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Show CHAPTER ONE Where and What Are Public Lands? THE Commission's task has been a challenging one. The Congress of the United States has charged it with reviewing, in the light of contemporary conditions, laws, policies, practices, and procedures affecting the public lands, which constitute nearly one-third of the area of the Nation. The Act creating the Commission declared that the Nation's public lands should be retained and managed, or disposed of, all in a manner to provide the maximum benefit for the general public. This goal has been the Commission's objective. In the process of developing its conclusions and recommendations, its members have constantly applied John Ruskin's admonition: "God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us ... as to us; and we have no right, by anything we do or neglect, to involve them in any unnecessary penalties, or to deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath." 1 In the 100 years after the United States became a Nation, it was presented with an unparalleled opportunity by the acquisition of lands. Seven of the original states ceded their western lands to the Federal Government. These lands generally included those between the original states and the Mississippi River. Following this, the acquisition of the lands between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean and finally the acquisition of Alaska in 1867 provided the United States with a vast area of largely unsettled lands that in the main had not been committed to private ownership or use. The acquisition of these lands and the desire to dispose of them to encourage settlement of the West took place just at the time that the railroad was making it possible to open these lands to settlement 1 The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 8 Works of John Ruskin 233 (E. T. Cook and A. Wedderburn, ed. 1903). and use. And the lands generally were rich in resources and productive for farming so that it was possible to settle the West. The policy of making these lands available to those who would develop them must be judged as highly successful. In good part because of this policy, the United States now has the highest standard of living of any nation on the earth. But not all of the Federal lands were suitable for development and not all of them have been made available for development. Some of the lands were too dry for farming and some of the high mountain lands were also unsuited to farming. And much of Alaska was unsuitable for farming. Other lands, the national forests and national parks, were reserved from disposition under the settlement laws in order to meet other objectives of the Federal Government. The Lands and Their Administration The remaining public domain in Federal ownership together with additional areas of acquired national forest and wildlife refuge lands total nearly 725 million acres.2 These lands, which have been assigned by Congress to this Commission for review, cover an area equal to the size of India. In addition, the Commission has considered the laws, policies, and practices governing some 20 million acres of land acquired for the National Park System, land utilization project lands, and other areas which, for various reasons, were deemed similar to those within the Commission's mandate. Nearly 700 million acres of the original public domain, lands that were never transferred from Federal ownership, remain as part of our public lands. 2 The distribution of public lands throughout the United States is shown for each major category of lands on the map folded in this report. 19 |
