealthy retreat to Greenbrier or go skiing at Snowshoe Mountain.
All the while, the working class turn to nature to build squatter camp in the summer to pinch and save for winter shelter since the mines went out of business. In many valleys (not the wealthy ones), nature cannot even provide decent water, the result of contamination from modern top chop mining (by the wealthy). Things have only deteriorated recently, unless you consider not dying young of black lung disease “enjoying nature”.
Well, the wealthy get to take time off of work to go camping and hiking, and the poor people get to dynamite the hills their ancestors settled. Surely they're equivalent.
I’m not an expert on top chopping but I’m pretty sure the employment opportunities for local residents are slim to none and that’s the whole point. I went to school in North Carolina where about a 2 mile drive around the side of a mountain would bring us to an overlook of a valley full of peaks that we gradually watched disappear over those 3 years I was there. The machinery was utterly massive. I think the logging crews employed more people than the earth movers but I think logging on those hillsides qualifies as one of the most deadly jobs in America. They made a TV show about it.
At any rate, spring is here, even in London N1, and they can't stop you enjoying it. This is a satisfying reflection. How many a time have I stood watching the toads mating, or a pair of hares having a boxing match in the young corn, and thought of all the important persons who would stop me enjoying this if they could. But luckily they can't. So long as you are not actually ill, hungry, frightened or immured in a prison or a holiday camp, spring is still spring. The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it.
—from 'Some Thoughts on the Common Toad' by George Orwell. Highly recommend.
Users flagged it, presumably because they didn't think it followed the site guidelines. Hard to say if they were reacting to the article or the thread. Divisive topics like this pretty much always turn into flamewars unless they include significant new information for the mind to chew on.
38 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 91.5 ms ] threadI can't help but agree with the author of the article, that Lee just wants to sell these lands off to rich people who will deny access. We have a long history in Washington of exploring the Cascades and the Olympics and I want that to continue for the foreseeable future. These lands are the birthright of our children and we should steward them as such.
1.https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/right-to-roam/
That being said, the fact is that WV's natural resources have been subjected to some of the most profound (and least regulated) economic exploitation in the country. So I don't think the GP's point is correct.
*this is a joke and if you want to argue that i'm implying that everyone in West Virginia is homeless, bless your heart
Source: Grew up broke hillbilly
I grew up in the northern end of Appalachia, with a lot of people that had less than an acre their doublewide sat on. Nothing stopped them using the ponds and lakes, the trail systems, or the technically private but defacto public access swathes of paper company land.
Plus as a practical matter, if someone takes one shot at a deer then moves regardless of success, it's pretty much impossible to pinpoint where the shot came from.
West Virginia is precisely an example of only the wealthy enjoying nature.
The wealthy retreat to Greenbrier or go skiing at Snowshoe Mountain.
All the while, the working class turn to nature to build squatter camp in the summer to pinch and save for winter shelter since the mines went out of business. In many valleys (not the wealthy ones), nature cannot even provide decent water, the result of contamination from modern top chop mining (by the wealthy). Things have only deteriorated recently, unless you consider not dying young of black lung disease “enjoying nature”.
At any rate, spring is here, even in London N1, and they can't stop you enjoying it. This is a satisfying reflection. How many a time have I stood watching the toads mating, or a pair of hares having a boxing match in the young corn, and thought of all the important persons who would stop me enjoying this if they could. But luckily they can't. So long as you are not actually ill, hungry, frightened or immured in a prison or a holiday camp, spring is still spring. The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it.
—from 'Some Thoughts on the Common Toad' by George Orwell. Highly recommend.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html