LETTER: Why land policy needs to change
Tony Johnson’s response to my letter relative to the issue of state control of public lands illuminates the culture of fear generated from a lack of facts and perspective so wanting in our discussion today. Money is not the issue. Through proper management and use of our natural resources, revenue should not only cover expenses; it should exceed them.
Over the last 60 years the federal government has devastated our forests, our cities and our infrastructure through the mismanagement of our natural resources. The feds have decreased revenues and let expenses grow exponentially while turning Lincoln County and surrounding counties into areas with high unemployment and decreasing opportunities for their citizens while making hundreds of thousands of acres of land inaccessible by gating roads and/or actively destroying them.
I estimate about 75 percent of the cost of management of our forest lands comes from two areas: fighting fires and fighting far-left environmental lawsuits. By allowing the use of scientific logging methods to emulate natural processes, the state could raise the amount of revenue from our lands dramatically while at the same time decreasing the amount of forest fires, thereby reducing those expenditures greatly. In addition, laws must be changed to radically reduce the expense of these needless lawsuits. But this can’t happen tomorrow. The feds have taken over 50 years to create this mess, and it would take at least two decades before the proper techniques could be implemented. But the benefits to our citizenry would be immense.
My stance is not the wrong side of this issue — not if you are for healthy forests, less forest fires, more wildlife habitat, better hunting, local control, good jobs, a vibrant community, superior educational facilities, clean air and increased access to our forest lands. Without a doubt, we, the citizens of the state of Montana can do a better job managing our public lands than the federal government.
—Mark Agather, Kalispell