Watch 'em very closely!!! Then do what is necessary in the circumstance...
6
Do some research into the Wilks brothers religious beliefs. Scary.
28
In China the state owns all the land. The land belongs to "the people". No private ownership allowed. Land is leased out for use under term limits. China can build brand new infrastructures like high speed train networks, roads, bridges, airports and even cities so fast that no other western countries can match. It is all because of their unique political system.
That's just one of the advantages of the Chinese model, which is impossible to copy. China will be foolish to adopt western democracy based on universal suffrage. Let the greedy barons and village idiots make vital decisions? Brexit, anyone? Donald Trump, anyone? Americans are so brainwashed by their flawed democracy ideology they can only see China's blemishes. Let them be.
Too bad Canada is in the same predicament. Well, at least we have universal single payer healthcare.
20
The Wilkses should read the Bible more closely on what the Heavenly Father says about being generous in spirit and being a land owner. “"And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God."”
Leviticus 23:22
They also are not celebrating the Spirit of the West and are contributing to the gentrification and demise of America the Beautiful.
27
Is there any limits to the corruption??
15
Some readers need to rethink their comments on National Forest land being “protected”. It’s not. When the US govt pushed through the railroads in the 1800’s, the agreed to “gift” a section of land to the railroads for every mile of track they built. (One section = 640 acres) if you doubt this, just pull up a map of any national forest in the western US. It looks like a checkerboard. And the land gifted to the railroads? They spun that land off to companies like Cascade and Plum Creek who then clear cut every acre while the Forest Service (i.e. taxpayers) got shafted for all of the roads and infrastructure it took to remove those logs, creating an environmental disaster that continues to this day.
22
“John earned everything that he’s made,” said Rye Austin...“If he wants to purchase and own land, we live in a capitalist country, why shouldn’t someone be able to buy land? That’s the whole concept of private property.”
Rye Austin is gliding over facts, and getting it past the NYTimes. Mr. Malone is the largest voting shareholder of Liberty Media. He is Libertarian in outlook and supports the Cato Institute to further such views. Yet the Atlanta Braves' move to SunTrust Stadium is an example of a publicly funded stadium benefitting a privately owned sports team. Mr. Malone claims Libertarianism, but LIberty steered public wealth to raise the value of his sports holding. By stealth.
He made his fortune largely in cable TV. Your entertainment circuses paid for Mr. Malone's bread.
How will Carpenter v Murphy, an Oklahoma case, impact this land concentration problem? Amicus briefs were filed by Nebraska, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Wyoming, and Paul R. LePage, Governor of Maine. Clearly, other states are concerned about land repatriation to First Nations.
Which of these extensive land holdings are at risk of repatriation to First Nations? Who will bear those costs?
Privatizing gains, these political theorists are Libertarians only when it suits them.
Ms. Turkewitz, please expand on your article.
30
Rich people ruin everything.
28
They need mote Republican tax cuts to help them
7
The Wilks brothers are greedy, pure and simple. Phony Christians. They should sell everything they have and give to the poor. Otherwise, they deserve the scorn of their neighbors. All the money in the world can’t buy them class, or gain them entry to the Kingdom.
25
These people disgust me. There’s nothing more inspiring than to be able to enjoy the beauty of nature freely. It’s something I feel a higher power has bestowed on me. Why should some fat cat impose on me this way?
11
Why does “There Will Be Blood” come to mind?
19
The problem with kind of reporting is the incompleteness of the story. Forty two million acres is a lot of land for 100 owning families however it is still only 2.3% of the 1,875.714 million acres that comprise the US. How does the times count a family? Some of the "wealthy" families could include many individual owners.
4
This is going to make me sound like a paranoid conspiracy nut, but why are very wealthy people buying up huge swaths of land with ready supplies of water and game and fuel, and hiring armed guards to keep the public far away?
32
Look, You conservatives want the wealthy to have control of the land that they can purchase. You aren’t socialists, so you lack the tools to confront them. So just let them control the land.
“Mr. Horting, a lifelong conservative, was ‘insulted,” he said. “I’m not going to give my political views to use your land.’”
Well, Mr. Horting, welcome to conservatism. Your “use of the land” is dependent on the owners’ wishes. Didn’t you know this?
12
simple solution: raise taxes
11
What is legal in America is what should embarrass and shame Americans.
One example is the federal income tax code provides deductions, credits, subsidies and lower tax rates.
But only for certain industries, individuals, sources of income, transactions, business entity structures, contracts and securities favored by special interests lobbyists buying legislative, executive and judicial corrupt crony capitalist corporate plutocrat oligarch welfare complicity, conspiracy and coordination.
Another example is the continuing dire socioeconomic, political, educational and historical pliight of the heirs of brown Native 1st ' Americans' and black Africans enslaved in America.
No Americans ever worked harder and longer for less return than enslaved and separate and unequal black African Americans. See ' The Half Has Never Been Told; Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism" Edward Baptist
No Americans ever had more of their land, lives and natural resources stolen than brown Native American pioneers. See " Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee' Dee Brown ; ' The Invasion of America' Edward S. Jennings.
The colonial conquering enslaving criminal culprits in both crimes against humanity were white European Judeo- Christians.
12
Sounds like fleas fighting over who owns the dog.
1
Beware billionaires who claim God wanted them to be.
22
There is nothing stopping people from pooling their money together and buying other public or privately owned lands that are for sale themselves...
Just go to the website the Wilks have which some of the lands are forsake at reasonable prices. One property in Idaho for 30 acres bordering public lands is for sale for around $92,000
https://www.wilksranchbrokers.com/property/31-5-acres-near-cascade/
2
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
16
This is what neo-serfdom looks like. First, they kick you off your own land. Then they make you rent what was formerly yours. Conservatism and Religion are now the same: Eviction - no trespassing; exclusive - there's something morally wrong with you if you don't agree with us; and, eliminating - I'll use my wealth and power to make you powerless.
10
Don’t vote for the billionaire Republican Party and this kind of thing won’t happen...
11
This was probably asked in the comments, but the article never makes it clear or talks about it. Who is selling the land and at what price? the U.S. Government? Are these people getting rock bottom prices? ... The United States.. the big bully banana republic
10
Human access to land and wildlife has never benefited land and wildlife.
So there is your answer.
Let the Land be tied up and let the land be.
Just let the Land Be.
That means you stay off of it if you are just getting your kicks from it and not respecting it.
Or else, go make a few hundred million and buy a spread.
Let us be clear, very clear, humans do not benefit nature.
Thank God we too shall pass and the land has plenty of time to witness that happen.
Michael Bain
Glorieta, New Mexico
2
“God blessed the Wilkes’s and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every square mile of Idaho.” And thus it was so.
3
I am reminded of the verse in Woody Guthrie’s song, “This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land”:
As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said “No Trespassing”
But on the other side it didn’t say nothing
That side was made for you and me
7
This article would make the reader believe that their is no public land for citizens to use in Idaho or other western states. Here's a fact from the Idaho Conservation League:
"Over 60% of Idaho is public land and belongs to you and all U.S. citizens, by birthright. Idaho is blessed with over 34 millions of acres of public lands – out of a total of 53 million acres – administered by the federal government for the benefit of all Americans."
The writer doesn't share all the facts, just enough to paint the picture that supports her agenda and the Times agenda, e.g., "these wealthy landowners are keeping people off their property." The citizens have another 34 million acres of public land (in Idaho alone) to visit if they want to go outside.
5
What I find most disturbing about the religious wealthy conservative is their confidence that God gave them their wealth because they are better then others. It is obvious that to them it follows that their every action is righteous. Because God would not have granted them their wealth otherwise right? They are so arrogant. None of them seem to consider that their wealth is a test, not a preemptive reward, and that they might be failing it miserably.
15
Family that has built its fortune on destroying the land and the water via fracking feels a “responsibility” to the land. Their hypocrisy is astounding because they are so blind to it.
Want to do something with your ill gotten gains, go restore the aquifers that you polluted with millions of gallons of chemicals.
14
They are very pious about protecting their “God-given” land, especially for people who made their fortune through the land and water devastation process called fracking.
12
This is another aspect of the greater issue of the accelerating rate of wealth inequality in the U.S. The wealthy and powerful use their wealth and power to gain more wealth and power.
And yes, this is indeed a zero-sum game. The more wealth and power they get for themselves, the less the rest of us have, especially the lower 90 percent. This does not benefit the United States as a whole. It steadily puts more and more of this country in the hands of the few.
There's an old joke that a conservative is a liberal who got mugged. Maybe an Idaho liberal is a conservative whose state was just bought up and put off-limits by a greedy oligarch claiming that it's God's will.
2
A simple Google search reveals that Valley County has $13mm a year in revenues and runs a budget surplus. The county can afford to build other access to the national forest....or file eminent domain proceeding to acquire public use of the road that was closed.
Nothing the Wilkes have done appears to be illegal....but not closing off the road could subject them to a permanent easement by proscription.
2
In Europe, where for eons vast estates were owned by the One Percent, governments have ruled that the land must be available to hikers and hunters. Similarly, in California, the government has decreed that landowners cannot block access to the beaches, which are public. This is how the rights of property owners and the public are balanced, and it's always an uneasy compromise. If you own land in Umbria, you can expect truffle hunters with their dogs or hogs and their shovels. If you have property in the Dordogne, a hunter might mistake your dog or cat for prey. If you have a multimillion-dollar home in Malibu, surfers will cut across your land to get to the waves they crave. And if you have an apartment in New York City, you have a lot of neighbors. We share our common space. Now some people--I guess the Wilkses are among them--really don't like to share. Laws can be enacted that compel them to share, but I doubt that red states will enact such laws.
7
If I had land I’d keep the Snowmobiles out too.
4
It will be interesting to see how this progresses. So many western states want to take federal lands and administer them at the state or county level. What happens when those lands then get sold to the Wilks and their ilk? Hope these folks like living in the suburbs.
2
I'm glad these billionaires are removing millions of acres from exploitation and despoiling by the current population. This helps to balance out the Trump administration releasing even larger amounts of public land for commercial exploitation. Whatever became of the ideal of preserving the land for future generations? These billionaires are using some of their wealth to serve those future generations. It's private action for the public good.
2
I am a little conflicted about this. On one hand, I do appreciate what they are doing to preserve the lands beauty for future generations. Maybe they had a change of heart about resource extraction? On the other, I feel bad for the people who have used those lands for generations. In the eyes of the law, property is property, but they would be wise to compromise to avoid local nasty politics.
So thank you now we know that people of wealth or purchasing huge lots of our mountains and recreational areas. What are you failed to inform us of is who sold them the land and how did they obtain the rights to do so. This, to me, is more alarming than the land purchases.
2
Napa Valley... millionaires taking over the valley and deforesting and securing water for their private vineyards, wineries, mcmansions. And political leaders in this town "bought" by big money. Halls: one family greedy. Own most of the Dallas Cowboys and are from Texas and rival Trump in millions. They say they want to "buy up as much land as possible"... They h lawyers who will do their dirty work and sue and sue. Read James Conway's NAPA IN LAST LIGHT to understand Napa's underbelly. My holistic ranch and old family (since 1919 our property has been secured and we are middle class). Please spread the news. The Guardian (west coast director) stayed at our house and reported on this valley. Other journalists have stayed here as well, journalists from all over the world. My son is a photojournalist and worked for SF Chronicle, the Guardian, etc. Chinese 20 and 30 year olds have the money to buy up the valley too. Nothing like a new hotel in the valley and cost of room will be $1000 nightly. And do we need all these expensive hotels when people cannot afford to live here and most of the workers like the fieldworkers (shortage now and bussed in from 3 hours away in Marysville etc) live elsewhere. Napa is no longer middle class like when I grew up and my mother (90) did too. We need to save this valley. Most oliticians here do not believe in climate change. The Farm bureau (mostly vineyard owners. etc) is against Vision 2050, our watchdog group of environmentalists.
3
"We want to be good neighbors,” Mr. Wilks said. “I know some people think we haven’t been, just because we haven’t let them freely roam across our property as they saw fit. But I’ll also offer: Do you want me camping in your front yard?”
--------------------------
The argument is based on false premises. There is a inconceivable difference between camping in someone's front yard compared to camping on someone's 750,000 acres of natural, undeveloped lands.
This article frames the estate tax question that Americans prefer not to discuss: who owns the natural lands and is that ownership in perpetuity? Justin's father made good fracking lands to recover energy out of rock crevices. Justin is claiming a 'right of kings' to own and share lands and treasury among the few.
The reality is that American estate taxes are insufficient to level the playing field between generations of land barons. On the present course, only the wealthiest residents of the U.S. have a right to acquire America's public domain. Arguments that begin with the assumption that if 'so and so' can become successful, so can you. And you too can acquire vast lands for your family. It's called 'wishful thinking'. Most of America's wealthiest residents engage in the royal privilege as a right of succession in the absence of a strong leader of rebellion. The core issue remains.
Thomas Piketty's 'Capital' is a good place to start thinking about the future result of long-term advantages of wealthy families.
2
I started to read this story and got to the point in the article where private landowners are restricting access either through or onto their property. It reminded me of the situation here in the Southwestern Catskills where large landowners have posted no trespass signs on miles and miles of blue ribbon fishing streams. Who needs that much land for their own personal enjoyment. In a region so economically depressed for a private entity to restrict access to fishing streams when every sport fisherman who visits spends money in the local economy is ludicrous. Mind you I am not talking about streams buried in someone’s private property I am talking about water abutting a public road. How can someone own access to streams a few feet from the road?
The wealthy in this country do not pay their fair share of taxes and it’s costing the rest of us our ability to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.
This is not democracy but rather plutocracy which is an elite or ruling class of people whose power derives from their wealth.
12
Some make billions and found universities or hospitals or foundations to help the poor or advance knowledge. All people are complex and flawed, but we remember these people (Stanford, Carnegie, Ford, Gates, Sloane...) for their real patriotism. Then there are those who try to establish private kingdoms, are despised for it, then forgotten when their descendants sell off the land.
4
So when the forest fires that have crisped much of the forest land in the West roar through their properties, will the Wilks brothers demand that state and national firefighters protect their private property?
10
Suppose the story was about people who traversed the Wilks property on ATV’s or snowmobiles and were injured or killed doing so? Would the Wilks be considered liable? If yes, then they have every right to deny access. If the state or county wants people to be able to cross the land they should negotiate easements or purchase those rights.
1
This guy below nailed it. Language is a powerful tool when used to manipulate the masses.This has absolutely nothing to do with conservation. This is all about crony capitalism and buying politicians to acquire land for further exploitation in the mineral/resource-rich western US. I am a Montana native. I have seen this over and over again here under the name of "conservation". It has nothing to do with conservation. It is all about exploitation.
Richard Boritz
Southbury, CT1h ago
The Wilkses profess to be concerned about the land and claim that they are limiting access to preserved it. That will last only until the geologists and surveyors they hire discover the value of the minerals buried underground. Then they will claim the rights that owning private property bestows on them as the heavy equipment they bring in builds the paved roads needed to transport their wealth to market. If they were truly interested in the value of undeveloped land then they would have already contacted the Sierra Club and shared their vision with neighbors.
One can imagine the day when all the wealth has been extracted from the land and they abandon it to the public to pay the cost of rehabilitating it.
5
Virginia Beach - Memorial Day weekend 2019 - beach party-goers left several thousand tons of trash and garbage. The city cleaned it up and it will no doubt happen again on July 4th. The general public feels their city/town/state taxes gives them the privilege of using public property. They have and will continue to abuse those privileges. They would do the same on private property. Cutting off access to a public road is against the law and should be enforced. Property owners have the right to keep these abusers out.
6
Never depend on a benevolent king...or a benevolent CEO, or on the benevolence of someone who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, crawled to the top and is feeling righteous and triumphant. This is end-run capitalism and was inevitable. It's a pity that our democracy is not strong enough, not real and true enough to keep public/private interests in balance. Probably, it never really was. Possession is 9 tenths of the law.
11
Never were truer words published. So many people have moved out to our area that our community has been overrun by "investors" in small tract homes and other deep pocket people. The local school is actively trying to tax people that have lived here for generations out of the area in favor of people that can support them in a manner in which they'd like to become accustomed to while treating long time residents like ignorant deplorables. People gambling on land appreciation who'll be leaving as soon as they can cash in will leave our area in a shambles of over priced homes with swimming pools in the desert and problems they drug with them from the cities they came from. They're basically spoiled children lost in group think and greed. They're here to get as much as they can out of our area, not be part of our community. My only hope is a serious economic downturn takes the weapon of money away from them and everyone becomes a lot more equal.
5
They need to stop reading Praguer. That and all the neocon nonsense is poison. They should start reading real conservatives like Wendell Berry and The Abbeville Institute and The Imaginative Conservative and Chronicles and The 12 Southerners and Kirk and Chesterton. Aristocracy can’t be avoided. Should it be? I do know that it can have its affections properly ordered. That won’t come from American Evangelicalism.
5
if the fracking brothers believe they have a 'responsibility to the land' they should immediately stop fracking and start investing in renewable energy that doesn't poison it.
26
Who are they buying the lands from? At what price?
6
Is this about conservation or conservation easements?
3
“We want to be good neighbors,” Mr. Wilks said. “I know some people think we haven’t been, just because we haven’t let them freely roam across our property as they saw fit. But I’ll also offer: Do you want me camping in your front yard?”
I sure don't want fracking in my back yard!
11
No doubt some of these right wing billionaires are creating their own versions of Ayn Rand’s fantasy “Galt’s Gulch”, where the billionaires of Atlas Shrugged took shelter while they engineered the collapse of human civilization for everyone else, planning to re-emerge as overlords ruling over the few survivors. If you control aquifers and watersheds in the age of climate change, although the media you control deny it, you’ll have a lot of leverage.
11
If my front yard were a few thousands acres and your parents and their parents had spent their lives camping and fishing on it, I wouldn’t mind letting you camp and fish there, too.
8
I am shocked, shocked to find out that the 1% are throwing their weight around.
Wake up, red states— they are not on your side, and they are there in part to capture electoral college votes.
10
‘“John earned everything that he’s made’”. So did John sequester the carbon for millions of years? Did John cross the Bering Strait? Did those natives who first settled not first earn the mineral rights John leveraged? Did poor Americans earn a volatile climate and acidified oceans as a result of the fracking boom feeding a corrupt energy market? Didn’t think so. John didn’t earn a cent.
15
Yeah, the guys who made billions with their fracking technology that resulted in much environmental harm are now talking as if they are great conservationists.
8
The Wilks likely have the grim reaper(aka Mr. McConnell) on speed dial. I often hear republicans say they love the outdoors but you cannot vote republican if you are pro-environment.
Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.
Cree proverb
Vote for the environment
9
In much of civilized Europe privately owned land--farms and forests--is laced with public access, rights of way--for hiking, cycling, horse riding.
Of course tourism is more important there than in the North American wilderness--where you won't stumble across a Roman road or the remains of a castle. Public access is good business--well maintained, mapped and regulated.
But it also bridged the gap between private/public, haves/havenots--variations on the old nobles/commoners-serfs.
'Civilization' is from Latin's 'civis' (city); they are high density polities requiring regulation, coordination, cooperation and much public infrastructure--utilities and services. All bridges between haves and havenots.
These new landlords seem to enjoy most keeping the riffraff off their property. The moneylords are morphing into feudal "landlords"--but with a vengeance. Serfs were like trees and animals--they "went with" the land. The new big thrill will soon be hunting poachers.
American Democracy devolves into Aristocracy. Oh well--it lasted longer than Athenian democracy--which (people forget) was a slave based economy--almost half the population were slaves. But even there/then--it was more integration than segregation and exclusion.
6
I hope those who cheered the gutting of the National Monuments recall the old adage: “Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.”
Back in the mid-2000s a group of "investors" were determined to build a 3,200 acre, four mile long so-called "eco-resort" here in Maine, adjacent to Acadia National Park, replete with 1,000 homes, two hotels and an 18-hole golf course. Schoodic Peninsula is about as pristine and scenic as it gets in the world, and in Maine. The residents and local conservation groups galvanized and shut them down. It helps when you have the Rockefellers, without whom the Park might never have been founded, on your side.
3
At least these new property barons ought to be hit with suitable property taxes.
Frackers say, " “our Heavenly Father has blessed us with lots of gifts,” and his family’s priority was to protect them.
Are they referring to the Nature's wonders or to their own excessive wealth?
Ted Turner also reportedly owns enormous swaths of land in the U.S.
This land ain't your land. This land ain't my land. From California to the New York islands. From the Gulf Stream waters, to the redwood forests, this land was not made for you and me.
It's the attitude too: go see the website and state what your views are.....then we'll see if we'll let you on the trail.
And they're for Cruz, Trump and the likes of those destroyers of America.
Frackers, all.
6
Check out Edith Macefield’s home in Seattle. Here in Chicago, a single story, small building housing a restaurant declined to sell to accommodate developers who wanted the entire block for high rise towers.
Everyone loves money. Not everyone is willing to get punked by some rich dude for it.
3
This is how the 1% are going to protect themselves in the future from the hordes of unwashed masses. They don't plan to share what is left of our globe after the majority of land and water is despoiled.
7
It's ironic that these people (conservatives) in these RED states have to fight for their rights against bigger, richer, more powerful right wing conservatives. Good Luck!
5
Little of this is a surprise given the very long coverage given to Ted Turner, Ralph Lauren, and the Koch Brothers, nor is it at all a revelation that environmental groups such as the Nature Conservancy is cozy with such owners. The environmental community was always ambivalent about public ownership, and it has grown ever more tolerant--even enthusiastic--about privatization since the neoliberal turn of the 1960s. What this piece does not answer is whether the Wilks and other owners are paying taxes on those lands, and to what extent is large ownership carrying the same weight as smallholders in supporting local and state social services?
5
The Wilkses remind me of Lex Luther from Superman... buying huge parcels of land now for the benefit of their heirs. Once the effects of climate change begin to manifest and insurance companies no longer insure coastal property, this interior land will be valuable -- not to mention the timber, cooler climate and water that will be the new gold.
6
It is a little odd to me that this article does not spend more time exploring the idea that wealthy people are buying this land as protection against climate change--a phenomenon that many of them made money contributing to. As wealthy people are able to buy up and hoard resources--and buy up local and state legislators to do their bidding, as the Wilks brothers clearly did in Idaho--what we are witnessing is the drawing of battle lines in the fight for resources that is only a few decades away. Those of us in the middle class--to say nothing of poor and low-income people--do not have the financial resources to prepare for the dire future we face, and government is becoming increasingly de-sensitized to the demands of anyone without deep pockets. A future in which a few hundred wealthy families and their private armies control significant necessary resources may not be as far away as we'd like to think.
11
Land is but one of many assets held disproportionately by the very few. Land, machinery, intellectual property, housing, infrastructure, and even fresh water are every increasingly owned by the few.
5
Living in Idaho where people think they can do anything and are perfectly willing to destroy things (including my property) - I think getting some checks and balances in place is a good thing. So many people here are totally willing to destroy the land and do not think about what needs to be here for future generations.
Change is not always easy - but if people are not willing to respect land and property and destroy them- then what these very rich people are doing is fabulous - protect things for our children,their children,their children...
2
Frackers who are concerned about the health of the land? That is truly rich.
And rich is exactly what private-property rights is all about. Billionaires don’t invest in millions of acres because they care about pristine watersheds and abundant wildlife in healthy ecosystems for coming generations. Resource extraction is the long term game plan, not love of the land, or of their neighbors.
And what will be the scarcest resource of all in a densely overpopulated, climate ravaged world? Land. Mega property owners will own the planet as their “private” property, and the other 9 billion people will be huddled together on the fringes of their property lines, fighting to pay top dollar for 300 square feet to put up a tent.
Other than a handful of billionaires or trillionaires, the ragged flag wavers who fell for the “property rights” party line will have to eat their flags for dinner.
7
I don’t understand. Who are the people who are selling this land to these billionaires? Why aren’t they being identified and why aren’t they stewarding the land and why are they selling it?
2
In Scandinavia you are allowed to hike and collect berries or mushrooms even on a private land. It is called "everyman's rights". You are however, not allowed to drive a snowmobile without the owner's permission but you can set up a tent for short term usage (but not light a an open fire without permission). This is very different to USA, where trespassing is a big thing, although even in Scandinavia you are not allowed to get too close to residences. But USA, like scandinavia, has very large open tracts of land where no-one will disturb anybody. It would be great to have "every man/woman rights" also there, but of course it is not going to happen...
6
Since the rich and powerful have already bought the government the rest have to follow. That's only fair.
1
it isn't just the pristine wilderness. those who have so much money have to put it somewhere. Sean Hannity and Steve Mnuchin buy homes. so that people must rent. purchasers of homes compete with investors. this is where policy and laws make a difference. and we decide who reaps the benefits and advantages.
2
With a seeming near-total lack of national leadership and/or millionaires and grifters in our highest offices, with corrupt local leadership, plus patriarchal religious fundamentalism, along with pretty much no sense of a commons, reverence for the natural world, or taking care of one another among our populace, I genuinely fear for our futures in this country.
8
In Myrtle Beach SC there is a homestead freeze on the valuation of your home, as long as it is your only residence. If you have anywhere a second residence you are taxed on the current tax rate and valuation.
If you inherit a house you have one year to sell any other houses in whatever state you are living in and move into your family’s home and keep the homesteader home at its original valuation. If you choose to maintain your home in NYC and your new, inherited home in MB, then you pay the current assessed value of this new home.
On one hand I very much understand how the ‘owners’ felt about hunters and ATVs.
My stepfather had 1/4 of a partnership with three other men of 2500 acres of land in Eastern Washington than ran from the Columbia River up to wheat fields and timber.
I was standing with my stepfather Don Opalka and holding the hand of my 18 month old daughter when 9 men on 9 ATVs cut our wire and from 900m dropped a round within a foot of the feet of my daughter and signaled us to leave. (Our land was clearly posted, no trespassing, no bunting without permission of the owners.)
We did. And we called all our neighbors. Several weeks later we had detectives from an Eastern agency knocking on doors inquiring about 9 very wealthy young men on ATVs who has disappeared from the earth.
They never did find the hunters nor their ATVs. Not all the residents were holding a little child’s hand.
If she were not present & I a good version of my combat accutrized M14?
I grew up in northern Idaho. The Wilkses are an incredibly frustrating duo and this makes me sad. But I can’t help but think that everyday Idahoans are feeling roughly what Native Americans felt only slightly more than a century ago. At that time current white Idahoans’ ancestors were basically saying the same thing to the Natives that the Wilkses are saying today, i.e., “we’ll do with this land what we please.”
12
- am just wondering about whether the owners of vast pieces of land will help pay for the brave fire fighters who may have to save their forests. Are they paying a sufficient amount of taxes?
I do feel as Samantha, that there should be laws against guns, snowmobiles/machines in the forests of the world where animals and life engendering vegetation abound.
6
My family has been here in California since 1865, as well as Montana, Idaho, Wyoming since the 1860's. Where we have fished, hunted and been good stewards of the land. Most non westerns have NO idea that the federal government actually owns most of the land here in the west.
Three examples. Where once states like Utah, Idaho and Nevada were 100% actual states. the federal government now owns 66% of Utah, 61% of Idaho, 68% of Nevada. Unlike NY, and other eastern states which have little if any federal land. And this was done NOT by conservatives but liberal Democrats most of whom do not live here in the west.
3
I was conflicted after reading this. On the one hand people buying up huge tracts of land and cutting off access to public land, if no other public access within a reasonable distance exists, is wrong, although it may not be the responsibility for the landowner to solve. On the other hand, people have a right to protect their private land and some are a source of much needed land conservation.
My partner and I own 40 acres adjoining public land. Although there are 2 public access locations at trailheads within a few miles of my property people still go through my locked gate and use the private road and driveway I put in myself on my property, and maintain. Mountain bikers rut the area, hikers use the meadows Ive restored as toilets and I’ve had firewood that I need for winter stolen. My land is in conservation easement and I’ve restored it from overuse from cattle “straying” from their public land lease and others. I completely understand the need to keep ones private land protected and private!
5
Public land ownership by state:
AK 95.8%
NV 87.8%
UT 75.2%
ID 70.4%
OR 60.4%
AZ 56.8%
WY 55.9%
CA 52.1%
I am spending the summer in Northern Arizona. Every day my dog and I take a different hike. The open land includes national forests and state, county, and local parks. It is truly a wealth of beauty. The problem is relative. If your neighbor happens to own everywhere you played growing up, that isn't pleasant. But 20 miles down the road you can play forever.
3
I could be described as right leaning but I do not trust big business and this is one reason why. This makes my blood pressure rise. And my imagination begins to think of evil ways to make them regret what they have done.
1
This important article raises questions for me about the origin of the land sales. Why is the US government selling off public lands? Who makes the call to sell vast areas of land? Congress? Secretary of the Interior? How were these acquisitions made by the super rich? What happened to the money paid? How is the land valued? What are the comps? Does one pay more for a mountain? John Malone responds to an ad offering 1M acres of prime rural real estate? Everything about this article is disturbing.
4
And this, my friends, anticipates our future with climate change. The super wealthy will buy up the last remaining pockets of livable land, and retreat behind their gates, and moats, and walls.
For the rest of humanity? "KEEP OUT!"
5
So what do these red state residents now think about Republicans wanting to eliminate the inheritance tax? We are watching a new landed nobility taking over large swaths of our country, increasingly protected by a so-called “democratic” government that they overtly lobby and increasingly control. Oh, but there are immigrants to worry about, so never mind.
5
Community is our humanity’s life blood. We need to prioritize it somehow. Solution to global climate change and the threatening biodiversity eco-collapse — a new vision enabled by these rich investors’ land grabs —create self sufficient communities, donating land to every person who will go farm a 10 acre lot in a long strip so that every one fronts on the main road and has neighbors every acre to the left and right, globally connected with internet and locally connected with their community. My rural county in Ohio is filled with people content with this life if they could just make a living. Create a new paradigm, give anyone willing to relocate out there the land, reduce carbon footprint, reduce travel, reduce agribusiness...rebuild connection and meaning in life. I know at least one mega rich person who had this vision. Is there someone bold enough to propose legislation?
I wonder what the names of the actors in this new American drama will be? We know who the 100 Prince Johns are, but who will be the Sheriff of Nottingham and who will be Robin Hood?
2
Anyone who stops logging, hunting and snowmobiling on their lands has my sympathy whatever their political affiliation.
2
In Bavaria, this problem could never arise as we have one more human right here. The woods are free. You can own the land and use it for lumber and game hunting, but you are not allowed to stop people from hiking there.
So, anybody can go hiking, collect mushrooms etc wherever they want.
Sorry guys, seems like we're the land of the free (to walk where they please)
6
I read someplace that Jeff Bezos is one of the largest landowners in the USA second only to the USA government. And with all this anti-public ownership rant the Republicans are on, calling it socialism. How long before the USA government starts selling public land to the highest bidder?
I know in Wisconsin they have defunded the public parks as a prelude to forcing their sale as they are not self supporting. Fortunately a Democratic governor was elected recently and he would veto any move toward this, certainly.
I have read a lot of stressors on home ownership. From Colorado the new legal state drug trade has made it impossible to take that money to other states or put it in banks. So the sellers are buying houses and driving the prices up. To the problem of investment companies buying groups of houses in the low ranges of prices, fixing them and charging twice as the neighborhood improves. These and other factors are making home ownship or every renting difficult.
Public property is we the people owning it. Collective ownership of public lands give the USA government the ability to protect the land long term, and for the average person to visit public lands. Although, I do remember Bill Gates saying that his entire budget for his charities was a small percentage of what the USA spends on public health. So the USA we the taxpayers have a lot of power. Sadly, until our system starts protecting housing and supporting ownship, the new stressors on housing will win.
3
You can't camp in my front yard because I have less than an acre of land. If I had several hundred thousand of acres, then yes, you could camp on my land. I'd like to think that even if I had the means, I wouldn't gobble up so much just for myself.
Who owns the West? It's clearer and clearer that this is the region of the millionaires and billionaires, those who don't pay their fair share in taxes, and those who feel not only blessed but entitled. They buy land and politicians, and ensure that laws and policies help them. Then they tell the middle class how much they are doing to help create jobs and move society forward. These are also the folks, by the way, who are opposed to single-payer health care and wage increases. They don't give two hoots about anyone but themselves. It's all about greed, and it's shameful.
6
Wow. As soon as people start invoking "god gave this to me," the argument is lost. Don't hide behind fairly tales. It's a cheap argument.
4
This article is not one of a kind. It dovetails seamlessly with an article published the other day about how investors are buying up massive inventories of single family dwellings... all to the exclusion and disadvantage of ordinary people.
The United States is going to have to come to grips with the fetish of capitalism and decide whether it wants to exalt the Right of Investment above all other rights and social goods. What kind of "society" with what kind of "culture" results when a few control all and everyone else is relegated to the sidelines as fungible riff raff scrambling for whatever they are allowed?
The destructive vice of a fetish is that it imposes itself as inevitable, natural and necessary when in fact it is not. It does not have to be this way. As a society we can put limits on how rich and powerful any group or individual can be. If we put in place political checks on monarchical power in the 18th century there is every reason to put checks on oligarchical economic power in the 21st. If Americans fail to do this they will absolutely not have a society of free and equal men and women.
6
Wow. This article left me deeply unsettled. I had no idea that so much of our land was being gobbled up by such a small group of wealthy people. It feels like we are selling our souls to the devil. When does it become not OK for this wealth inequality, which has literally insinuated itself into every aspect of our lives, to continue?
2
I lived in Idaho. I saw people who had no respect for the environment whatsover, no respect for the fishing stock, for the lead they shot wherever they pleased, and certainly no respect for views or people different than their own. They wanted no planning, no govt, no order. They absolutely hate California with a passion. Idaho is solid GOP. Well, guess what? Now I see comment after comment from people complaining about the way a few billionaires are treating them.
4
Better private ownership than Federal.
1
Neither the new private owners nor the traditional abusers of the land, with their snowmobiles and ATVs, deserve any sympathy. They are two faces of the same exploitative and destructive right-wing idea that humans can do whatever they want. The land should all belong to the federal government, and the government should not allow hunting, fishing, snowmobiling, ranching, mining, drilling, atvs, nor any other activity that disturbs the life of the non-human inhabitants of the land.
6
We are entering a new feudal era. These billionaires are the new nobility and claim the public lands as their own. We fought a rather civil revolutionary war to prevent that from happening in the US. The French fought a rather uncivil revolutionary war to leave their elites headless. At the rate we are going, there is going to be a need for another revolution.
5
At last. An article in the NYT lamenting the loss of work by loggers. No one has done more to destroy logging jobs than federal and state governments.
1
@mbpman And nothing has done more to destroy wilderness than the logging and mining industries.
5
In Norway these issues are handled by an open-access-policy to the wilderness. Ypu can freely camp for a few nights everywhere in the wilderness on both public and private land outback lands (agricultural areas not part of the open access issue).
I understand concerns about some uses of the outbacks like snowmobiling and ATV traffic. Motorized use of the outback is therefor not allowed unless for the owners' entrepreneurial activities.
The use of roads entail wear and tear. Owners of roads therefore has the right to charge a reasonable use fee, which today is handled by mobile phone registration of the vehicle to the operators of the road. Frequent users of a road can buy a season pass.
I am not saying that Norway does all things right in these matters, but these measures coupled with the open-access policy for anyone for non-business use of the outbacks, have greatly reduced the number and seriousness of access conflicts.
11
Billionaire owns land. Private citizen goes for a hike and breaks a leg on that land. Person (or their insurance company) sues billionaire. Billionaire closes land to all.
These new owners may be behaving badly but don't think there is not always a reason.
I work with a land trust that has been forced to become more and more restrictive due to people not taking ownership of their actions.
9
Montanan here—
The issues that locals have with their new wealthy neighbors aren’t so much about private property, rights, etc. It has to do with un-neighborly behavior, as described here. In the past, most of the small landowners readily granted access to others for hunting and fishing, with the understanding that they would behave responsibly and return the favor. These new wealthy owners don’t, and it really fosters resentment.
15
Yes, I'm sure this is an issue with certain people, but little they can do about it if there are other access routes into the public land. The issue of this private land being taken off the tax rolls and put into conservation easements is a greater concern. The taxpayers have to take on a bigger burden after that's done. People should be more concerned when land is bought up by foreign entities such as China. 2 large ranches around our area have been bought by the Chinese.
8
Julie, thanks so much for reporting on this issue. For those of us elsewhere in the country we know little of what's going on with land and land rights elsewhere. This problem makes me think of the law in many Scandinavian countries, can't recall the exact names, where the "gentle trespass" on private lands is not illegal and is a welcome understanding that we are all owners of the lands of nature. Yes, it would never happen here, but the emphasis is on sharing the beauty and our land and being shared stewards. America is beginning to look more and more like India, Brazil, and other countries that have extreme inequalities.
Capitalism has always been a double-edged sword, but in the end, it may be this countries undoing, unless those with much can align their moral compasses with the most progressive ideas of this country.
21
It’s called the „freedom to roam“ (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam), in Swedish „Allemansrätten“ or „right of everyone“ and it’s a great thing.
But it is based on a completely different perception of land and public space, that we have in the old world. For us, public land or our land in general is a public space shared and used and also taken care of by everyone. I can barbecue in a public park, as long as i don’t ruin the grass, respect my neighbours and take away all the garbage.
In Norway and Sweden, you are even allowed to camp everywhere, as long as it is not in sight of a private house and you take care of nature.
From that perspective, it seems absurd for me to read what rich people can do in America?! Someone owns 11 mountains? Why? How? I mean, hail capitalism, but this goes to far! The family who have been living there for a long time are pushed out of their grounds and they can’t do anything?
This fits into our perception of the USA not respecting their nature and ignoring a sustainable approach - look at Frackling, Clean Water Act, Oil Drilling, Alaska, Plastic production and usage of single-use-item, lack of recycling concepts, and so much more.
We only have one planet and our kids and grandchildren should be able to enjoy it, too.
4
The irony is rich here and what a sad situation. So often folks are upset about the percentage of land owned by the government (IMO, the people). But when the private markets are given priority everyone, except the private owner, loses access. While some owners may protect the land, we, the people, certainly lose the opportunity to ensure the protection of streams, forests, habitat, and, yes, access.
17
The future of land management is likely to be driven by necessity, not property laws. For those who want action - All governments around the world have the right to resume land and place restrictions on land use. This may be the last gasp of the property barons, big, but doomed to fail.
Also note - US property-related taxes have been reduced in recent years, creating and supporting a high demand for land. This protected market can't last forever, and any change is likely to be negative for property owners.
4
If there is no law against blocking access to public land, there should be. So get involved with politics, and get that law passed. And once that's done, get to work on another law to limit the wealth that an individual can own. Ecological economics makes it clear that over-concentration of wealth in the hands of the few is not only inefficient but unstable.
19
The reason these actions are of concern is not envy or jealousy about their wealth but concern about a few people able to make decisions that will decide the choices all others have.
7
These right wing millionaires/billionaires may fund climate science denial and other right wing causes, but they know that climate change and resource depletion are real. They are trying to buy up their own private wilderness and keep it for themselves. who do they think will put out the fires when wildfire consumes it all, or eradicate the damage when the pine bark beetles ravages their forests?
56
This is not about private property. This is about restricting access to public lands.
This is similar to the California Billionaire who locked the gate to Martin Beach so surfers, fisherman and families could not access a public beach against California Law.
No one is trying to camp “in their yard”. They are trying to drive past their property on Forest Service Roads to hike, hunt, fish, climb and camp in National Forests. These are public lands and belong to all Americans.
62
Absentee landlords. Nothing new here. Revolutions start over this kind of thing. Never ends well for the landlords.
46
There seems to be an interesting irony in this discussion. Hunting and snow mobiling seem to be activities enjoyed by cultural and political conservatives, who have long failed against federal land ownership out west, because they hate the rules. Remember the “Sagebrush Rebellion”? Remember the criminal takeover of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Eastern Oregon? Now it seems those same people hate private ownership even more, because it comes with their revered private property rights - yeah, the right to keep other people out. Maybe they’ll evolve to value and appreciate public lands after all.
43
Exactly. I have had this discussion with members of my own family, who insist that control of public land should be closer to “the people” - ie with state and local government. I have tried to explain that this a formula for having those lands sold off to private entities such as timber and mining companies (and now, it seems, tech billionaires) who will restrict access for ordinary people. I have had zero success. Conservatives are so wedded to their mantra of “small government” that they will end up destroying the things most precious to them.
5
It's not just the intermountain west. A tech billionaire tried to block access to a public beach on the California coast a few years ago. In the end, it did not go his way, but it took a decade of litigation.
24
What's next? Private ownership of air? There's really something unseemly, un-American, undemocratic, and unfair about so few people owning so much pristine land.
38
Given how they made their money, I can't imagine the Wilks objecting to fracking on their new parcel of land. /s
19
I wish I could feel sorry for these people, but I can’t. As a person of color, I am afraid to even visit those states let alone partake in the pleasure of their public lands. And what’s the issue anyway? Idaho has voted Republican for decades. They should know by now that the GOP cares only for the interests of the wealthy. Why don’t they just buy their own multi-acre estates with the tax cuts they just got.
66
We the people own the geography of every bit of the land within our borders. As citizens, it is our responsibility to oversee the management of all lands within our borders. The laws, the money we print and the people we elect to govern our interests.
Land use is governed with laws created by elected people. All citizens pay rent to control the land within our borders. If people who consider land as wealth then it requires taxation as suggested by Senator Warren. Vote.
12
The future of wild lands in “Merika”. Everything is for sale including the government which is complicit. The aggregation of wealth is buying power and soon we’ll have nowhere to go except, if we’re lucky, the national parks.
The only good I see from this is that it may unify the environmental / conservation movements with the outdoorsmen / hunters / snowmobile / atv enthusiasts creating a new and potentially powerful lobby if it isn’t already too late.
7
Amen to that.
I was skeptical of wealth tax proposed by Elizabeth Warren. This article is making me rethink it.
How dare an individual close access to a public road?? The arrogant super rich in this country need to be humbled.
54
Capitalism vs predatory capitalism, guess where we are at?
16
A landed aristocracy recycled from history, thumbing its sickening self-righteousness at Theodore Roosvelt's concept of public lands. Yet another take-over of a chunk of what used to make America great. How fast, it seems, that the hands of a few have snatched so much of value from the hands of the many.
28
Anybody here read Cadillac Desert? How the American West was bankrolled by joe taxpayer. And all those Western “liberty folk” who raised themselves up by their bootstraps? Hear tell it was all about water that cost next to nothing and rock-ribbed libertarian folk in reality being the biggest welfare queens in 240 years of intense competition for that particular tiara? Who here is surprised they think it is time to “tame” the west? This was all foretold by Thorstein Veblen and his commentary on conspicuous consumption and the conservation movement being tantamount to an assessment “I got mine, so let’s close it down.”
16
I find it rather horrifying that Mr Malone owns more than double the acreage of Rhode Island.
16
“We want to be good neighbors,” Mr. Wilks said. “I know some people think we haven’t been, just because we haven’t let them freely roam across our property as they saw fit. But I’ll also offer: Do you want me camping in your front yard?”
Hahaha
Most people’s yards like like smaller than a basketball court. Comparing that to their 700,000 acres. Individuals simply should not be allowed to own that much land or make that much money. Nobody deserves it. It’s a bit ironic that they’re Christians. Not surprising though. Biggest hypocrites in the world.
29
Water. That single word sums up the driving force of what you are seeing out west. Who owns it. Who controls it. Who will have access to it.
23
No mention of Robert Redford & Multi-Million Dollar McMansions?
5
@ShockTheVote: No comment thread is complete without a dose of whataboutism.
"Who gave them this dollar and said it could purchase Earth?" We did. Maybe it's time to change human-overpopulation and capitalism? Maybe it's time to rethink planet and optimizing the human species through reconnection to Nature? Are we greater than a dollar? Are we still slaves?
5
The comments by Justin Wilks state they are concerned for the land: “we feel that we have a responsibility to the land.”
If that is their concern, why aren't they forming partnerships with with other groups to protect the land? There are are government agencies and regional organizations with a track record of protecting private land rights, restoring ecosystem health, and allowing public access (https://www.idaholandtrusts.org for example).
Instead, they run to the state house and court house to block access to the land and enhance trespassing laws. They put up gates, surveillance equipment, and hire guards.
Actions speak louder than words.
18
The Wilks make capitalism look bad. Make your money by extraction, while you poison water while fracking. You aren't taxed enough so you have plenty to buy up land and prevent others from enjoying it. I hope they are lonely but I assume they chortle.
16
If the Wilks’s intentions were selfless or philanthropic, they would have put title to all this land in The Nature Conservancy.
23
Denver native here. I hate snowmobiles and other off road vehicles with a passion.
I am not comfortable with billionaires buying the land.
But there oughta be a law against these machines.
They are horrendously loud, disrupt the forest and the tundra, the desert, and they pollute the air.
I hate them.
27
@Sophia I agree with you 100% about noise making machines in wildlands. And sadly they are fast growing industries. I live in Minnesota where some of the manufacturers are located and the local StarTribune keeps reporting about how well they are growing.
We have a larger problem of rising noise pollution everywhere, and the media does very little reporting on it. Just this morning on a relatively quiet Saturday morning, an auto salesman neighbor fired up a dealer Corvette and it made a tremendous amount of noise for blocks as he left my neighborhood. Last winter a snow plowing and land maintenance contractor was idling his new very big diesel truck in front of my parents home, and it sounded like a jet engine in idle mode. How wrong, but it is probably marketed as an energy saving feature.
Cars, trucks, drones, emergency vehicles, car locks, car alarms, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, energy efficient furnaces, heat pumps, water heater, generators, wind turbines are all emiting more noise, and no one seems to care.
Yes we are soon to get all the time drone delivery from the air, and with it constant overhead noise, and no one seems to care, and certainly the media rarely reports about it.
9
I couldn’t agree more! Public land in Utah has been destroyed by them. Here in WA they are trying to expand the areas they are currently allowed in, opening up more roads to ATV so they can destroy more pristine areas.
Gee, maybe these states shouldn't vote for billionaires to be president!
15
Mankind will continue to squander the earth's natural resources until ecological collapse....then you will all look kind of silly over fighting over the things you do.....
5
I wonder if the Wilks will do any 'fracking' on their own land?
9
Stockpiling land and water ahead of climate change ?
19
No doubt, while they fund mouthpieces who deny it.
Who are they buying this land from? The USG? Are they stealing from all of us?
6
Too bad the Wilks didn't feel a sense of responsibility to the "God-given" land they completely destroyed when they fracked for their oil.
18
This is disgusting. I grew up in Idaho, in what I called "the dirtlands" of the southern part of the state, where it is flat, dry, windy, and most of the crops are grown. I hated it there--it's not beautiful. It sucks.
But when we went camping when I was little in the areas being hoarded so selfishly now, when I went backpacking in the Frank Church Wilderness area... Those places are magical, transcendent. They made growing up in a conservative and frustrating state bearable.
Idaho belongs to the people who were born there; people of my generation didn't want to be there (visit rural southern Idaho--the spuds are great! the opportunities are not)--and you'll see what I mean.
Idaho has to be earned. Keep your wealthy sticky fingers off my Frank Church Wilderness. It belongs to the people who have loved/hated/loved Idaho from the experience of reluctantly living there.
10
This is not new and it is hardly limited to the interior West. What is new is the vastness of the land acquired by a select few.
But as to the road posted and closed, it brought back long ago childhood memories of the geographic back yard, so to speak, of the Gray Lady right here in the NY burbs. Back when old money still ruled on the Gold Coast/North Shore of Long Island. I still remember lush narrow roads with gates or police roadside shacks. The turning around of nosy Sunday drivers from poking into sections of the "estate country" as we called it. We plebes were not welcome among the polo playing set.
As to the West, some of these wealthy people do good work with organizations like the Nature Conservancy or various land trusts or wild natural preservation groups. Don't paint with too negative a brush about all of these mega-rich. A few have good instincts.
1
What about adverse possession? I thought public access could be maintained if people were continuously (and without express consent) using a portion of private land. I’m curious why this wasn’t mentioned. It sounds like there may have been a contract for some of the land, but it’s unclear if it’s all the land and access trails.
7
“Adverse possession, sometimes colloquially described as ‘squatter's rights’,[a] is a legal principle under which a person who does not have legal title to a piece of property—usually land (real property)—acquires legal ownership based on continuous possession or occupation of the land without the permission of its legal owner.[1]
In general, a property owner has the right to recover possession of their property from unauthorised possessors through legal action such as ejectment.” Wikipedia
Sounds like “adverse possession” refers more to living on the land, not just passing through. However would you like the public regularly walking through land that you owned?
Abuse of nature stems from misguidance about what is valuable enough to be conserved. Those who see opportunities for income from it regardless of mutilating it have reaped what they sowed. That needs to change. The practice of conservation and the reverence of natural beauty is a rare gift for this and future generations.
The Wilks' actions of blocking access to public lands, unfortunately, points the finger at the public's prior land mismanagement. Sure, the forest growth and water may heal were the new owners not to excavate it.
Meanwhile, the present government has no good reason to backtrack from the last president's increase of public lands by now selling off vast swathes of natural beauty to billionaire real estate investors for holding or hoarding. Heritage environments ought to be accessible to all who treat it well. But, people have to decide between making money off unregulated snowmobiling or enjoying the beauty of the outdoors.
4
Snowmobiles should run on electric motors. Fumes and the sounds of machinery have no place in our wilderness areas.
It's great that people get out in the winter - especially as families - but let's leave the noise and pollution behind. We now have the technology to do that.
As for access issues, existing public easements crossing private property (even if established only by custom) must be respected - it's the law.
A note to the Ultra Rich: If a fire road crosses your property, you have to respect the public easement that it comes with - otherwise you can put our fires yourself, rather than expecting the government to do it.
11
A wealthy man amassed undeveloped properties all over my state. He was the state's single largest landowner. When he died he left his land holdings in a private foundation bearing his name. By his instruction, some of the land was donated to the state and is now open for public use with environmental restrictions. Some of the land is closed to the public and managed for conservation purposes only.
Don't denigrate private land owners. Private owners are the source of public lands. Be respectful of them, and the public lands you already have. Or why would anyone leave more land to you?
10
@gw
(1) Private owners are not the source of public lands in all cases--only when they donate their privately-owned land.
(2)They can leave the land to the public for tax write-offs and other self-serving reasons.
Early in the article, "Battles over private and public land have been a defining part of the West since the 1800s, when the federal government began doling out free acres..."
does not quite capture the history. How about "Battles over land have been a defining part of the West since the 1800s, when the federal government began appropriating hundreds of millions of acres from the Native Americans who lived there."?
22
Reading this article reminds me of a telephone conversation I had with a Texas Parks and Wildlife employee in 1985 when I had moved to Texas from the state of Maine. In Maine I had hunted on acres and acres of public land. I assumed that this would be the case in Texas. I was wrong. The vast majority of land in Texas is privately owned. Hunting only exists for land owners or those who can afford to pay thousands of dollars in order to lease these lands for hunting. And so my question to that employee was "where do poor people hunt? " Her reply, "They don't ". Unfortunately, our great country is becoming more and more like Texas. This is not good for America.
27
Mankind must start withdrawing wild places from development or we will end up with a plant that is little better than an unnatural junkyard and desert.
But assuring that the future goes as we want, we cannot have a few individuals deciding for everyone. Even the most idealistic and gifted human is a mortal being with just one perspective upon the world. Inevitably, every person will act selfishly and with uncertainty about the consequences of his/her/they actions.
4
The ecosystems of regions exist across public and private lands. Any changes in either affect the whole. The problem for society goes beyond access the public lands but to the need to preserve ecosystems upon which all life depends. Some rights to private property owners cannot be permitted where they affect air, water, and biosphere badly.
6
The Wilks and other billionaires who are acquiring vast acres of land are playing by rules enabled, and, since time immemorial, celebrated, by our capitalist system. Interesting to see conservative outdoorsmen, hunters, and snowmobilers complain of this. Also interesting to see the bourgeoise liberal class lament the loss of public lands, for they too have supported a neoliberal order and long line of these politicians for decades, with some feel good regulation, branding, and half-measures thrown in here and there. The decreased access to wilderness and recreational areas due to large sell-offs, not to mention climate change damage, described in this article are just logical conclusions of a seemingly unquestionable paradigm. Much like the monopolies and bail-outs (possibly an upcoming one for PG&E)!, this is business as usual. Why the long face all a sudden?
3
Living at the edge of the Appalachian mountains (not owning any acreage), I am very familiar with the fact that no family farm, forest, or mountain land is safe from the depredation of four-wheelers and worse. Any old horse or foot path is viewed as a public road by the public. Gates, locks and chains do no good as they are cut off as soon as they are put up. If the landowner is not personally vigilant in limiting access by strangers he or she will be threatened, intimidated, and pushed off their own land by vandals who destroy the landscape through rutting, erosion and destruction of habitat, not to mention litter, fire and other damage.
Unfortunately, small nonresident landowners as well as the owners of vast tracts in the west cannot be vigilant daily overseers and their land is virtually taken over, not only by casual hikers and friendly neighbors, but by more sinister elements and the "tragedy of the commons" is visited on the landscape.
Restricting access is the only defense to this despoliation, and should be praised by any environmentalist worth their salt.
8
Presumably, these large landholdings were bought from other private landowners, so I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. 62% of Idaho is already owned by the federal government. Actually, there is probably a greater chance of the land not being developed because it is owned by fewer people. With many owners it would probably be developed into housing subdivisions.
4
I live in the Boise Foothills and take exception to parts of this article. I’ve owned a Yellowstone area resort. I understand the value of access. The area near Boise however has abundant access. Over a million user visits last year. Probably too much. I put some of my ground in conservation easements. I don’t allow public access. It’s the only part of the Boise Foothills without public trails. It’s also become the winter grounds for the most of the elk in the front. Access might be great for humans but seldom is for the animals or the forest. The scars from off road abuse are still evident twenty years later.
Idaho is over 60% public lands. There’s plenty of access to great places. But the dirty little secret is the private ground is the preferred habitat for much of our wildlife. They have much more protection on ground that the general public can’t get to.
10
@Gary Campbell, thank you for the education re Idaho. A beautiful state.
3
All the more reason why the Government should be expanding national parks and preserving natural public areas for future generations.
10
Capitalism at its worst. Man does not have dominion over the forests, the lakes, the streams nor the mountains, which capitalists and the Bible claim. All that land was stolen from the Native Americans.
National sites of use by the many do have damage because of over use, but regulatory controls and enforcement can mitigate that. That the wealth of the Wilks comes from fracking, one of the most egregious concepts of the new millennium and destined to be outlawed when rising seas drowned Boston, Miami, New York and elsewhere fits perfectly into the conservative mindset. Hopefully, this dark publicity, and the brother's roots and caring for nature that they claim to have, will steer them into supporting change that benefits all in a nation whose Constitution says all men, and women, are created equal. Share the wealth rather than hoarding it.
3
Well, well, somebody finally noticed. Wyoming has been chopped and parceled over the last 20+ years, Montana cut into watershed domains, Idaho and Colorado served up at private dining tables. No trespassing signs sprout in remote places. Something similar happened many years ago in Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire. And in the late 19th C. less than one percent of the population owned more than 98 percent of England. Them that has, gits. Them that hasn't might get table scraps. Or might not.
5
Increase the tax on the super wealthy.
Increase the inheritance tax!
.
Protect our public land which this administration is desperately trying to undo.
10
"Bruce Harrison, the scion to an oil fortune, now owns 19 mountains in Colorado." Until he doesn't - we're all just pasing through on this mortal coil. To think that someone "owns" land is like saying that I own the air I breathe. Transient terms for each of us and while I hate the words "no trespassing", I've seen enough damage, degradation and garbage on public lands to wonder whether it's time to license access to those precious lands. Private ownership may give us the incentive to do more for the health of "our" public property.
5
All the more reason to continue protecting land in the west. We need more national parks, monuments, and refugees. Not less. Shame on any elected official for trying to remove protections for these areas.
5
Perhaps more local people should look around and decide if paying more in taxes, or "trampling on private owners rights", to gain guaranteed access to areas they value is worthwhile.
The freedom most westerners seem to espouse cuts both ways.
3
We want to be good neighbors,” Mr. Wilks said. “I know some people think we haven’t been, just because we haven’t let them freely roam across our property as they saw fit. But I’ll also offer: Do you want me camping in your front yard?”
In my front yard, maybe not without permission, but if my front yard was ten miles from my house, ok with me.
In UK you have a given right to cross property lines while hiking and ask permission from the owner to camp overnight if you're within sight of the house; at least that's the way we did it.
Image
4
I'm European, so I was shocked to find how people can be excluded from vast tracts of land in the supposedly "land of the free". Looks more like land of the "no trespassing" signs to me. You guys need "Freedom to roam" rights like we do in many European countries...
12
Roam yes, hunt, log and use machines like motorbikes and snowmobiles no.
1
There's a simple answer here - eminent domain. Use it or lose it.
2
Don’t look now, but the largest landowner in the West is....the US government. I think that’s a good thing.
10
Property rights are defined by governments. There is absolutely no reason to permit these sorts of sales without the easements required for the public to reasonably access public lands. These forests, lands, and resources weren't created by these billionaires or any other person for that matter. There is absolutely NO reason why these lands should be acquired with no appropriate, reasonable rights for the public attached to them.
12
I am shocked — shocked! — that fringe-right loons, pseudo-Christians, and Trump fans would act in a selfish, entitled, despicable manner that would make Christ himself puke. But hey, poisoning the land to make money so they can buy more land? It’s the Republican way, baby.
145
Idaho is a deeply red state that has only backed a Democratic presidential candidate ONCE since 1952. So it's certainly ironic to hear locals complaining about successful Republican capitalists, just exercising the "freedoms" enshrined by the GOP, with minimal interference from "big government."
109
Talk about the chickens coming home to roost. What did Idaho expect?
Idaho is a state that is among the most right-wing in the country; a state that breeds white-supremacist militias almost as fast as rats breed litters; a state that gave us Ruby Ridge; a state whose minimum wage (in 2019!) is $7.25 an hour--in other words, Idaho is a state whose citizens have always voted for the politicians & policies that make the ascent of billionaire reactionary landholders inevitable.
You want unfettered capitalism and metastasizing libertarianism? Well, this is what you get.
93
@camorrista Your description of Idaho is a very narrow and unfair one
6
@camorrista Rather simplistic. Also the state that gave us Senator Frank Church, Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus, and the maturation of Bill Haywood. People that grew up with the can do, egalitarian attitude that was essential in the pioneering days. Ruby Ridge -- well, that was just as much a fed fiasco. While Idaho has gotten more conservative, that primarily reflects the influx from the Big Sort, and the polarization of the country at large. And BTW, we don't have rats.
13
The Golden Rule in play---he who has the gold rules.
Disturbing that so few can wield so much influence. Maybe it is time to start the revolution...
27
Most of the population in the rural West voted for Trump.
This is the result of Trumpian politics.
36
I own property (not acreages) in both the California and Idaho mountains, both adjacent to public lands, where I spend much of my time in the outdoors.
Setting aside the tax laws and other policies that have helped people accumulate vast wealth, I say good for them if they are buying land to protect it. The damage I have seen done by the public on public land is appalling. And I see this more in Idaho, Trump territory, where people think they can litter, shoot things up, including animals, shatter the peace with snowmobiles, drive off roads, cut switchbacks on trails, cut initials in trees, harvest berries for commercial purposes and be generally obnoxious.
If I was lucky enough to own a vast tract of beautiful land, there wouldn’t be general public access.
39
@Stephanie Cooper
Maybe if we could fund the government to hire staff to patrol or caretake the land, just like we do in national parks and some national forests some places woudn't get so trashed.
13
@Stephanie Cooper I've seen that here in California. I assume most rural folks aren't vandals but a certain percentage are and the others can't or won't stop them.
The solution is for the government to control the land and, I guess, patrol it. One time we were backpacking in a pristine wilderness area and happened to cross out of it to where a road allowed easy access to a creek. There was garbage everywhere.
Hey rural folks! Get it together. shame those among you who trash things.
And stop blaming the government.
14
Exactly. But instead, the Forest Service and BLM busy managing timber and mine leases, which give cattlemen and miners access to our land for a pittance of the value. It’s a mess.
13
In the end, we're just renting before we die.
4
Maybe I’ve missed something: but who owned the land before them?
13
A dark question. Are these folks preparing for a climate apocalypse by buying large tracts of land in a temperate range? Where better to survive than in your own small empire?
14
I think there's an entirely different reason why billionaires are buying large parcels of land. As the quality of life continues to decline for the majority of Americans, the monied elite will be able to further insulate themselves from that reality. The days of land barons and the serfs that slave underneath them will return. You will see castles complete with moats for protection just like the dark ages. Don't think so? Just look at what the Trump Judiciary is starting to look like.
It's not land preservation, it's selfish-self preservation.
22
@JJS you nailed it. The fracking guys are planning for their future. They are buying clean air and water for themselves, knowing full well that soon enough, there won’t be enough to go around.
2
It's interesting that smart growth government and economic policies push the peasants into ever denser cities while billionaires get thousand of acres of land.
3
As an American living in Sweden, I'm constantly amazed at how the Swedes seem to balance life here. Private land in Sweden is accessible by anyone. its called The Right of Public Access in English. The entire system is essentially designed to prevent income inequality, the buying of politicians and the resulting mayhem that ensues. Soon 1000 families will own half the USA and the remaining 327 million will be like how the heck did this happen. Shame. Shame. Shame.
30
@Joe Barn
Does the US appear insane from afar?
2
The only justifications of private land is responsible working to improve it, reasonable privacy, the future good of both family, community and world.
It is a responsibility more than a privilege.
The only justification for crossing it is the community.
Tearing it up, littering, spoiling is an attack on the individual, the family, the community, and the care and stewardship of this world that God has given us in trust.
The USA’s closest approach to the guillotine and the French Revolution is the tar and feathering and riding the rail toll often split in half that was done by greedy men wanting the land or businesses of other man or sometimes the attack of men and families who believed that the true gentleman was loyal to the king.
And man who owns more land than he personally can farm ‘owns’ it in trust. How do these men feel when Saudi Arabia and China buy up the land and drill the aquifers dry to raise alfalfa for Arabian cattle and pecans for the Chinese. They claim private ownership as their right along with all the wells they can drill while their neighbors wells have run dry.
1
The are getting what they voted for and deserve.
8
Wrong. No one but the people of United States should own a vast swath of land. Robbery to say the least.
7
As far as I can tell, this article doesn't explain how private citizens are able to buy public land? I hope someone will explain.
5
@Annie B Because if the government is selling land then the root of the problem is with the government, not with the buyers.
1
@Annie B
They didn’t buy public land. It was private ground. Most likely previously owned by timber company’s that can no longer cut trees because of environmental policy. So it goes from timber company’s that allowed public access on private ground to private individuals who don’t want public access.
3
Owning the land is one thing but closing long term road and trail access is another. There is a similar problem in Northeastern Washington where timber companies have closed remote roads that have been used by locals for more than fifty years and now suddenly they have steel gates or 15ft dirt piles to block access.
5
County government doesn't lend itself well to local planning and local control like here in New England. Why was there not an easement given across the Wilks property, to get to the public land?
3
An obscene amount of ownership by a few at the expense of society at large not foreseen when laws governing free market capitalism and ownership were enacted. And the few ultra wealthy citizens in this class are politicizing the ownership as leverage towards a less democratic future.
5
Disturbing but in reality this isn't new. Rich people have been buying up property in Montana in particular for years. When these wealthy people purchase land adjacent to public land, they sometimes make an effort to cut off access to the public, as highlighted in this article. It should be emphasized though, that many people in these rural areas are fervent private property rights proponents. They hate public lands in that they don't like any restrictions. Many of these folks feel like they should be able to hunt and drive their ATVs where ever they like. If you look at the maps and percentages of land held, the vast majority of property in Idaho is not privately owned. Many are unhappy with federal ownership - (remember the Malhuer occupation??) . But just because land goes out of public ownership won't mean that ordinary people will have unfettered access. In fact as this article demonstrates, you could make an argument that public ownership is preferable, because in most cases at least some public use is allowed. That is not the case, nor the obligation, when land is privately owned.
5
There really is a law. Call it karma or any other name that suggests that no one gets away with anything, period. Some may treat their land well -- no fracking, etc. Those who don't will be reviewed and face the effects.
1
Although I understand the residents consternation, I can’t say that I’m sorry hunters, ski-mobilers, ATVers and loggers are kept off the land. As I look at the few natural places left around me, many were once the estates of the wealthy. I suspect these owners would not object to hikers. But as a general principle, I object to all the uses of above, of any natural land left. Why on earth despoil natural places w/ machines and guns? Seriously what is wrong with people that so many cannot seem to enjoy the outdoors without killing or motors? Therefore, kudos to the Wilks and their ilk.
195
@Samantha Kelly Actually, they do object to hikers. It's PRIVATE property. Hikers need the BLM and the national forests. That's our land.
22
@Samantha Kelly
But consider (unlikely, I know) that some wealthy person bought 90% of Long Island and kicked everyone off. The land could return to its natural state. Does that make it right?
17
@Matt Yes.
11
There are those who sell snake oil & then there are those who sell a bill of goods to the public. The Wilks Bros. "responsibility to the land" is a sorry attempt to make these formerly publicly accessible tracts into a fiefdom to be milked of timber resources with portions of shoreline & glade left for moneyed elites exclusive enjoyment.
Buying state & local government helps.
3
This is one logical outcome of extreme wealth inequality. Sounds a little like Merry Old England during the heyday of the British East India Company. Many of the ancestors of those who extracted fortunes from India then, are still sitting on top of multi-billion pound piles of wealth.
4
Interesting possible scenario: If the wealthy folks depicted are Trump contributors/supports, and if the folks being shut out of their traditional public accesses are also Trump supporters -- perhaps we'll see 'scales fall from eyes,' and a dawning that Democrats' care for the land is where MAGA votes should really go next time around.
4
Hmm..the Wilks, fracking Giants and probable opponents of Climate Change science are buying up land predicted to still be livable by that science. Wonder how many wealthy Climate Change skeptics are doing the same.
11
they're buying access to water. they see it as the next scarce resource they can profit from. .
11
You nailed it. The public lands will keep the water reserves in the area clean, and some of the huge landowners will siphon it off and sell it when climate change makes potable water a valuable and scarce commodity. The Wilkses made their fortune through the industry of extraction of natural resources. Fracking privatizes profit while imposing public costs, including by damaging watersheds, and they know it. This is their new gig. Other owners may be more benevolent conservationists.
1
What an incredible photograph (leading the piece). Magnificent work by the photographer Max Whittaker.
6
This is a 'natural' result of unfettered capitalism and the constant groveling to the needs and wants of America's elite 1%.
Who do you think they are? They are Americans who are doing what they want when they want where they want with their money.
Don't let no darn socialist 'librals try to talk about public lands, national parks for all to enjoy or water rights!
These billionaires have to spend their money somehow and many are stocking up for the 'end times' with huge compounds where they can ride out the pollution and immigrant hordes or some such nonsense. New Zealand has had a similar uptick in private purchase of huge swaths of land.
This is a Dick Cheney type of dream. Good old GOP values of money wins first and always.
4
The solution to this problem was well described by Edward Abbey in "The Monkey Wrench Gang", a do-it-yourself manual for all folks who want to preserve the transcendent, as well as the personally human.
In 2020 vote:
George P. Hayduke for President !
Bonnie Abbzug for Vice President !
They will appoint:
Doc Sarvis as Secretary of Health and Human Services !
Seldom Seen Smith as Secretary of the Interior !
2
Frackers buying up land to do what? More fracking? Feel better by taking care of this new land as opposed to what they did with the land when involved in fracking? All in the name of God. Hypocritical?
2
Hmmmmm.......Ask yourself why. These people mostly want to make more money and have more power. That's one reason the elites pretend to be climate change deniers, when they are greedily buying up the land that will be most valuable by 2040, when it's too late.
7
I think George Carlin had something to say about something like this.
2
This land was your land, but now is the Wilks’s land
From the California to the New York island
From the Redwood Forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was meant for oligarchs.
10
When it comes to politics, there's nothing like having God on your side.
3
For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?
- Mark 8:36
*but the Wilks Brothers are home free because they have been chosen by 'God', sometime after they poisoned the aquifers with fracking fluids
6
Seriously, you own 300,000 acres and you compare someone use of trails within to that of camping in someone’s front yard? Those are not equivalent. Ridiculous and greedy.
9
You want to know why income inequality matters? This is why. It appears we lost the battle before war was declared. We quietly and apathetically snoozed right through it. Well, some of us knew what was going on. I wrote a blog about this very problem of private vs. public land but my voice is very small and that blog I wrote about the Florida beach that was lost to Private, No Trespassing didn't get much attention. I wrote the piece in October, 2013. The land grabbers in this NYT piece bought 172,000 acres in Idaho in 2016. The NY Times published this piece today. Somebody was asleep at the wheel. It wasn't me. How about you?
You can use your voice but you can't make people care. Most people won't be shocked and angry until it's all gone.
https://sheilablanchette.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/walking-day-154-thinking-about-thoreau/?fbclid=IwAR3fAeFpIeVD4HbNCplhm-E2FBAq0JeKLSgijKO50IZRPmPbuxain5v3pl4
5
Why should the accident of people happening to inhabit a place give them the right to kill all the animals, destroy the quiet with their infernal machines and chop down all the trees? Good for the large landowners!
2
You mean the landowners that made their fortune in fracking? Just a bit of hypocrisy going on there.
@rationality; that's a pretty broad brush you're wielding.
@JWinder
Just like the robber barons like Carnegie left behind magnificent public monuments. Unfortunate but frankly better tgab
N most current billionaires most of whom leave nothing-behind but horribly ugly conspicuous consumption
Is there a way to allow the wealthy to keep their money but limit what they can do with it? If we can't keep the wealthy from buying up the nation's assets, we will either be forced to let them have it all, or take it away from them. Neither of those options is the America where I would rather live.
11
Who gets to own the West? Whoever has the money to buy it.
11
@RJ Steele I hope not, but I may have been misunderstood. I'm not in favor of that concept to the point of massive tracts of public land being converted to private playgrounds of the super rich.
My point is when freedom is for sale in our justice system, when the very life of a human being depends on the quality of the legal representation it can afford, when votes are for sale in our political system, when it seems our cherished democracy is for sale to the highest bidder, what chance do our public lands have of remaining public without a profound change in attitudes about of the rights of the monied few versus the rights of the majority?
3
Maybe we need to re-think our views on property rights. Should property rights trump human rights or interests? It seems we've given more importance to property rights, which we've seen often favored developer interests over those of residents. Haven't we fought many wars over property rights or interests? It seems there needs to be a better balance between property rights and people interests. We have laws regarding monopolies which essentially serve as a limitation on property rights. Just because you have the financial resources to buy property should not give you unlimited power to so when there are competing interests that should be considered. Should only a few super wealthy families own or control vital resources be it land, water, oil ,etc.? A monopoly is monopoly and they pose real threats and issues which must be considered. Might does not make right
11
@Rolfneu
"Should only a few super wealthy families own or control vital resources be it land, water, oil ,etc.?"
Yes, said the Saudi Arabian royal family.
4
This is a story you'll dwell on for the next few days, maybe weeks, then forget all about...If they have the money and someone wants to sell, not much you can do about it. It's like anything in society..It's unnerving but in the end, who cares....We all live and work and acquire or amass different things for different reasons but in the end, we all die naked and alone, with eternity to deal with...Bob Dylan said it best.."You gotta serve somebody...It may be the Devil or it may be the Lord....But you gotta serve somebody...…"
3
Conservatives applaud Individualism - until it goes too far.
Conservatives worship private property rights – until it takes their rights away.
Conservatives hate government – until they need it.
Welcome to reality conservatives – this is your free market at work. Gentrification is just God’s ways of saying “thank you” to those willing to subdue the earth in his name.
God bless America. God bless the Wilks's – they are on a mission from God.
22
All the world is for sale...and in the absence of any public policies that moderate it, it's inevitable that all the world will eventually be owned by the highest economic tier (just as beach vistas, hilltop locations, choicest land, etc.).
To suggest that the people of the world devise moderating policies is, of course, to counsel Socialism!, Communism!, and the victory of The Collective. But we have to Keep Hope Alive that principled and "fair" policies and principles may yet be developed to enable All to enjoy some reasonable share of what Some with otherwise buy and rule as their private domains on earth.
9
For years, he assumed the road was public, and he would guide his ATV up its steep ascent, his grandchildren in tow.
I believe Felix Unger warned of the dangers of what happens when you assume.
5
But it is the Republicans in the Red states who refuse to tax the rich. They want them to increase their wealth.
So what are they expected to do with it, just buy politicians?
19
So much money they hardly know what to do with it. So they get the idea they will buy up huge tracks of land, prevent commoners from using it and use the fracking profits to let the land go back wild with no trails and no access.
Eventually only rich people will be able to views the real wonders of America as the Uber wealthy, reichwing group decides what’s best for us all. We’re living the collapse of the great American civilization brought on by corporations(which are not and never will be a person) and these wealthy reichwingers who think they know best by only more money hoarding and they still don’t believe in climate change!
13
From whom did these rich people purchase their land? Did they piece separate parcels together or buy them from other people who had huge holdings? Or was this previously public land that was sold off?
6
Gee, imagine how the Nez Perce and other tribes must have felt when this same thing happened to them 120 years ago?
16
Thankfully, we at least have state and national parks, as well as USFS and BLM land.....at least for now. The GOP would love to make it all a private extraction playground. Can you imagine what the US would look like if every square inch was privately owned? If the only people viewing Yosemite Falls was, say, the Koch Bros., and maybe a few guests? What if Jeff Bezos (worth 130B) came in and bought every large tract of land for sale in the rest of Idaho? Also, the idea of a pair of frackers having any sense of “responsibility” to the land is, to put it mildly, contradictory, especially given their religious worldview. I’m sure Jesus doesn’t have armed guards around Heaven. If I had enough money to buy that much land, it would be my pleasure to see that as many people as possible enjoyed it responsibly and safely. Your value in life is the love you gave and left behind.
12
For conservation to work public and private landowners are going to have to work together. Most people who spend enough time outdoors realize the beauty of nature transcends our differences and having access to land is the best way to inspire people to care. Because everyone is subject to the constitution the right to roam laws that are embraced in Northern Europe will not work. How could someone who is fortunate enough to acquire such acreage not want to share access to families who are respectful and wanting to spend time outside. There are plenty of ways to monetize the land and not disadvantage the owners while still allowing reasonable access. But for them being born in the US they would not have acquired their wealth. Why not share some basic access in one of the most pristine areas in the US? Resources should be allocated for prosecuting violent crimes not trespassing laws
3
The Wilks may characterize their land purchases as preserving nature but keep in mind their fortune comes from a business responsible for a great deal of pollution. Best they focus on reducing pollution.
15
We need to rethink the limits of private property rights in this country. The rich cannot be allowed to control the land. They already control the legislators, and most peoples' consumption habits.
14
Keep Public Lands Public. The selling off of public lands and the general privatization of large tracts of lands should be be unacceptable to anyone who values National Parks, National Forrests, BLM Land, etc. It is our land, its not for sale.
12
If the issue is people's rights to access public lands and people like the Wilks are violating those rights, this sounds like the kind of issue the Bundy's of Utah might want to get involved in.
They could put out a clarion call and sic all those militias on those Wilks brothers.
1
Capitalism is a choice. Without inadequate regulation it has become a system serving s royalist class of the rich. The feel entitled now and forever. It’s now god’s will, it’s the power of economic rules and laws like trespass laws.
Wake up Americans who think socialism is something bad
9
How about a graduated property tax for these good folks. We could simply outlaw billionaires. The disparity in Power is destroying our political system and our society.
10
I trust the basic concepts held by First Nation Peoples, exemplified by, but not limited to, the League of the Iroquois who influenced the framing of our constitution. But our founding fathers omitted something: after the deliberations by men on tribal choices, they handed final decisions over to the council of women.
They understood the cosmic nature of relationship, as in Einstein's theory, but they understood more; that the loss of collective soul is quickly followed by the breakdown of the ability to secure food, caused by social failure and harm.
The "war of the deities" and revenge, starkly obvious in Eurasian mythology, most famously Greek Mythology; is an Indo-European construct out of South Asia; of domination and control, which slowly overwhelmed a far more ancient spirituality. It is so old it is on every continent, and everything since is a devolution to false beliefs, away from the cosmic indigenous ways; not of "believing", but of knowing, and knowing better about primal causality.
Google Klaus Schmidt, Anatolia re: last ice age, hunting out of animals, desertification, drought, agriculture along rivers, large families, the forced loss of the equality of women, domination, selfish control of lands, lousy nutrition, mass militarism and enslavement.
He postulates "the dawn of history", "birth of the great religions", and "greatness of civilization", actually ARE the "Fall" of man from the Garden of Eden, and loss of innocence in the Bible.
3
Expand our parks. The answer is to have more Federal land, owned by all Americans.
11
This article does not say who the sellers are in these large land purchases.
Is it previously publicly owned land, private individual sellers or corporate?
Also, used to be considered illegal for one property owner (the Wilk bros. in this article) to surround or "land lock" another property owner denying them access to their property. In this situation, the Wilks private property has removed public access to public (federally owned) property.
How can that be legal? Is legality even a consideration anymore when up against 3.5 billion $$$ ?
What a sickening coincidence that 100 of the largest private land owners are also many of the 100 wealthiest families in America.
8
Maybe if billionaires paid significant taxes they wouldn't have enough money turn entire states into their own personal back yards.
14
I came across a belligerent environmentalist today in my email spouting off in a rude and boorish manner about rural people and their county political leaders who want more control over federally-owned lands in their midst. They argue that they are more directly impacted by the way federal lands are used than residents of suburbs and cities. This environmentalist castigated and berated them for not fully comprehending federal law that offers no such preference to U.S. citizens based on their proximity to the federal lands.
I pointed out to this arrogant environmentalist that his defense -- nay, fawning sycophantry -- of the U.S. Forest Service, BLM, indeed, the juggernaut of the Dept. of Interior and the federal government itself, was ironic since it is well-known that the wealthy plutocrats and their corporations have captured the federal government through lobbying and other means, and these malefactors are the ones responsible for so much environmental degradation, resource depletion and profiteering.
Yet here we have another layer of irony to the circumstance of the land use where the plutocrats are now ostensibly buying up the land to protect it, not unlike the 1990s Clinton era government purchase to do the same. But still, confusing, even more, is the irony of the closure of the commons: the lands that people used to use are no longer available to them.
The small people lose no matter who owns the land, public oligarchs or private plutocrats.
2
@Chris 'ostensibly buying up the land to protect it' is the key here. Subdividing it for real estate development seems to be another option on the table. As an environmentalist who has worked in forestry, I do agree somewhat with your skepticism. One private landowner / forester who does his best to improve practices on his land -- something that does not come easy, or without significant effort and dedication and often added expense, is worth 10,000 urbanites wailing that the world is being destroyed from within their air conditioned offices. However, no sensible environmentalist is on the side of the big federal agencies consistently either, as these have long lost their original purpose of protecting the land and have been by far the biggest facilitators of harmful resource extraction especially by subsidizing road building. Unfortunately, state agencies are usually even worse -- they usually don't even have multiple use mandates that require at least some protection for wildlife, water, recreation, etc, and they are more susceptible to local conflicts of interest.
7
The FedGov has no business owning property, except for its own current requirements. It should sell off everything else, and apply the proceeds to the deficit.
Heritage, schmeritage--its just miserliness. They do it because they can get away with it.
1
So we give it back to the tribes then? Sell it to corporate interests and billionaires?
Not everything needs to be for sale. The government holds land in trust for all citizens. It is owned by all of us and we all get to decide collectively how to use it. I’m ok with that.
13
@Miner49er - What a ridiculous load of nonsense! Were it not for federal ownership, millions of acres of public land would have long ago been destroyed by the greedy, only concerned with extracting the resources. We the people ARE the government, and the protection of land that belongs to all of us is absolutely vital.
7
When Nevada California and Arizona go dry,which is just about now,the water alone will be worth more than all the land.Las Vegas,the central valley,which is the most valuable agricultural region on earth,Los Angeles and Phoenix are going to pay trillions in the very near future.
12
I’d love to know of the Wilks brothers pay their share of taxes, both federal, state and local. I have my suspicions. And I’m sure they expect others to fight any wildfires that pop up in their property. When will rank and file Republican voters realize they’ve been conned, by the whole Republican machine and ideology?
14
What’s the difference between billionaires buying vast acreage in the West and billionaires buying neighborhoods in NY, Boston, San Francisco? After they buy land or buildings, they rededicate the property to their own purpose and exclude some, if not all, public uses and people. The only solution to the author’s preference for “public use” is to outlaw, or severely restrict, private property. Sounds like the author and many of those commenting are advocating Socialism.
5
That’s a canard. That’s not the only solution. Most of these issues are common and there are common ways to deal with them. Just because they own both sides of a public road doesn’t allow them to shut the road. If I own land and someone else has land completely surrounded by mine, there are common law rules to allow access to their property. Simple stuff like that. Sounds like these folks took a hard line on stuff that was unneighborly. People got upset and since they’re remote, they were tone deaf.
Perhaps the backstory on this is the continued accumulation of wealth by an extreme minority of people. I cast no aspersions on these two people. They may well have rightly and fairly earned enough money to make Solomon blush. It is just an example of the issues we see in society in a larger context.
3
Please read the article. These gilded age little land barons deny access to public lands by denying use of roads and fighting established easements.
9
In case anyone is wondering, plutocrats like these are the reason we have representative government.
12
What we need in this country is an asset tax, not an income tax. Why shouldn't they pay more for defense, they have more land to defend.....
15
We have property taxes in much of the country. Perhaps they need to be implemented differently in these cases.
I say fine, if you earned it, you get to do what you want. But no inheritance. You should pay and earn your own way in life. The son of the Wilks should have to start out like his father and EARN his way to wealth. Not inherit it.
7
About 350 years ago my Tuscarora ancestors started having this problem with their European neighbors, and it continues today. So sorry to hear that the descendants of these European land grabbers are now also having to deal with "land greed".
8
“Buy Land,” said Mark Twain, “They’re not making it anymore.”
20
People engaged in large-scale fracking talking about how they "feel that we have a responsibility to the land.”
That's pure hypocrisy.
1049
@Ed Watters
Fracking does no damage to speak of. As many laws a we have in this country, were fracking a bad thing, it would not be happening.
States with stable, conscientious leadership always allow fracking.
5
@The Observer
I find your reasoning questionable. Try plugging in other examples: "Were child concentration camps a bad thing, they would not be happening." "Were undue restrictions on voter rights a bad thing, it would not be happening." See? Legal does not equal moral.
74
Fracking is an evil enterprise for the earth and its inhabitants. The results are extremely short term and not sustainable.
57
Making America Great Again for the 1%. They own 90% of our wealth and soon 90% of our land. This is not right my fellow Americans so what are we going to do about it. We can start by electing those who talk about equity and income redistribution and not robber barons like trump. If all else fails we will have to go back to our roots as a nation, revolution.
36
Another class warfare article brought to you by NYT. The concept of buying something with your hard earned money us lost on this articles writer.....more socialism creep everywhere.
7
@Cromwell You’ve obviously never experience the magic of the West.
I have personal experience with the Wilkes and Turner lands in MT, as I lived there for 14 years. Ted Turner, in the mid 90's, was trying to shut off fishing a river that flowed across his property (and in the past 10 years, Gianforte and James Cox Kennedy), when asked a question by a reporter why he would try and shut off access, he said "let the common man earn the right like I did!"
these people are so out of touch and treat regular people like peasants. They feel they are excluded from laws and common decency. They come out west with their billions and develop their kingdom and just like Europe of old,...the king owns everything,...including the water, the air, the wildlife and plants/trees. The Wilf's tried two legislative sessions in a row to own the air above their land as folks would fly into the Durfee Hills (prolific elk population) a large public land area in the middle of their property. They tried to extort the state by buying a 65,000 acre ranch west of Havre that had the only public road going up into a substantial public lands area, and they gated it. they said they would trade the property for Durfee Hills,..fortunately Montanans said Hell No! A landowner on the other side of this public area is working with the state to develop an easement access point.
What is troubling is that these people think all they have to do is throw money at it and it will be theirs. Cox-Kennedy stated he has more money than the state and will bankrupt the state.
68
All would-be or supposed "laws" about real estate property everywhere on earth are actually superseded (or rather, preceded) by the three natural laws of "property". To whit: all private property is publicly defined; all deeds are actually leases (with intrinsic public trust obligations); and, most obviously, all "deeds" are clouded. For those who can't instantly figure out why these are, de facto, the more basic foundations of property law, I urge reading more history....of anywhere and everywhere and, especially, really learn to think things through, completely. QED
7
Concentrated private land ownership has always attracted critics. In Washington State Indian tribes have purchased hundreds of thousands of acres that were once owned by big timber companies with proceeds from their casinos. And they enjoy federal tax protection from income derived from natural resources. All the while these tribal owners prohibit public access and use of their properties. Who should own OUR lands?
5
@David Mumper
Good for the tribes. That seems fair.
And why shouldn't the First Americans get a tax break? How is that any different from all those one percenters stashing their lucre in offshore tax havens?
7
Afraid you are in second position for the land. The native American Indians were here long before you and your tribe.
We WASPs thought we took everything of value from them but forget about the white mans love for spirits and gambling. A very profitable venue for tribes that were given such great spots to live like the AZ desert, OK, SD, and then only the least valuable land, or so they thought.
I have seen such sadness on these reservations it’s a crime. So I for one, and a WASP, am happy for our native brothers and sisters. They work for their money and they deserve it unlike the white men who stole everything that wasn’t nailed down.
2
Living in Texas, I have tried to explain to folks in Utah, etc., the advantage of public over private ownership.
Maybe now some of them will get it. Especially when the transfer includes education, health care, retirement, and other "options".
But not any time soon.
Hillary's emails, and life begins at are so much more interesting.
22
Very clearly these billionaires cannot afford to pay a few more percent on their tax bills, it would ruin them.
13
This sounds a lot like medieval Europe, when wealthy landowners formed their own social class that eventually controlled most of society up to World War I. It is precisely the type of system our American ancestors fought to rid themselves of. And we are allowing the wealthy to run roughshod over us by ensuring that the court system is so expensive that only rich people can afford to sue each other. I thought the United States was the land of the free and that everyone is equal in the eyes of the law. Developments over my lifetime have shown me that the opposite is becoming true.
31
The Wilks brothers made their fortune by wrecking the Earth through fracking and they thank God for their good fortune as if he personally picked them to be rich. Now they are using their supposed God given wealth to buy up millions of acres of land and doing whatever they can to keep the less God given wealthy among us -- which is 99% of us -- from enjoying the mountains, rivers, streams of the West. Teddy Roosevelt gave us the National Park system. People like the Wilks brothers and their ilk would love to take it away from us. Fight for it!
23
I wondered how the total amount of land owned by these families compared to the vast area of the Western United States. It turns out that 65,000 square miles is the size of Wisconsin, so that ain't nothing!
12
I did some further reading on other sites and found that the Wilks brothers purchased this land from private owners, not the government. They found a lot of garbage at campsites and an elk herd in poor condition, leading them to close access to their land.
5
There are many similarities between intellectual property law and real [estate] property law. For example, a patent contains a set of boundary conditions called 'claims' that operate much like land claims. Except that patent claims are filed at the patent office, and land claims are filed at the land office.
Claim disputes are similar. For example, at some level the "...2017 video of a roadside argument between an armed Wilks guard and a local ATV rider..." in this article was a lot like an invention dispute. In the case of an invention a big company who owns a patent will hire an attorney to mess with anyone and everyone who is in their same line of business. The attorney will just show up at your door and demand that you stop using 'their' technology. But after just a few questions it becomes obvious that the attorney is clueless about whether any patent infraction really exists. This is exactly how the Wilks guard appears to act in the video.
In intellectual property law the situation is not unlike that encountered in open source software, such as GNU/Linux. According to Peterson (2017): "trespasser on the public domain - Someone who tries to protect something that already exists in the public domain, using the intellectual property laws. It is done either through ignorance or willful deceit on the part of an author, an inventor, their assignee or someone who represents them."
Cite:
Peterson, Wade D. Dictionary of WISHBONE Terminology. Revised: 20 MAR 2017.
4
Private armies will be next.
15
THIs problem has been going on for decades. The rich buying up private land then cutting off access to public land! malibu, Calif is one example, Here in colorado it is common because the law allows landowners to own the river beds so they close access to floating etc. If you look at the Idaho situation, the Brothers are buying up the permitter to ALL access to public land, that way the PUBLIC l;and can only be accessed by THEM and their buddies.
8
Boo hoo. This is the Free Market, that conservatives (of which Idaho is filled with) love to worship and go on about. I guess the Free Market is only the greatest thing ever to exist, when someone with more buying power than you isn't keeping you from something you want?
8
In addition to water rights, public vs private landownership is old as the West itself. This story reminds me of the following clip from drama “Yellowstone” where a bus load of tourists trespass on John Dutton’s (played by Kevin Costner) many acre ranch to naively photograph a (dangerous) grizzly, suggesting that a single man should not own so much land.
To which Costner replies “This is America. We don’t share land here”.
https://youtu.be/LOrkILQmpRk
5
Worth following up with a "Who gets to own the nation's housing stock" article as well as asking candidates how they propose addressing the threat of tech companies getting into flipping and more corporations becoming residential investors.
8
Do I detect the aroma of a religious argument being made to justify cupidity? With cherry-picked verses, no less. Perhaps these gentlemen should remember the parable about a camel passing through the eye of a needle. Or the one about giving away your material possessions and following Jesus? Hypocrites!
8
Quiz time!
In which scandalous liberal book did this nasty socialist Scottish "moral philosopher" write the following quotes?
(Name the book and the disreputable foreigner intellectual for your fellow NYT readers' respect and admiration...)
As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce. (Chapter VI, p. 60.)
All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind. (Chapter IV, p. 448.)
Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.
(Chapter I, Part II, p. 770.)
Lands for the purposes of pleasure and magnificence, parks, gardens, public walks, &c. possessions which are every where considered as causes of expence, not as sources of revenue, seem to be the only lands which, in a great and civilized monarchy, ought to belong the crown. (Chapter II, Part I, p. 891.)
Answer: The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith (Gasp!)
9
@TreyP Your inclination to reference Adam Smith is to be lauded, but you should really have mentioned his principle, that the ownership of property must be taxed significantly in order that these circumstances might be avoided.
Recreational snowmobiling is a abomination. I applaude anyone - private party or public official - who can stop snowmobilers. The noise is deafening and wildlife are terrorized. ATV's are not as bad, they are quiter and restricted to trails.
10
Not only are they going to own most of the land, the billionaires are buying most of our government, and your vote. The Progressives are at the other end of the spectrum, the rainbow over our purple mountains majesty.
Bloomberg News....
Former Vice President Joe Biden told affluent donors Tuesday that he wanted their support and -- perhaps unlike some other Democratic presidential candidates -- wouldn’t be making them political targets because of their wealth.
“Remember, I got in trouble with some of the people on my team, on the Democratic side, because I said, you know, what I’ve found is rich people are just as patriotic as poor people. Not a joke. I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who’s made money,” Biden told about 100 well-dressed donors at the Carlyle Hotel on New York’s Upper East Side, where the hors d’oeuvres included lobster, chicken satay and crudites.
(Bloomberg News)
Al D’Amato, a Republican Senator, who represented New York in the U.S. Senate from 1981 to 1999, was at a the $2,800-a-head event at the Upper East Side penthouse of short seller Jim Chanos, as was former Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin. (Trump)
Billionaires are buying you, lock, stock, and barrel. Your precious land, forests. homes. Military will take your youth. Incarcerate blacks in their profitable prisons, one of Biden's political 'targets'.
And...you still want to vote for corporations.
Vote Progressive.
17
We're all Republican voting ingrates but people can't stop moving here from California and Illinois.
Please stop. I've read reports of people in Boise kicking cars with California license plates.
California is beautiful, the best state in the Union, stay there. We're just a hot , waterless, couple of cactus, no gun laws, no where any well-educated ivory tower elitist would love to be. Lots of Trucks, lots of racists, half the population speak Spanish. Massachusetts is better.
We keep kicking our company executives from NYC out between September and April, when the weather is perfect but they keep renting 5-star resorts out in North Scottsdale to hold company meetings. We're trying to get rid of these people but they keep coming back.
4
It’s the billionaires world now. Billionaires like the Mercers, Kochs, Adelsons and Murdochs own the Republican Party and dictate its policies to billionaire politicians McConnell/Chao and (fake?) billionaire Trump, with help from billionaires in and connected to Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. A freaky billionaire couple funds the deadly anti-vax movement. Repulsive billionaire “Christian” hypocrites like the Wilks buy politicians who allow them to hoard land and nature’s bounty for themselves.
Stupid is as stupid does - the Trump supporters who love to hate and believe the billionaire propaganda spewing from Murdoch’s Fox are ants on an anthill to the billionaire class, nothing to them but irritants who must be controlled.
The so-called “left” and “socialists” these billionaire predators fear and deride are heirs to great leaders like Teddy Roosevelt and FDR - men of privilege who nonetheless saw that gross concentrations of wealth and power distort and eventually destroy healthy, thriving societies.
These leaders recognized government’s role in mediating capitalism’s dark side and providing essential social services in public health, education, modern infrastructure and fair systems of justice where no one can buy outcomes.
We are at a crossroads and must elect representatives who still care about the majority of Americans. Register blue 2019. Vote blue 2020.
19
Hey people how does it feels to be treated like we treated the natives?
15
The United States is steadily declining into a dictatorship owned by the rich under the 21st Century Republican party.
20
Nothing in the article really goes into any depth at all about who the sellers of all this land have been.
11
I noted the same lack of clarity, but apparently, the property in question was already in private ownership. But, if conservative economic theories and values continue to hold sway, it will not be long before our public lands will be put on the auction block, or, more likely, sold under the table at bargain basement prices to cronies and supporters of the political hacks they bought and placed in control in Washington.
5
Wolves and coyotes are really the only two animals worthy to possess territory and only for as long as their bladders last. Anything else is just passing through. These joker billionaires are just little squirts compared.
2
Beaches, forests, lakes and rivers are as much threatened by the one percenters’ notion of exclusivity as by climate change or wildfires. What’s the fun in being obscenely wealthy if you can’t buy up the environment and keep it for yourself? The very idea that someone can legally purchase enough property to block everyone else’s access to public land is grotesque.
8
Never trust a 1%er. Dot every 'i', cross every 't' and then read the fine print. That'll give you a little time. But not much. If they want what you have, they'll get it sooner or later. Control the politicians, and then keep a close eye on them. Then you just might stand a chance. Stick together, they're top predators. They'll conspire to divide and then pick you off one by one.
8
Below is my reconstruction of the list that the author of this article went through in order to decide its tone:
GOOD
Less snowmobiling
Less hunting
Less logging
The principal protagonists were born poor (worked their way out of it to great wealth)
BAD
The principal protagonists are White
The principal protagonists made their money in fracking
The principal protagonists are Republicans
The principal protagonists are religious
The principal protagonists have the law on their side
Private property - bad, bad, bad!
The principal protagonists were born poor (only government can eradicate poverty)
With this list, any halfway decent progressive can determine the tone they should take.
1
@Shiv
"The principal protagonists have the law on their side."
I would rephrase this to:
The principal protagonists have the money to buy politicians.
And what is wrong with having public national forests? This was started by Republican president Teddy Roosevelt.
Of course, he was known for prosecuting monopolies and he left the Republican Party to try to start the Progressive Party.
3
Idaho is a Republican state.
In a variation of you get what you pay for, the people from Idaho are getting what the voted for.
9
The great irony here is that all of this land was initially populated by Native Americans, none of whom conceived of “owning” it—who subscribed, rather, to something akin to the land does not belong to us; we belong to the land.
12
Speaking of Woody Guthrie, here is the original version of the “No Trespass” verse as recorded in the Smithsonian version:
“There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn't say nothing;
This land was made for you and me.”
The point is clear, and poignant. The wall, and the sign, facing OUTWARD, tried to stop the singer.
But they were made by human beings, artificial boundaries, ultimately meaningless and foolish.
The sign facing INWARD was blank; this was the voice of the land itself speaking, with a silent invitation. The land itself is free, and prohibits access to no one.
That is why “This land belongs to you and me.”
5
It's their property but they are so selfish. It would be awful to lose our wilderness.We need connection to the land
2
Welcome, Americans, to Post-Modern Feudalism.
You wanted it. You voted for those who wished to bring it. Now you've got it.
Make America Feudal Again.
15
I donøt understand WHO are the billionaires bring the land from.
2
At least feudalism is more personal than faceless fascism.
1
The solution to this problem was well laid out by Edward Abbey in "The Monkey Wrench Gang", a do-it-yourself manual for all folks who want to preserve both the transcendent and the personally human.
A college version is being issued as "Politics For Dummies."
In 2020 vote:
George P. Hayduke for President !
Bonnie Abbzug for Vice President !
Doc Sarvis for Secretary of Health and Human Services !
Seldom Seen Smith for Secretary of the Interior !
1
The Native Americans knew better that nobody can own land.
3
As frackers, they clearly care about land and nature. *sarcasm*
6
The Wilks appeal to God in justifying their vast land holdings. What would they say about Isaiah 5:8-- "Woe to you... who connect field with field, till no room remains, …"
7
What is all the brouhaha?
I sort of quote, “The rich are different!” “Yup, they’re rich.” Look in the mirror and ask yourself, “If I was rich, wouldn’t it be nice to buy as much land, and power, and whatever our society will allow (or whatever I can get away with)?”
It truly and absolutely is the American way. An example you ask?
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I give you the President of the United Stares!!!
Maybe, now that those fracking brothers, and all the other fracking oil barons who own tens of thousands of beetle-kill trees on all their western land will see what all their fracking and oil production and oil use is doing to the environment!
(Oh! If you got the Money, please go out and buy an SUV or crew-cab four wheel drive pickup because your an American who can buy anything you darn well please!)
1
The Wilke's are "Billion Dollar Frackers" turning our atmospheres and lands into sewers.
Nice legacy boys.
8
Conservatives victimized by some of their own.
3
Yea so what. Its called capitalism. If you want to get enough money to buy land work hard and save. None of us here care so why should the NYT? The best stewards of the land in the West are the farmers and these billionaires that buy huge ranches. Better than some socialist owning the land or the government. Whats the alternative? Let the state own it? That worked out well under communism. Another article from the NYT where lots of us say "who cares"?
1
@Brad L.
Republican president Teddy Roosevelt started the National Forrests so all citizens might have a chance to enjoy nature, not just the wealthy.
Of course Teddy Roosevelt was known for prosecuting monopolies and eventually left the Republican Party to start the Progressive Party.
1
If you live in one of these states and you vote Republican, you deserve and own every bit of this disaster. Turn off Fox News and learn what these right wing policies actually do. Limitless money with no restrictions ruins democracy. WAKE UP.
13
Quite a story! The only thing that concerns me is the brothers "Christian" perspective and justification for their actions and purchases of land. They had to buy the land to protect it??? Jesus wouldn't side with them. The only thing Jesus really wanted was for them to love their G-d and love their neighbors.
2
This article is just a twin of the article about Muslims in Minnesota: local people hating new arrivals.
3
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
154
@kkseattle I guess they didn't read that part in the Assembly of Yahweh.
11
@kkseattle Good advice, whether God exists or not. Christ preached socialism and justice.
8
Not that any Red State résident would stomach the word, but this is a case where TAX policy could help tremendously. If lands were taxed reasonably, but less when used for conservation, and even less when they were kept open to public use, that would encourage both conservation and public access. But alas these states have almost no property taxes and this is the result. And because the rich folk don’t pay income taxes there, the local workers pay for all the government services these lands need, like fire protection, surrounding roads, local police force and courts.
32
Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy are hurting the U.S. in so many ways, as this article clearly demonstrates. Add in the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, which abets the 1% in installing their picks in federal and state legislatures, and we have a recipe for environmental and ecological disaster.
23
They aren't just buying up the wilderness; I suspect they are buying up the water.
35
The problem is widespread. I live near the Chesapeake Bay and some of the rivers that feed into it. Unless you inherit property or are very rich, access to such a huge body of water is limited to overcrowded parks. The thought that 100 families own 42,000,000 acres and 'protect' them from the masses is downright scary and yet how many people in these Western states are on board with selling off Federal land - land that belongs to everyone of us, and buy into the idiocy that allows a single American to own over 2 million acres.
14
The Wilks are right wing religious thugs but the article should also have mentioned how some of these vastly wealthy new landowners are doing God's work in restoring land ravaged by logging, mining, and overgrazing. On some of these holdings, bison and other wildlife are being reintroduced where they have been extinct for over a hundred years, forests are allowed to grow old again, whole regions that were grazed into dust bowls are restored to rich grasslands. The rich can do good if they are so inclined, and the ones that do should be recognized for their foresight and their generosity to the planet.
10
@Someone else - please don't call people thugs if you haven't met them and been thugged directly by them. Yes, anyone who invests in misinformation sites like PragerU is spending money harmfully, but to a certain point you have to accept that it's their money.
The article does mention restoration, easements and other good coming out of some of the zillionaire land investments, by the way.
2
"Mr. Wilks said... 'our Heavenly Father has blessed us with lots of gifts'." Be very wary of people who believe they have God on their side.
24
So they would rather build oil and gas wells and coal fired power stations on these lands which is what they keep voting for...
4
Unneeded tax cuts of Bush and Trump pushed mountains of free money into the hands of people who have no way to put it to productive use. Precious few factories are being built in the USA.
Tax cut money goes to stock buy-backs, CEO bonuses, off-shore accounts, and chases single-family homes and stock market equities. Bubbles are building and they will burst, the only question is when, not if.
With so much money sloshing around, the housing and stock markets are at all-time highs. This giddy ride will end as it did in 2008.
NY Times reported yesterday on how big money is buying up thousands of houses faster than builders can squirt them out.
WashPost reported yesterday millennials are committing suicide with student debt and unaffordable housing as drivers of a depressed state of mind.
Tax cut ideology will be the death of us. No enemy has to fire a shot; we'll topple in a mountain of debt and global bankruptcy.
16
I agree with you. The “signals in the noise” point to dark days ahead: global debt, gross wealth and income inequality, pervasive corruption among the elites, social media-fueled chaos and instability, breakdowns in civil societies and essential institutions...and a
critical lack of intelligent, moral leadership anywhere.
My colleagues who brag about their stock market portfolios seem unduly trusting and naive.
The most capable voice offering possible paths forward is Elizabeth Warren’s, and she doesn’t stand a chance among those who would benefit most from her presidency.
The solution to this problem was well laid out by Edward Abbey in "The Monkey Wrench Gang", a do-it-yourself manual for all folks who want to preserve the transcendent.
An college version is being issued as "Politics For Dummies."
George P. Hayduke for President !
Bonnie Abbzug for Vice President !
Doc Sarvis for Secretary of Health and Human Services !
Seldom Seen Smith for Secretary of the Interior !
2
The Wilks and their spawn and Kroenke are exactly the type of people Rousseau was talking about when he hypothesized about what would happen when the poor ran out of food.
4
"I know some people think we haven’t been, just because we haven’t let them freely roam across our property as they saw fit. But I’ll also offer: Do you want me camping in your front yard?”
Your "front yard" is literally hundreds of square miles of wilderness in a state you don't even live in. But no, I don't want some billionaire pitching his tent on my lawn. But I'll counter with a not-so-hypothetical, hypothetical. I don't want that billionaire buying up the entire rest of the neighborhood either and closing the road to my house and then claiming I'm somehow some poor rabble squatting or walking across his lawn and threatening me with his own hired, armed private goon squad.
These thugs are pushing these same trespass laws in my own State and closing roads and access to land they don't own, in many cases using false claims of ownership or other illegality and they do it under threat of violence. These crooks are oligarchs claiming that their wealth entitles them to special rights at the expense of everybody else's.
17
@Gaius - "But no, I don't want some billionaire pitching his tent on my lawn. "
I would pay good money to watch Bill Gates try and pitch a tent in the yard. That would be pretty good television.
2
“This land is your land, this land is my land
From the California to the New York island
From the Redwood Forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me
As I went walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway
And saw below me that golden valley
This land was made for you and me.”
Woody Guthrie
10
They made billions of dollars selling fracking equipment. FRACKING EQUIPMENT!!
And now they decide God has chosen them to be stewards of the environment?
Oh, the irony.
20
Yet again, proof that people want government out of their lives until, well, until they want it in their lives.
You can't make private ownership of precious wilderness a sacrament and then -- when the result of such concentrated ownership becomes clear, when suddenly a river or a mountain range has a fence around it -- start bellyaching about why government can't do something.
Thank God for every inch of every national park.
989
@Horace Dewey I can't agree with you more. Well said!!
43
@Horace Dewey
And every inch of National Forest. While perhaps not as iconic, our country’s National Forest system protects vast swaths precious ecosystems.
62
@Horace Dewey
Your comments are very true but shouldn't be limited to National Parks, many of which are urban/suburban.
The other federal land management agencies have many more wildland acres under federal stewardship e.g. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), 248.3 million acres; Forest Service (FS), 192.9 million acres; Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), 89.1 million acres; and National Park Service (NPS), 79.8 million acres. Most of these lands are in the West, including Alaska
30
As a long-time resident of the West, I've watched the public lands debate my entire life and I can say without reservation that I have no sympathy whatsoever for many of those affected who have spent their lives railing against public land ownership.
In fact, a single phrase comes to mind -- "We told you so."
There has always been a strong sentiment against public lands from the conservative elements in the region with the general refrain being that everybody would be better off if the government owned less land. They complained about government "regulation" restricting what could or could not be done with public lands.
Well, you've got what you wanted and the regulation is gone and just like we warned you, you've lost access to much of it entirely. Be careful what you wish for.
92
That these billionaires “earned every dollar” and therefore entitled to all their money can buy is the biggest lie.
When all Americans have opportunity for education, success, and a stable income, and all economics gains are not stolen by a small handful of people, then I’ll believe in the fair ownership of these properties.
20
Yet it seems that a lot of people living in those vast Western states have been complaining loudly for years about the US Govt owning so much land, and demanding that the land be turned over to the private sector. Well, this article shows what can happen when huge tracts of land are placed in private hands. Maybe having the US Govt own land isn’t so bad after all.
55
This article also reminds me that the California Coastal Commission just issued its second largest fine—somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.6 million—on a hotel in Half Moon Bay for denying the public access to a beach between its property and the Pacific Ocean. In the spirit of Woody Guthrie and the Commission, “that side was made for you and me”.
18
Who is selling these large parcels? Was it public land, such as state parks or national forests, etc that is being sold?
11
The article explains that it’s mostly non-working farms/ranches and forest where timber is no longer taken.
2
This underscores how feudalism is winning its battle with capitalism, across the United States as well as the UK. Adam Smith envisaged capitalism as a way to break down feudalism, primarily through the imposition of significant property taxes, to prevent the accumulation of property in too few hands.
That capitalism never fully succeeded can be shown by the continued dominance of old money over the political systems of both countries but now, with a robber baron supported by the corrupt in the White House and the rich buying up vast swathes of land, it appears that feudalism is winning out.
The ability to ensure one's own economic viability is based less upon the ability to earn, than it is on the ability to borrow, which is predicated upon the ability to own property. By buying up so much land, these rich families are not only corralling to themselves the ability to occupy the land and inflating land prices; they are hoarding the collateral which would allow others to borrow to invest in themselves.
The focus on significant taxation of labour rather than property has, as Smith predicted, only made the rich richer and the poor, poorer.
19
I spent 35 years in the Treasure Valley. I left in 2001 due to the invasion of the Californians. Nothing has changed. Access to public lands has always been restricted. Then by many smaller elitist "ranchers" who have now consolidated into a few... see Carol King and the Stanley Idaho Salmon River access in 1981. The population has increased while ownership is consolidated making it very easy to vilify those with the land titles. The invaders at our southern border share this same grievance of access.
6
Public lands must remain accessible to the public that owns them. But sometimes land is better preserved as private with ironclad land trust protections enforceable in perpetuity.
I'm sympathetic to hunters, sportsmen, naturalists, hikers, campers, etc. who have used these lands respectfully for years, however, even they are certainly aware of uncontrollable "wreckreation" abuse of public lands. Outlaw ATVs churning up creeks, mountain bikers building endless networks of trails, snowmobilers bringing disruption wherever they go, people arrogantly disobeying regulations intended to preserve natural quality. The public demands more roads, more trails, more access, lodges, facilities, etc. meaning more concrete, more asphalt, more development, etc. Litter, noise, crowds, poaching, arson, off-leash dogs, vandalism.....sometimes I wish I could protect land by buying it all up myself! So can I criticize those with the same inclination, but the money to do it?
My #1 concern is sustainable biodiversity, what's best for birds, wildlife, habitats, ecosystems, etc. When/if the most effective protections are private, it is kind of hard to argue against them.
7
@gw But there is no indication here that this private owners are offering protection. In fact, the article mentioned that one motivation appears to be owning resources, as in resources to be exploited, including water.
11
@bounce33 - I agree it's not always the case, which is why I said "when/if". Wish the article offered more information on conservation protections applied to these lands. Ted Turner is a dedicated conservationist. Not sure about the Wilks.
2
The Wilks brothers live at the intersection of wealth and religious fanaticism and behave they way they do because their wealth insulates them from the consequences of their actions. You see the same dynamic with the Koch's and libertarian inspired extremism and the Mercer's fanatical hatred of the Clinton's and embrace of Bannon & Trump's white nationalism. This is what comes of allowing wealth to dominate our politics, government & society. Some say well their on "our" side so its okay, its not. Regardless of whose wielding the wealth, as a form of coercion and domination its a bad thing. It distorts community and disparages compromise, both necessities in a large diverse country like ours. The plutocracy is no ones friends and the sooner the rest of us conservatives, liberals, moderates etc realize it the better.
23
There is not a single place anywhere that can legitimately be termed "pristine." The reach of humans has rendered that word obsolete. And that is a real sorrowful thing to behold.
5
@Alan C Gregory Well, only if you define 'pristine' as unaffected by humankind. And if you define it as strictly as that, there perhaps has been no pristine place for thousands of years. I get your point though, having been born in Idaho and have watched its continual degradation that started, as far as I am concerned, with the arrival of my ancestors 170 years ago.... Time to move to Alaska? Relatively pristine.
@Ridahoan Solid points, all of them. I have yet to set foot in Alaska, much less Hawaii. My Air Force career landed me in many places I never would have gotten to otherwise. This is a bit of nostalgia, I am sure, but I believe the only truly pristine place I have ever beheld was the rock cavern where I was once found a Tarantula holed up. And that was in Oklahoma. When i read this feature earlier today I was reminded of the old bumper sticker that Idahoans used to sport on the bumpers: "Don't Californicate Idaho" it read.
The Trump Administration and his allies - a handful of billionaires who made their money off of coal and oil - have done everything they can to shrink public lands and increase the decimation of laws that once prevented drilling and mining there. They have literally gotten rid of many national parks.
One of the beauties of America is its landscape and the great president who gave us the National Park System. Roosevelt and many philanthropists put aside personal profit to provide unfettered access to our great park system by and for the American people.
I am always shocked when I ask those who drive taxis or work in hotels if they have ever visited The Grand Canyon, for example. Most often it is no. The Grand Canyon has federally run hotels that, when I visited just a few years ago, had waitresses, bus drivers and movie producers all mingling together on one of the great world wonders. There was also a large number of tourists from Asia and Russia. It is still affordable, maybe.
Recently, a group of 20 and 30 year old billionaires from Silicone Valley bought a whole town in Utah. Their idea was to create an ideal closed community. This is un-American and wreaks of Trump era greedy self endowed “privilege.”
Let us hope we keep to our original promise and not close off our lands, one of our great treasures, from being shared by everyone.
8
@BIll
Bear’s Ears National Monument in Utah was reduced by 85% under Trump. The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah was also massively reduced by Trump. To me, this is basically wiping them off the map in the same way the slow reduction of Native American lands ended with genocide.
His administration has also advocated the opening of tens of millions of acres of previously publicly accessible land to oil, mining and coal interests. Look it up.
6
@H.A. Hyde
I can say with certainty that not an acre of public land that is designated as a "National Park" has been altered in way. Trump tried to shrink some National Monument (of course one that Obama created) but I'm not sure where that stands in the courts. But even if the National Monument designation was removed from some land it will still remain public land (BLM).
I feel like this article misses an important fact: As of May 2017, the Energy Information Administration reported that commercial natural gas production is occurring in southeastern Idaho. The brothers say it’s for private use, but it’s probably for profit.
11
Same thing happened in Hawaii. A few individuals ended up owning most of the state, including most of the homes. A Supreme Court case forced them to divest for the good of the population living there.
8
We need more public lands for our country and for future generations.
9
Lots of people from Colorado have been moving to Vermont. When we sold our land 2 of the 7 people that looked at it were from Colorado and one of those became the buyer of the land.
In much of the West you do not own the mineral rights under your land and you do not have the right to collect the water that falls on your land. I believe that, until recently, rain barrels were not legal in Colorado.
116
@David
They’re only illegal s someone complains. It pays to be friendly with your neighbors.
13
@David - You are correct about rain barrels in CO.
9
@David
And in Michigan and California, the Swiss corporate behemoth is taking water out of the ground for almost nothing, putting it into plastic bottles and selling it.
Privatizing America's water.
In Michigan Nestle takes it at the rate of 400 gallons per MINUTE. Huge semi-trucks line up in convoys to load up the crates of plastic bottles, encased in more plastic, using fossil fuel to truck it around to WalMart, Target, and everywhere else - including Amazon - where Michigan's deep-water clear freshwater is sold around the world. A SWISS company privatizing America's waters.
Nestle calls itself in this enterprise, Nestle North American Waters. (MICHIGAN waters!)
Then faced with growing negative PR, they "gave" bottled water to Flint, in deep distress from the lead-poisoned water. Take it from northern Michigan and truck it to Flint. Make a glowing PR ad showing Nestle's "altruism" - when the water was taken from Michigan and given to Flint, all gratis of Michigan taxpayers to whom Nestle pays very little.
Michigan's Republican corporatist governments and environmental agencies in league with corporations will do anything out of greed and self-interest.
These are dangerous times, folks. Land, water, billionaires, greed, power.
The frackers are huge destroyers of America's waters.
Frackers destroy. Nestle depletes. All greed, all the time.
Where will you go when you're thirsty?
35
We need Henry George’s land tax here. Tax undeveloped land at a high rate, lower the tax for improved property. George argued that we could eliminate income taxes with his plan. He was a visionary, time for a revisit.
5
This is what happens when the rich aren't taxed. The tax burden gets shifted to society in so many ways. Higher rents, higher property costs, poorer roads and more tollways. Its important to realize that these lower taxes on the rich are a tax on society in their own right. We might not be paying the Fed as much, but we are paying taxes to corporations and the rich. Yeah, sure the value of our houses may have doubled, but so has the amount of mortgage payments.
31
This article complains that private landowners won't open their land to the public in Idaho - a state in which about 70% of all land already belongs to the public. As an Idaho landowner surrounded on three sides by public land, we know that the forest agencies have increasingly denied the public - and private landowners - access to public forests, under their theory that access hurts the forests. If the public is not okay with this, then instead of vilifying private owners, it should insist that it's own public agencies create roads and rules that let the public use public land, as was intended when those lands were set aside for the public. Idaho has the 4th highest percent of such land of all 50 states.
8
And one of the least densely populated states.
@Christopher Gill
When and how have the federal agencies denied anyone access to the federally-managed public lands? Do you have an actual record or evidence of this? I have sent most of my life hunting, fishing, hiking and camping on National Forest and BLM lands aross the West, and have never once been denied access to any of them.
1
People who got filthy rich off of injecting carcinogenic fracking compounds deep into America's aquifers and poisoning fresh groundwater supplies for thousands of years to come, these champions of the privatize-and-pulverize model of feudalism, are now the enemies of those ranchers and miners who once aspired to be just like them. Oh sure, whose private, greed-motivated God is at work here?
29
We need to maintain public access to public lands. End of story.
25
Oh the irony of it all. Militias types and their right wing sympathizers, faux libertarians, and the right wing Republican politicians and their supporters in the Western US have all been pushing for the large scale sell-off of western public lands that belong to us all. What is happening now to private rural Western lands is exactly what will happen if public lands are sold off. The ultra-wealthy, private equity and hedge funds, corporate developers, sovereign wealth funds and wealthy foreign buyers will buy up this land and close off access except perhaps for a membership fee to visit certain areas. We must be continually be vigilant to prevent this from happening otherwise preservation and access to our once public lands will have this same fate.
26
Sounds just about right to me.
Karlos. Well said.
Nothing the pierce a serene winter wilderness setting like the screeching howl of a snowmobile reverberating through the forest.
14
@the graduate And the stench of the exhaust wafting through the otherwise pristine winter wilderness air.
1
God gave them much, but not as much as Trump did with tax cuts for billionaires.
24
@Carl Trump, the two Bushes and Reagan - all backed by right wing "drown the government in the bathtub" types.
2
This development is gratis a long line of tax cuts and regulatory reform that favors only the handful of super-rich like those named in the article. The vast majority of Americans are essentially footing the bill for this transfer of wealth - this time in the form of the public lands that are being bought on tax savings (which would have otherwise gone into the public treasury, and the lands kept public). Call it a pyramid scheme using taxpayer dollars; hidden from most who are not sophisticated enough to understand how taxes work, or call is money laundering with tax savings. Either way, this is a theft of public wealth by those who bought the votes (and policy decisions)of those in DC starting with Reagan and the entire sham trickle down theory / Laffer curve nonsense and culminating in the 2017 Tax Cuts for the Super Rich bill. Can't imagine how the James brothers became folk heroes....
14
There are tax considerations, and I am no knowledgeable expert.
The land investors/owners/speculators use every way available to of course minimize property
taxes.
It is up to politics, complexities of assessment, appraisal,
and regulation.
I am trying to explain that natural resources are ... "industrialized" and politically tinged realities are
not so easy to enforce, while land or real estate
are unique of course, and this interesting article
certainly raises issues aplenty.
2
It’s time for eminent domain: government takes private property.
The Supreme Court has clearly decided this issue. The government has the right to break up land monopolies that are not in the best interest of the local economy.
That’s how we wound up with Honolulu. The Hawaiian Island was all owned by private pineapple growing family, the Supreme Court decided to break up the land monopoly, and now we can all enjoy the myriad offerings of that island in Hawaii. (And, that issue was upheld more recently, it probably led to Justice Souter retiring).
5
Ho boy. God is on their side. That explains it. Whatever happened to "Love thy Neighbor"? It's so sad to read about people doing really well in the US economy having so little interest/respect for their neighbors.
473
It is the entitlement felt by the monied about the less monied. That is why the less monied must rise up and spank the monied of the World. Not so easy but we must try.
29
@Ross Salinger His property belongs first to God by creation, second to nature as habitat and lastly by man as paper. God is not on your side on paper. Selfishness is the worst sin. In the end you only need 4'X 8'.
16
@Ross Salinger They are doing well precisely because they and their bought off policital pals have taken advantage of their neighbors.
26
Restricting access to public land that has historically been accessible is clearly illegal. I don't think that local governments can get away with arbitrarily changing such longstanding laws. Although it is difficult for individuals to litigate these cases, it is something that organizations like the Sierra Club, Trout Unlimited, and Wilderness Society should tackle.
13
Congratulations to the Wilks for their success at accumulating such great wealth from the fracking boom, a process with with its own baggage of collateral environmental damage. Bittersweet it must seem to the locals to use that wealth to acquire lands that inhibit the public access to federal lands. Western states dotted with personal fiefdoms and private hunting grounds surrounded by the peasants, how quaint.
19
Those who benefit most from capitalism know it leads, eventually, straight back to feudalism where the wealthy own everything and by far the majority of people own nothing.
Only they forget about revolution in which nearly everybody loses something.
When it's access to a NATIONAL forest this becomes a NATIONAL issue. What's the US Forest Service have to say about this and how to THEY access the forest?
10
@Moehoward Under this administration and US Senate forumation, privatization of public resources is encouraged - in large part because they and those in whose pockets the politicians reside can make precisely this type of purchase of public or formerly public properties for dimes on the dollar of true value.
4
There is some kind of poetic justice here some might call karma. The “American West” existentially threatened by the very ideals it is founded on; private property, free markets, endless expansion of wealth built on exploitation of the environment. Very interesting that the Wilks felt no such divine calling to conserve the lands and water they helped pollute. Nothing is crazier than allowing people to destroy one part of the earth so they can afford to preserve another.
5
@Josh "Nothing is crazier than allowing people to destroy one part of the earth so they can afford to preserve another." I agree with you, though I think it also a fundamental tenet of the New Urbanism.
1
We, the 99-percent find ourselves LOCKED-OUT OF THE FUTURE because even that was made possible.
In our ranks, especially in these red states, are Republican voters who simply can't believe Trump signed Billionaires Forever legislation. They trust him. They feel they have no choice. So, educate their children.
13 Feb 2018: "But by employing aggressive techniques, New Jersey estate lawyer Martin Shenkman figures, a couple could use their combined $22 million tax exemption to transfer more than a quarter-billion of assets into an irrevocable dynasty trust, where that wealth can continue to grow and pass, estate-tax-free, to an unlimited number of future generations..."
"Is this legally risky? Less so than it used to be. In October (2017), Trump’s Treasury withdrew proposed Obama-era regulations cracking down on certain of these aggressive techniques, which, when done right, have been upheld by the courts."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleaebeling/2018/02/13/trusts-in-the-age-of-trump-time-to-re-engineer-your-estate-plan/#74ed5c96a231
5
Sort of conflicted here. On the one hand, the landowners sound like insensitive jerks. Why not make some arrangement to allow people to get to their cabins? Have lawyers sign some contract to absolve you of legal claims in case they crash and sue you for not maintaining the road like a public thoroughfare.
However, the landowners are probably preserving the land better than if snowmobilers, hunters and loggers were given free access. The wildlife will benefit.
Also my sympathy for the little guy driven off private land is greatly diminished knowing the little guys of Idaho and Montana are probably deep red Republicans and brought this on themselves. It's just an extension of their own philosophy.
11
What I'd like to tread is the follow-up to this article - about how ordinary Westerners can no longer afford to buy a house because large tracts of non-forested land, including large swaths of suburban homes, are now owned by "investors" aka millionaires and billionaires sitting on it for profit. Ordinary homebuyers can't compete because these sales aren't even public or because the all-cash corporations buy before anything hits the market. One of the motives is to keep new homes from being built so as to maintain their property values artificially high. Then - as with this situation - there are water and access rights, and the political clout that comes from being a large landowner. Yet "we the people" are told we can't get into homes because we just don't individually save enough, work hard enough.
The corruption goes so deep. I'd also love to read the article about how the Wilks got deals to frack - on whose land, with whose money, with what public subsidies, etc. History teaches us that most of these fortunes are pretty dirty, and not just because they're based on extraction.
15
The Wilks didn’t frack. They made the equipment.
God gave the Wilks family nothing. It's the absolute epitome of hubris to think that you are rich because God loves you more than other people. This is not religion; this is the opposite of religion and it's evil personified.
30
@Ceilidth As you noted, it is certainly hubris. They certainly know better; just as with most of the "prosperity gospel" preachers, they know it is just spin and window dressing to avoid the wrath of most of those "god fearing" folks who would otherwise rise up and find some tar and feathers....
3
Tax them big time.
12
@Robert M. Koretsky
Eminent domain the land.
2
What did rural America think would happen when they voted in the right wing elite class to rule over them.
Making America Great Again for the billionaire boys club! Not you!
The elites have their foot on your family’s neck while you are focused on wedding cakes for gay couples.
McConnell & the GOP are stacking the courts with judges that will rule the rich can keep you off there land, and away from prosperity. You will not win unless you vote to change the power structure.
Maybe we should build a wall around billionaires and take away their children if the cross it.
19
"The Wilks brothers see what they are doing as a duty. God had given them much...."
They actually believe this. Only a grifter could come up with this
nonsense.
22
Perhaps we poor serfs will have the last laugh - if you want to call it that - when these vast private lands burn down as a result of climate change and are rendered worthless.
5
How can you start a piece like this and then, within 20 words, simply lump it all as 'fortune'? Ya wanna throw in a "You didn't build that" too?
4
Huh. It all began to change in 2007. Great Recession. Thank you George bush and the republicans for ruining another aslectnof our country. If you the billionaires want to own this country let them pay their taxes.
3
@Barney Rubble it did not begin in 2007. Sure, the Great Recession accelerated the demise of the middle class complex, but as other posts here have mentioned, it started with Reagan's first term. To give an example, over 1000 acres of pristine canyon lands were opened to development in Utah's Emmigration Canyon back around 1994-95. Funny thing was, one man was the owner this choice parcel that had been federal lands just prior. And even funnier, he purchased the land for pennies on the dollar from the BLM. Even funnier, no one other than this dude new about the BLM auction of this land. Now this was in the early to mid-90s. This is still happening across the great American West as we hard-working folks get systemically sold off of our national lands.
1
@Barney Rubble
And, Obama’s Justice dept. did not send any of the Wall Street scammers to jail. And, now Eric Holder is back in private practice representing his old Wall Street buddies/clients.
Our Heavenly Father is not a fascist. I don't know why so many people think He is. And Jesus was definitely not rich or a Second Amendment man. Where do people get such strange ideas?
12
As someone who lives and gardens in the Mountain West, I think all the time about who belongs here. I'm a gardener and it is always a struggle to grow anything in this semi-arid climate prone to late and early frosts and lengthy periods of drought. I think that this land is suited for the bison, not vegetables, no matter how heat and drought tolerant my varieties are.
I think about the displaced bison and the displaced Native Americans too.
10
@Sio I agree with your sentiment, though bison haven't been in much of Idaho long before the white man. Too arid, apparently.
So, contribute money and buy the land yourself. Sheesh.
4
@Becky
No one had to buy Honolulu, the government just exercised eminent domain...taking the land away for more productive uses than just growing pineapples.
2
www.sblewis.com... In The North Country of New York State we have the APA. 6.5 million acres are covered, about half privately owned. There was a corrupt practice in play and I litigated and won. Many were fired. Board members belonging to select charity boards were engaged in all this. They targeted certain properties and impoverished owners. We had an honest judge.. one. APA and DEC are poorly managed and susceptible. The governor of the moment runs them. We cannot do without them, and they are a mess. This is the nature of things in The Park... and across America. We want to save the land, and we end up fighting with greedy property minded selfish types that want control for themselves and claim they want to save the land. Many of them are fracking and ripping off the land they own. They do not say this, of course. All the names mentioned are important. They have theirs. They want to pull up the ladder... and sail off, leaving the indigenous to suck wind. These questions will get more intense. Warming and immigration threatens. Open lands are sought... and will be destroyed. Cities on the water, same. 50% of the world's people live on the water. Waters rising will chase them out. Rising waters will not be stopped anywhere. We cannot stop rising water. So, inland becomes more and more costly and the wealthy will gobble it up. They cannot take it with them. Government can act. Eminent domain works. This can get nasty. I do not have the answer. I do have the questions.
6
@S B Lewis
Yes, you do have the answer: eminent domain.
Welcome to the U$A!
Money talks, the rest...sucks.
4
How's that libertarian fantasy working for you cowboys? Does being tread on by billionaires feel softer than scary government?
29
@Robert Lewis
They'll never learn.
But yea, where's the US Forest Service in all of this?
2
@Moehoward The Forest Service is under the thumb of Trump and his "privatize America" crowd. So long as those characters remain in power, there is no help or reprieve from those quarters.
3
@Moehoward The US Forest Service has always been owned by the timber industry. I remember driving across a huge National 'Forest' in Idaho where there was not a tree left standing, millions of acres of clear cut devastation. The entire Northwest has been clear cut under the Forest Service's watch. And the Bureau of Land Management is owned by the cattle industry, given free rein to graze our grasslands into dust bowls, destroy our streams and rivers, provided with government hunters and trappers to eliminate any predator which could conceivably eat a calf. All this destruction of public land is done in our name, supported by our tax dollars. It has been going on since white settlers first arrived, with the US Army provided to kill off the Indians.
5
Yes. These unregulated western billionaires benefit by the Ted Bundy type of red state anti-regulation, anti-government mentality pervasive throughout the rural west. Their private interests will take over and control the states. The individual big sky freedoms coveted by the rural west’s ‘little people’ will diminish.
8
What many supporters of "The American Way" ie unbridled Capitalism, small Government & less regulations, fail to realize this has been & still is the way of ancient Kings 4,000 yrs ago to medieval times & into the present in all dictatorship regimes, replete with slaves, feudalism & classism hierarchies. The end result of unfettered capitalism is simply another form of a feudal society in which the few multi-billionaires in our world exert their ever-increasing control over many billions of humanity. The results have been wars over ever diminishing resources, increasing poverty for all the rest, increasing millions of migrants & a planet in peril, not to mention the extinctions of hundreds of animals & plants.
We are allowing the new Billionaire Kings to topple a once grand experiment in Democratic Republics to fail - exactly as the ancient Greek, Egyptian, Roman, Turkish, Hums, Vikings, Asian, South American & other ancient indigenous Empires did. As well as the imperialist colonialists did: the English, Spanish, French, Germans & Portuguese in more modern times.
Why did these monarchists fail? Because they centred on the one King Monarchy ideal, which is what we have today with the 1% Multi- Corporate Kingships - which is the height of irony in a "democratic" Capitalist system. The fall is coming, although my belief is it already here.
6
'The Wilks brothers see what they are doing as a duty. God had given them much, Justin said. In return, he said, “we feel that we have a responsibility to the land.”'
The Wilks brothers. I'm guessing that these are the same Wilks brothers who made their billions from their fracking business. Yeah, that's showing some 'responsibility to the land'. God will be pleased. This is really beyond laughable.
11
The largest landowner in the US is the federal government. It owns 25 percent of all lands. It owns 85 percent of Nevada. That seems like a way bigger problem than some rich people buying up a few million acres. Especially if they are conserving it. And while nobody likes losing rights they have previous taken for granted I'm not sure that people complaining that they can't use other people's land for free is something that I'm going to get super worked up over. This feels like just another NYT's hate the rich article.
4
@Todd
85% of Nevada that is uninhabitable.
Did you read the article. It's about ACCESS to a national forest being blocked. They don't own the forest. They are blocking access to it.
13
So federal employees can’t access the federal land?
This article is very short on facts. Who owned the land before the brothers bought it?
It is too late, we already allied with the enemy. It is now an America where the greed of the dollar articulates every issue and speaks with forked tongue.
6
Can’t have it both ways in real life, but one can complain about both simultaneously - public stewardship of land is horrible it’s how communism starts, Jesus hates public land while at the same time moaning about how the 1% tightens its strangle hold on everything. The MAGA crowd never ceases to annoy.
6
@Butch When the tax dollars that could go to public stewardship of public lands are syphoned off via tax cuts to the super rich and deregulatory schemes favoring the same folks, then this is the outcome. Direct line from those pieces of legislation and policy to the privatization in play. And it is intentional - indeed bought and paid for by those who are doing the privatizing.
1
It's their land. End of story.
44
@Douglas
Yes, and Hawaii used to belong to pineapple growers and the Supreme Court upheld eminent domain on their land and now we can all enjoy Honolulu and it’s environs.
40
True. That is after it was stolen from the native inhabitants. Strangely, ‚property rights‘ are only applicable when it is convenient.
95
"Their land" is blocking access to Public lands.
59
Taking control of multi-million acres thru out the West by multi-millionaires bears a striking similarity to multi-millionaires gaining de facto control of governments. Capitalism unchecked ruins the foundations of our democratic system just as surely as when total corruption gains the White House.
13
As someone who grew up in the Intermountain West I always heard about the evil federal government who was preventing people from owning big chunks of land. Well, they got what they voted for, unlimited, unfettered capitalist ownership of what had been the public commons. More and more our tech and capitalist lords are becoming an aristocracy and the U.S. resembles old Europe with vast land holdings by the nobility and peasants being shot for poaching on their lands. Congratulations right-wing, rural whites, you got the evil guvmint off your backs and now you have no one to fight the gentry.
29
As long as we remember, and take to heart, the rarely quoted, never sung, lines from Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” we’re good:
As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.”
But on the other side it didn’t say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.
410
@Steve Griffith
Yes. That paragraph about land ownership has been deliberately left out of public and recorded renditions of the song. More of us need to start singing it loudly and repeatedly and asking performers to do the same.
I jump fences (or crawl through sections of barbed wire) often in rural wilderness, especially during my cross country road trips, and have only been caught a handful of times in my life. If you’re on foot, respectfully enjoying nature, and not atttacting a lot of attention (as in atop a loud snowmobile), it’s easy. When I am caught, I lean into my practiced, charming, middle-aged soccer mom vibe (even though I’ve never had kids), apologize sincerely with something like, “oh, I am so sorry, sir. I didn’t even realize it because I was so caught up in watching this fascinating bird I saw flying nearby...”. Works like a charm every time.
Sadly, my white skin and fading beauty probably eases my ability to flout private property signs and I think about that fact a bit guiltily every time a white man lets me go free with a tip of his hat and a “well, you stay safe and have a good day, ma’am.”
48
@Steve Griffith
I almost posted this myself! Now I don't need to.
9
@left coast finch
RE: ",,,my white skin and fading beauty probably eases my ability to flout private property signs..."
Indeed, as a white 65 y/o woman I am increasingly aware of the white privilege that never crossed my mind in past decades. Though I disagree with blocking of public access/arbitrarily closing roads discussed in this article, as a property owner who does not hunt (critters or mushrooms) but has authorized access to others to do so, I'm perplexed by the notion that it's too much trouble for you to find the owner/ask permission...seems more than a bit presumptuous to me.
I'm not accusing you of trashing properties, but I personally find it more than a bit annoying when I find detritus left by those who have climbed through the fence. Additionally, my insurance agent has educated me about the fact that I risk financial liability for someone hurt on my property, even if they've not sought/received permission to be there.
8
These individuals are spewing a twisted form of Christianity: prosperity theology.
Perhaps the small-town conservatives will finally realize they are being had. Their brand of conservativism is not what they’ve been electing into office.
5
@John
Nope, they'll never learn.
2
@Moehoward Right. Their preacher will just tell them to give more, and these riches will come to them as well.
Regarding the link to a Run in with DF Development on National Forest Service rd 409 https://youtu.be/Tt2ndalulYA
I had exactly the same thing happen to me on US Forest Service land & USFS road that provided access to private land below Cathedral Rock in Sedona, Arizona. Private goon was in a golf cart!
I told him he was wrong legally, and he didn't challenge me. But a few minutes later, he chased off 2 young women hikers.
I mentioned the story to a USFS Ranger, who merely chuckled and said that there had been some issues. But he wouldn't weigh in one way or another.
3
@Bill Wolfe Once the Bundy clan faced down the Forest Service and federal agents in both Nevada and Oregon, along with their 3%'r armed militia buddies, the lines of power shifted. There is no further umph to be had from those officials, unfortunately, and the robber barons know it.
1
The Wilks are evil incarnate. Too much money, too little intelligence (D'sousa? Really?), and probably a good measure of hate. What makes me think they hate? Well, they are conservatives. But, if you want a better reason, they support Trump. The Wilks claim to be conservationists. Why aren't they outraged by Trump's crippling of the EPA and rejection of the Paris Accords? Of course, I could be wrong. It could simply be the free money Trump gives to people who don't need it, like the Wilks.
10
Anyone who shuts down snowmobilers & hunters is a hero in my book, two of the vilest "sports" known to man & woman.
8
Hopefully people are waking up to the fact that our system promotes the extreme concentration of wealth. The more you have, the easier it is to grow it. Without a counterbalancing effect from the government, a very few people will end up owning everything. Already, the Kochs and Sheldon Adelson effectively dictate the policies of the US government. Jeff Bezos has wealth comparable to the annual budget of the state of California. This is a problem, not because the rich can afford to have nice things but because wealth equals power.
Elizabeth Warren understands this and knows what to do about it.
10
I loved what some rural town Canadians did when a rich guy did this in their area. He blocked off the town who had for many generations used this road to camp, fish and recreate at the lake. They ignored his signs and continued to use the lake as they had for generations. Then he blocked the only road acccess with chains and locks. Then they cut the chains and continued to use the lake. Then he had trees cut down blocking the road. They then chopped up the trees into firewood and stacked it neatly on the side of the road and continued to use the lake. Next, he told the local law enforcement that they had to guard the road. Law enforcement told him they had more important things to do and there had never been a crime or litter problem or dangerous campfire in the history of the lake. Then he posted private guards who abandoned their post when local community members explained to them what the new owner of the lake was doing. FYI, the owner did now live at the lake nor intend to ever live at the lake and likely would never even visit the lake as he lived in Toronto. Finally, after an entire summer of frustration, the guy had the Sheriff remove the private no trespassing sign and the gate and local folks returned to recreating at the lake as they had for years past. Persist!
11
@marye The book from a few decades ago, The MonkeyWrench Gang, depicted similar efforts. Unfortunately, in the US, anyone employing such efforts are branded as Radical Environmental Extremists, and prosecuted and persecuted to the hilt by those bought off politicians in power. And the poor loggers and miners whose industry has cut many of their livelihoods for other reasons just by the simply explanation that it was those "others" from the big city come to kill their way of life. Check Trump's reference in his speech in Orlando about "they (the radical dems) are coming for you...." and the applause that followed.
1
A single person on a snowmobile generates a lot of noise pollution. Yet we are supposed to feel badly for for the rights of those persons to to ruin the outdoors on other people's land? I'm not sure what the point of this article is. There are many stories of pristine wilderness that is being destroyed by development. On this issue, I stand with the Wilks brothers.
2
The solution to this problem was well laid out by Edward Abbey in "The Monkey Wrench Gang", a manual for all of us who want to preserve the transcendent.
5
@Steve Fankuchen Yes and no -- Ed Abbey was also a proponent of direct action to make roads inaccessible. Roads are the enemy of wilderness, hard to argue against that. Not that I think the Wilkes are motivated by similar sentiments.
This is where the rubber meets the road with Republican voters in the Western states. The local working people who have grown up and used the federal lands for hunting, fishing and recreating are just now discovering why government can be a good thing for all the people.
It’s why Montanans, in particular second, third and forth generation, sometimes split their votes between parties. The Citizens United case that made it through the Supreme Court originated in Montana based on laws to limit money in politics because rich copper barons were buying political offices 100 years ago. History is repeating itself and we have no one but ourselves to blame if as citizens we do not exercise our rights to vote and take the time to educate ourselves on how we arrived at this point.
Rich people owning everything leaves little or nothing for the rest of us. It again illustrates the reason that too much money concentrated in too few hands is not good overall. It is not new and it is happening all over this country. What I truly would like to see is Nevada Ranchers trespass on billionaire owners land instead of federal land and take that to court.
11
We cannot have mega wattage billionaires buying up public lands. These people are not only hogging the money, they are also procuring valuable lands and blocking access by others. Unacceptable. We must start crushing the people that are seizing our national wealth for themselves.
6
Congratulations to America for reestablishing feudalism. To go the entire distance, and in preparation for when the super rich own everything of value, why not allow them titles like Baron, Earl or Marquis? Then we can relabel citizens as subjects, and reinstitute the custom of paying local taxes at the gates of the Lord Of The Manor.
8
I'm trying to think of something about this country that doesn't disgust me today, and I can't come up with anything. Trump is not an accident; we have become something previously unimaginable.
It didn't happen overnight, but it happened. Years in the making, here it is.
5
The 2 million victims of the Irish starvation owned no land they squatted on lands that belonged to the world's affluent.
In his Modest Proposal Jonathan Swift anticipated the potato blight or any event that might allow for the squatters of many generations from being expelled from land to benefit the Irish economy.
During the potato blight Ireland's food export economy worked in high gear with grain, dairy, meat, and vegetables exported in record tonnage.
The million Irish peasants who died and the million who were deported to the urban squalor of the industrial revolution were not farmers they were an underclass that owned nothing.Their hovels rested on land owned largely by landlords who never stepped foot in Ireland. The peasants lived on what they could grow in their yards and their diet of potatoes served neither their physical nor mental health.
The Economist and the recipients of Ireland's bounty used the opportunity of no potatoes to remove squatters of many generations from land that was valuable and dispose of people who had no value. Food that had value was still exported and people who had no value disappeared and when the hovels were emptied they were burned and turned over to livestock and cash crops.
I live in a land where the law is irrefutably secular humanist but
we believe the Bible tells us the corners of the field belong to the gleaners. Pious America tells us gleaners are a separate species whose existence is barely tolerated.
Has America no shame?
5
@Montreal Moe America has no educational system that effectively teaches history and critical thought.
2
How typical - using the profits of environmental destruction to buy and privatize intact land keeping it away from the people; Leaving the degraded destroyed land for the rest of us to live in with zero resource to try to clean up. There’s a reason the trump and stinky Zinke are trying to privatize as much beautiful public land as they can.
Once privatized, even the Grand Canyon can be decimated on a private owner’s whim - uranium mining, casino golf condo properties for the wealthy? No problem.
If only trump and his ilk would borrow a perfectly good idea from Norway and have a public easement on all private land - well regulated, of course as it is in Norway, that would be something.
The last thing the world needs are more landlords.
3
And Bundy thought the feds were a problem. Best of luck, Clive & Co., dealing with MAGA land owners like the Wilks.
6
@TSlats The Bundy's are part of the very movement that props up these super-rich landowners. They have no ability to connect the dots that their own meager holdings will be next. Yet, the Bundy's are revered in the anti-government circles throughout the west.
3
Just another example of the 1% taking everything for themselves and disregarding the laws. Mr. Wilks is a religious whisperer using it as a weapon. The Wilks have also acquired more than just land, they bought the Republican Party while they were at it.
6
@Jacquie They and a handful of others, from the Koch's and Mercers, Devos' and others like them. Trump is a wannabee to tag along, and really wants to stay out of jail to be able to enjoy what he has seen happening when he is no longer POTUS.
1
I grew up in Colorado. I had the advantage of growing up where I could explore wide tracks of land and enjoy the outdoors. My grandfather, a landowner taught me to respect the land. The only problems regarding land would arise when "out oft owners" would come in buy land and establish their own rules. It seems the Wilks are just such people.
Although I grew up in the mountains, it didn't make me a Hill-Billy, which is where this gentrification of the land comes in. Tensions will rise when alleged do-gooders arrive, sweep up the land and then start shaking their fingers at the locals telling them that "they" know what's best for the land. We had Texans doing this back in the the 1980s, much to my grandfather's chagrin.
I live in Coronado CA now another wealthy enclave. When I arrive years ago, I didn't think to buy land then tell the locals what to do. Money does makes people jerks and they sometimes become overly pious because of their good fortune. They lose touch with society and reality and are blinded by power and greed.
Public land is public land. Easements should be made and the Wilks, despite their wealth, should abide by those easements. Wilks'... you don't live in the 1880s "Old West," get a grip.
6
Too funny. One group of (poorer) right-wing Republicans complaining because another group of (richer) right-wing Republicans has prevented them from trespassing upon and despoiling land with their snowmobiles and ATVs. Oh, the humanity!
6
@Etaoin Shrdlu Well, funny I guess, but much more than that it speaks to the futility of mapping humanity to a single axis of left / right ideology.
It should be illegal for anyone to own public lands and water rights. This country seems to have lost it's marbles.
4
Idaho is a very red state. It’s always baffled me that they vote that way when they supposedly revere the land.
6
So since the Wilks interrupted logging operations after they bought their land, does that mean that the logging was previously happening on public land?
2
@Talon This was private land. But the majority of logging in the West occurs on public Forest Service land, and is subsidized by your tax dollars, largely to build the road network necessary for logging. This is not widely understood. The Forest Service was originally created by the Teddy Roosevelt Admin to control and limit logging, but by the 1950s it had become the advocates and facilitators of logging our public lands. That's why very little old growth forests remain.
1
Two brothers that made their fortune selling supply's to a industry that pumps millions of
gallons of chemically polluted water in to the earth to take out a hydrocarbon that is burning up the planet are now concerned about saving God's nature.I wonder if they were thinking of God when the checks were rolling in?
5
“In Montana, they (the Wilks) own some 300,000 acres, and have built several homes and a private airport on a property called N Bar ranch. Today, they live mostly in Texas.”
I doubt there could ever be a better definition of an “absentee Land-Lord” than that.
1
An important reminder to secure right of way access and water rights to any piece of land you purchase. Beware of cheap land deals that seem too good to be true.
Not mentioned is how these lands will be managed for wild fires.
Will the blessed ones manage these lands in a comprehensive manor that includes the adjoining lands or wait until they catch fire and expect the socialist wildland fire fighters to protect their investments?
1
“God had given them much, Justin said. In return, he said, “we feel that we have a responsibility to the land.””
I’m pretty sure fracking is the work of the Devil.
5
And this is not even close to how bad the Native Americans felt when losing their land.
5
You wait to the last paragraph to reveal that an overwhelming majority of the hyped horrible items in the rest of the article have been resolved. Why not make the theme of the article how the owners have worked with the locals to resolve the conflicts? Maybe because the owners of the land are conservatives? Why not a story on Jeff Bezos and his over-reach in steamrolling his neighbors? Maybe because he is a liberal? Try being a news organization with journalistic integrity. Probably a bridge too far
2
It is not laudable that our policies have been written to create dynasties in this country who can buy our politicians in governments from communities, cities, counties and state and the federal government.
"This land is my land and your land from sea to shining sea."
What went wrong.
Greed and power hungry men and women who think they are better than everyone else. Like Donald Trump majority aren't smarter than you and I but better scammers that have the money to grease the wheels in order to have their own fiefdoms,
It is disgusting.
2
@Julie Dahlman Depends on who is saying "my" and whether it is being said in the individual personal or plural national altruistic sense.
Despise the predatory billionaires, but have to laugh at the hapless trump voters who imagined that their concerns were of importance to their right wing betters. Reap what you sow, guys.
2
It turns my stomach to read that people who became billionaires from fracking are stomping on conservation efforts from Teddy Roosevelt onward. If capitalism has led to gentrifying national forests or barring public land from public use, this country has had it.
10
There's another aspect of this problem, which is the use of public lands by private interests. Specifically, mining, logging and cattle grazing. A century after John Muir waged a battle to expand Yosemite park because of the "hooved locusts" (sheep) that were allowed to use the pristine, high mountain meadows for grazing, our federal lands are still extensively used for cattle grazing. Invariably the payment to the government is well below market rates. A particularly disturbing example is Pt. Reyes National Seashore, which is covered by large scale cattle ranching. The ranchers are now seeking to have the Nat'l Park Service cull the Tule Elk native to the area because they compete with their cows. Anyone paying even a little bit of attention to climate change should realize that we need to phase out cattle ranching, not subsidize it.
17
Private landowners are generally allowed to clear-cut several times the acreage allowed on federal lands. After clear cutting the timber, aerial herbicide is sprayed to kill brush & foliage before re-planting.
The Wilks will probably harvest timber as well as selling high value recreational land near lakes & streams.
The clear cuts can lead to serious erosion problems that not only look terrible, but cause harm to people, plants, animals & the ecology.
It remains to be seen whether the Wilks will be stewards of the land or typical profiteers.
2
@Apple Jack Well, as you know, the feds also clearcut and spray herbicides...
Wholesale fencing off of access roads is a loser for whoever tries to do it. The owners and occupiers of land accessed by those roads have what is called a "prescriptive easement" to the road. This is a well established and sturdy legal right. If they litigate against the abusive landowners they win. It is not necessary for the roads to be purchased by the public to safeguard the rights of these access users. On the other hand, the general public who do not own or occupy land accessed by the roads can be barred from using them. Whether it's a good idea for the new landowners to bar the general public is something for them to think about. The general public CAN do an infinite variety of things to make the new owners' lives difficult.
5
And if these lands were not in private hands but rather owned by your federal government the locals would protest that, as has been evidenced.
2
I’ve worked in the west for 35 years and many of the parcels these folks are buying are being preserved. Without the power to enforce their rights, small time parcel owners properties get trashed by off-roaders, hunters, and RVers who ignore no trespassing signs and disrespect the land. I’m not saying all users do that, but the bad apples really leave giant footprints.
7
Making America Great Again for the elite. top 100 rich families.
“Today, just 100 families own about 42 million acres across the country.”
Rural America voted for this?
Well at least they don’t have to make wedding cakes for gay couples if they don’t want to. Probably worth it!
Don’t hope to fight the elite in McConnell’s courts - they are stacked against the peasants that voted for them.
19
So let's see. It's socialism when something is done for the benefit of the vast majority of the people, if it involves private property and rights. Except, if the people who it benefits are white and live in Idaho, then it's just "good neighbors". Not socialism, nope not at all.
It's so hard to keep these things straight these days.
5
So much for the American Republic, where the well to do buy up all of the land and the politicians to boot.
3
@Vimy18
Oh, its much worse.
The Wilks show no sign of being nothing but "good stewards". But that's Idaho, so...
In the great breadbasket of the nation foreign investors and corporations are buying up agricultural land at an increasing rate.
If you want a threat to national security, that's it.
Not a peep from Washington, because money.
So much for the American Republic.
2
@oogada This has been going on for a few decades, accelerating from the days and policies of Reagan / Bush / et. al. Very few small family farms left in the country; but that is the image portrayed by politicians. Many of those are actually tenant farmers (read serfs) working the land - essentially a large agricultural factory assembly line.
1
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, and it's only gotten worse since we learned to talk.
From the film:
Lennie Pike:
All right, we all agree on that. Now look, let's be sensible about this. There's money in this for all of us. Right? There's enough for you, and there's enough for you, and for you, and there's enough for...
Read three comments and Trump, so far, is not guilty of something. I will go back to sleep, wake up again and see if I wasn’t dreaming.
"But ultimately, he said, “our Heavenly Father has blessed us with lots of gifts,” and his family’s priority was to protect them."
Oh how Christian of them! The "Heavenly Father" chose them over others upon which to bestow earthly wealth and their duty is first and foremost to make sure it is kept for themselves. Yes, very Christian indeed.
740
@joe
The teaching of "From those to whom much is given, much is expected." Luke 12:48, must either be omitted from their Bible, or maybe they think it doesn't apply to them--rather like supporting a President who has broken every Commandment but one...though he did brag he could break that one on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters.
37
@joe Their explanation is nominally one of stewardship, and they did kick loggers off the land.
3
"This land is mine; God gave this land to me." Maybe, Joe, they're not Christians so much as Old-Testament Israelites, come to establish the New Jerusalem.
7
Are these the folks who gave us Trump? Way to go, fellows! I’m sure God has a special gated resort ready for you when your time comes.
2
What next for the new land barons, the return of droit du seigneur?
3
Where is their ranch in Texas?
I want to buy the surrounding roads nearby.
Jesus told me to.
8
The Wilks brothers are confused. They can't seriously say they are for conservation of these tracts of land while at the same time supporting trump. The two things just don't mesh. Now, if they were to place conservation covenants on their properties, that might show their true colors. And then maybe they could with hold money from trump and elect a president who believes in the science of climate change. If they don't their beautiful Rocky Mountain States land holdings will turn to desert.
7
I understand the theory behind trying the limit the off road vehicle revolution which has damaged vast areas of the west. But the gentrification of the region or even worse plutocrats buying up vast amounts of land and declaring them off limits is a scandal. Back when T. Roosevelt was president he rightly saw the need to protect the west from being destroyed by private interests. But now vast acreage has been allowed to be privately owned. Even under the intention to protect the west from the huge influx of people this once again shows the unilateral power of individual wealth over everything.
6
Sounds like the imminent domain concept should be employed to establish access.
What kind of people cut off access to huge swaths of public land and feel good about it.
Selfish and self centered people, who have a firm ally in Trump.
3
This article captures the hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance of so many Republicans.
Snowmobiles, hunters -- all very Republican leaning recreations-- destroying pristine areas of natural beauty are up in arms because they can't continue to destroy nature in pursuit of their "fun".
The Wilks, who have made billions out of destroying an underground natural resource-- our drinking water-- now are worried about the land because they *own* it.
If you want access to public land, then you need to bow down to the Republican cultish thoughts-- all things that create the destruction in the first place.
Unbelievable. The whole Republican ethos is: get mine by any means necessary, and then keep everyone else off it.
9
As long as this is about conservation, and conservation only, I can support it.
But specious insults like: "Do you want me camping in your front yard?” make me lose all sympathy. These Wilks folks seem to be a piece of work. Time for grassroots campaigns.
4
If my front yard was thousands of acres would I know the difference?
Watch Ken Burns PBS series on the National Park system, when millionaires donated land to the federal government to preserve those treasures for all.
2
I always love it when ultra rich right wingers ascribe their vast accumulated wealth as 'gifts from God."
'God' had not part in that.
6
There is a way to stop this oligarchs in the making, and their henchmen, one must be committed and prepared however!
1
An old and familiar story, just ask any Native American.
14
The prospect of right wingers gaining control of large portions of anything terrifies me. On the other hand, as long as conservation is the result, I'll take it over letting the general public do what they do when they have access to natural resources. I live in Colorado because I love recreating in the mountains. There are large national parks and wilderness areas here that are well protected. Step outside them though and it's a different story, even on national forest and BLM land. Roads upon roads give access to snowmobilers, ATV riders, dirt bikers, and drivers of souped up gas hogging 4wd vehicles of all sorts. These people despoil otherwise quiet and peaceful habitat and recreational areas with their fumes, noise and trash. I can only guess at what impact this has on the ability of wildlife to thrive.
The merely rich buy lots in gated subdivisions that were recently undisturbed habitat. Much of the mountainous land surrounding Colorado towns and cities is a depressing and continuously expanding suburban blight interspersed with pine trees. Ranchers fence out or kill anything that gets in the way of them making money off raising cattle.
The story of Trump voters whining about greedy capitalists taking control of things they'd rather belong to the public is rich. In this day and age I shake my head and smack my forehead so much I may be doing permanent damage.
7
@John
In order to build a state of the art visitors center, I was told 500' of the top of Pikes Peak was leveled. Also, the road was paved all the way to the top of the mountain. When family members took me up there, it was bumper to bumper traffic at $50.00 a vehicle. The parking lots are carved close to the top where you have to park and take a shuttle bus which drives over a precariously curved road toward the peak. The land around the new visitors center is flattened. I couldn't believe that conservationists or any population would allow this to happen to any one of our beautiful, historical natural preserves. This is the site where Katherine Lee Bates wrote the poem and which became the hymn and anthem, "America the Beautiful" when she visited Pikes Peak!! This development happened within the last few years!!
1
Every person who proclaims God made them rich is a liar. Their hard work may have helped but luck is always a major factor. Standing in the right place at the right time is often the difference between success and failure.
God doesn't make anyone rich.
The only redeeming aspect of this are the billionaires who bind themselves to keeping the areas in the native states. But they nevertheless have a moral obligation (now this is where God comes in) to let the land be available for enjoyment - as places that are in the state of beauty and goodness that the Divine made them.
6
The NYT fails to make clear that these mega-land owners are buying up what is presumably privately owned land, so the land is being transferred from one private owner to another.
Until we become a socialist/communist country as proposed by Bernie Sanders, AOC and others like them, land owners and buyers are free to buy and sell privately-owned land.
That has been the law of this country since its founding.
4
@Mon Ray
Right, they didn't make it clear. I also assumed they are buying it from other private landowners. I trust the Federal Government to hold on to our public land but am not so sure about state, local governments and other public entities like school districts, etc. The only way to ensure protection of undeveloped land for everyone to enjoy is to keep it in public ownership or a land trust like the Nature Conservancy. BTW, your remark about some democratic candidates proposing that we become a socialist or communist country is really a stretch. They are just trying to reverse a trend toward the opposite extreme of a few people accumulating all the wealth and power and making the rest of us their peons.
2
@Tiny Tim
"I trust the Federal Government to hold on to our public land ..."
Major mistake.
@Mon Ray
The tragedy of the commons.
Except we hate each other so much there really is no commons; there's what's mine and what I have yet to acquire.
Once I own it, don't try to tell me about the general welfare and, God no, don't mention the environment.
This wouldn't be so bad if you all would stop invoking capitalism and the free market and democracy, because the establishment of a new aristocracy, heedless and above the law, is none of those things.
Real capitalists know, and act like they know, that they have to invest (one might say "sacrifice") to keep the system healthy and viable. Otherwise you'll end up where we will surely be after another Trumpish reign, at war with one another.
Any fool will tell you, you can't eat the seed corn.
1
Well, these the so-called conservatives in these states have stood up for the poor, disadvantaged billionaires against those awful liberals. Get the government out of it. Now they have their aristocracy. Now we see how that’s working for them.
3
Water!!! When they buy the land they buy the water on that land also known as the new gold, as named by Goldman Sachs. And in this case the Wilks have cut off the water shed from Public Lands so it drains into and onto their private property thereby increasing their water supply at Public expense! It’s about the land but it’s also about the Water!
11
Nothing is more disturbing, polluting or dangerous than encountering a mindless snowmobiler, dirt biker, jet boater, Jeep rock crawler and other motorized recreational vehicle in the wilderness. Riding around the lakes, roads and trails in all seasons just for the thrill of “recreationing”.
4
@macbloom
Exactly. This is where this article leaves me torn.
Having a respect for nature has kept me out of the parks as much as in them.
Seeing how my fellow citizens have often overrun most of our natural treasures and their increasing demands to make them accessible to their fossil fuel burning joy rides, I’m inclined to think two men walling off a parcel too big for either of them to ever see all of might be, for now, the best thing.
2
Remember the Bundy’s protests against government stewardship of public lands? I wonder how they’re going to like this
4
The Wilks made their money fracking for the Shalers.
In the last 15 years the Shalers have spent more than 500 billion dollars more than they have generated.
More than 500 Shalers have declared bankruptcy since 2015.
A couple of trillion dollars in the Enterprise Value of the Shalers has disappeared since 2015.
I hate to break this to the Wilks---the money did not come from God--- it came from bad/lousy deals that have hurt many people, in one of the most heavily tax subsidized industries.
The Wilks money is dirty money by my reckoning.
9
Game plan” Buy up all the lower-priced housing, buy up all the open land.
Yes, the investors and the billionaires are exerting their power and dominance and moving clearly into control that throws the issue of inequality and morality into the face of every citizen, resident and voter.
This is NOT the America we had, want or should have.
6
Someone purchased real estate and folks are cut off from perpetual access to that land? Next time you look at your home's or property's assessed value and smile, understand this is the way things work.
The story I’d like to read is how a group of nineteen peaks over 13,000 feet ever came to be privately owned in the first place. Reporters, who’s up for that?
2
Much public land bristles with guns and ATVs, and frankly might be better in private ownership.
2
Are those complaining by any chance the same people who have spent years insisting the state and local governments should take over federal lands because -- you know, they listen to us?
3
Where I live in the west you can't swing a cat without finding a spot with an awe-inspiring view.
You also can't swing a cat without hitting a 'No Trespassing-Keep Out' sign.
And many of the noisiest people hollering for a 'free and open west' fence up their property and post 'Keep Out' signs everywhere.
4
People like the Wilks brothers, who think they have a monopoly on virtue, would buy and sell the very air we breathe if they could.
4
People in the west don't seem to know what they want.. or even what's best for themselves.
. -- They've been complaining for years about government, public lands...-- But now when the private landowners take over... They come to see the value of public land.. too late..
5
As we all face the increasing threat of global heating and more and more cities and lands becoming uninhabitable, buying up vast quantities of land in rich habitats is more a survivalist tool than conservation. In Northern Idaho, the Aryan Nation have blocked off county access roads since the 80s and will meet you at the gate with rifles. This article is like a page torn from a dystopian novel. Fracking shouldn't make these people billionaires. As a nation, we need to wake up.
5
I can’t help but wondering what alt-right, sovereign citizen groups, such as the one led by the Bundy clan, think about the private ownership of such vast, contiguous acreage and the restrictions to access and use places upon them. Are they willing to also take up arms, threaten lives and take the law into their own hands by standing against these private security outfits? Or are their militant actions simply for show, when a Democratic Administration is in Washington? All I can say to these alt right, sovereign citizen groups with regards to this private land horde is that it appears “your chickens are coming home to roost”.
2
I plan to solve the philosophical and social problems of structural material inequalities with this buried post. lol.
2
These right-wing people who destroy land and animal and plant habitat by snowmobiling and hunting and trapping -- and the right-wing billionaire landowners who allow access to their land only to those who agree with their political views -- deserve each other. What did Uday Trump say: "Love it!"
5
Between billionaire self-righteous land grabs ("blessed us with lots of gifts"), right-wing anti-government squatters (Malheur OR), and Trump's cabinet shrinking national monuments (Bears Ears being the worst), opening too many to scarring extraction, our shared inheritance of national parks and protected land is being offered as collateral in the latest dirty (fracking, coal, oil) money laundering scheme. Make a few rich on mining rights so they can buy even more land, keep the public out, and leave behind a mess.
Load your kids in a car and get out and see the West before it's gone. I make it a point to take a different route every time I plan a road trip to appreciate the places — and the people — before the fences and "No Trespassing" signs block the roads.
1
“The concept of private property is embedded in the nation’s framework...”
It is how we managed to take most of the continent from the people who were already living here. Special thanks to biological warfare for devastating a population of ‘savages’, whose tactical ability could have otherwise prevented our encroachment.
“The Wilks brothers...father was the head of a conservative church called the Assembly of Yahweh.”
I’m not sure that a house of worship with that name could really pass for ‘conservative’, but I know that if I wrote the word, it would be blasphemy.
“Mr. Wilks said he was trying to resolve access issues with frustrated neighbors. But ultimately, he said, ‘our Heavenly Father has blessed us with lots of gifts,’ and his family’s priority was to protect them.”
Good God. How many sects of Christianity are there? I want moral dessert, too!
Seems the county needs to vote for new leadership to change the laws that were corrupted by the current leadership who was obviously bribed and bought off. And we need new leadership in DC to protect our public lands from the predatory wealthy. Vote!
2
Mr Wilks "heavenly father" blessed him with good old American greed, ignorance, arrogance, and the ability to appropriate "God" to rationalize any of his numerous violations of the universal rights of his fellow human beings. Another good reason to tax the billionare class out of existence. In the larger scheme of things, nobody owns the West, and if "God" gave it to members of any species, it would not be homo sapiens, who will destroy it as fast as they can, as they overrun the planet. Does it really matter if it is a few people with billions of dollars, or millions of people with many thousands of dollars?
1
Nice to see the Wilks do their part to destroy our natural beauty (fracking) while reserving what little of it is left for themselves.
A couple of class acts.
4
I want to know who "owned" this land, truly? That is, before Native Americans did.
1
“our Heavenly Father has blessed us with lots of gifts”
Self-awareness and common sense apparently were not among them.
4
What a terrible shame. Snow mobilers and hunters are shut out of these lands, which are now being allowed to just remain empty and peaceful. One question: Do the deer, bears, cougars and other creatures who call these properties THEIR LAND get a vote as to whether they should be open to the public?
196
@Connecticut Yankee
What makes you think these lands will be "allowed to remain empty and peaceful"?
most likely they are going to exploit parts of them for mineral resources, for the trees, and who knows what else? Else why would they block access to public lands?
22
@Connecticut Yankee: Empty? Really? Lotsa of wildlife there who will be happier and safer without hunters and snowmobilers.
My guess is that if the wildlife get a vote, they’ll vote for closure. I know I would.
10
@Connecticut Yankee
I’d keep out the motorized vehicles, but these lands have been hunted for millennia. As long as the hunting is well managed, it can benefit the land.
9
Here in Montana, the Wilks have gone to court to try to seize historic water rights from their neighbors. They lost and they appealed and lost. Good neighbors they aren't.
1427
McConnell’s new judges will reverse those decisions.
34
@MNGRRL Remember that out here "whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting." Hope they continue to lose.
40
@MNGRRL
They’re blocking access to some of the best elk hunting in the state. Politicians, even judges, can be bought off, but angering Montana elk hunters who can’t afford to hire outfitters is not a smart move.
33
Concentration of ownership is the natural endpoint of a free market. It is irrational to expect a different outcome unless the system is designed to prevent it. People who have the wealth buy the things that everyone wants, including housing and land.
Our ancestors came here because Europe had already been divvied up. Now America is being divvied up in the same way.
Wealth inequality is more than numbers on a ledger. It is the power to own vast chunks of the world. Welcome to the future.
1064
@mlbex, exactly the problem in the world today, too many people with too much wealth and then most everyone else down at the bottom struggling to manage. Always remember my history teacher saying the future will be the very rich and everyone else and the “middle class” will be gone. Yep, it is happening at a rapid fire pace.
66
@mlbex That's why capitalism is broken.
52
@ari pinkus: Whether it's broken or not probably depends on who you ask. I'll bet that according to the billionaires, it is doing exactly what it is supposed to do: deliver all important assets to a subset of winners, while delivering transient prosperity to every one else.
37
Citizens in rural areas that vote Republican can expect this trend to accelerate for the foreseeable future. At some point, they will begin to understand who came up with the drive to "cut taxes". These guys worked hard to get where they are, but so did a lot of us, who didn't have the same luck of being at the right place at the right time. Why should they get to hoard public lands?
1060
@dave, because greed is good & wealth hording is what being wealthy is mostly about, next to power that is.
17
They will begin to understand? How about maybe?
12
@dave Lower taxes lead to lower city and county budgets which reduces the cost for the Wilks to "influence" officials, or defeat cities and counties in court.
The Wilk's net worth dwarfs the entire annual budget of several Idaho counties.
39
What is not discussed in this article that I can tell you as a local.
The wilks brother bought up a long strip of land along a mountain range that is the only area through which one can enter a very large national forest. The Wilks brothers bought all of that land then closed down the only road access to millions of acres of public land. In doing so they successfully became the only people with access to that public land as well. They now control the access to a national forest, not just their land.
This article makes it seem like people want to be on the wilks land. Not correct, people just want to get to the public land behind their property. The Wilks brothers aren't allowing it.
They want to protect what is theirs and in so doing deny others the public lands.
This is squarely on the Wilks and shady county and state politicians who allowed it because the Wilks paid for it. The County had the chance to establish an easement and did not. That's straight from the mouth of someone on the inside at the local County office. I heard that with my own ears.
The issue is access to public land, not private.
2311
@MR Thanks for the insight to the bigger picture. I live in a different state but we're dealing with the same issues every day. Access to public lands should be sacrosanct.
167
Sounds to me like the concerned locals need to get involved in the political process...demand an easement or recall officials who don’t provide it. That works.
But realize and easement is just that, the ability to cross someone else’s land.
84
@Stephanie Cooper that's addressed in the article. The Wilks brothers hired lobbyists and paid for laws to change in their favor.
The article also states the county doesn't have the resources to win a legal battle against them. Pressuring the county has been going on. People have been voicing their concerns. That's why it's in national news and you're hearing about it.
It's the wealthy abusing the common man with the help and support from the state and local governments.
211
Between this article and the one The Times ran earlier in the week about real estate investors buying up the nation's entry level housing supply, it is clear to anyone willing to pay attention that the 1% are buying up resources at an incredible pace as the masses are focused on the political red meat thrown out to keep them distracted. And we all know which political party these greedy billionaires have in their pocket.
It's time to put the phones and TV remotes down and wake up to what is happening under our noses and to vote accordingly. The consequence of not doing so will be the not-too-far-off day when we all wake up and find we are catapulted back 1500 years into a feudal society.
21
Many here obviously don't understand the issues. No one has a bone to pick with these people buying property. The problem is when they gate a road that provides access to land beyond their borders. There have not been laws to designate these roads as "public" despite the fact that they are "in practice". So, there's capitalism and a free society. But the exercise of your rights don't trump mine (so to speak). I think the other thing you should be aware of is how well outdoors users treat these public lands. They stay on roads and trails, the place is generally very clean and trash-free. Hunting is conducted under the direction of Fish & Game laws and their enforcers.
6
Just another example of capitalism run wild. No one should be able to tie up this much of the country's land. Through years of lax regulation and law such as the Swamp Land and Mining Acts, State governments and the federal government have not only permitted but encouraged this kind of rapacious land grab without accounting for destruction of natural habitat or continued access by the public to vast tracts of land purchased by private and corporate owners. Residents of the communities affected have frequently aided and abetted these actions in the name of progress. Runaway capitalism has also lead to the preposterously expensive and inefficient Rube Goldberg machine that is US healthcare, and near inaction in the face of the crisis of climate change. The worst thing may be, though, that the very people profitting most have convinced those that profit least or are hurt by these actions that it is their sacred duty to uphold even the excesses of capitalism, no matter how destructive to there own well being.
4
Larry Ellison, of Oracle, owns an entire Hawaiian Island. I wonder how the former natives of Hawaii feel about that? Matt Lauer, formerly of one of those broadcast morning shows owns 25,000 acres in New Zealand and you have to have his permission to cross his land to get to a nature park in New Zealand. I wonder how New Zealanders feel about that?
I'm sure some of these land owners protect the environment which would otherwise be spoiled by the general public and our government and the Trump Administration, but that should be our job, the job of the general public to protect America. And therein lies the problem.
6
My first thought upon completing this article is that these families are purchasing vast tracts of land in order to create a climate refuge for the future, which is ironic considering how they earned their vast fortunes. The land could also be a major investment if the families elect to sell parcels at premium prices to well-heeled people looking to escape extreme weather events that are sure to come. I expect their next step will be to tie up all of the water rights.
12
@Connecticut Grandmother Interesting idea. However these lands are forest fire central now, and will be even worse in the coming decades. Forest fires destroy clean water too.
@Connecticut Grandmother: I agree; and apparently the Wilkses have already tried to grab water rights in Montana.
Ironic, isn't it?
The very people who make their fortune by polluting the ground water, creating artificial fracking induced earthquakes, essentially ruining the livability and livelihood for thousands of mostly rural Americans, buy up thousands (if not millions) of acres of mostly pristine, unaffected lands, then gate them against historical access by the locals. One could not find a greater disconnect than these new "owners" from their "lands" (read: new commodities).
The United States is rapidly becoming a nation of haves and have-nots; the very economic conditions our pilgrims and original settlers fled England and most of Europe to escape.
We are nearing a needed revolt by the commoners against the modern day robber barons such as these clueless, classless, accumulators of wealth with no connection to the lands and people they exploit other than for commodity.
In this article, I find my leanings toward the very people I spoke against during the recent occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge.
I have never set foot in a Carnagie-funded library after reading of the Homestead strike as a teen, and will never support such a person, ever.
Great Northern-Sante Fe recently sold off their free, government-granted timberlands, (re-named Plum Creek Timber [every other section, 6 miles each side of the R-O-W, = 12 square miles for every mile of right-of-way]), the US Government hasn't yet, sued for repossession of this violation of the Railroad Act?
3
The fundamental element of private property is the right to exclude. Without the right to exclude there is no "private" in private property. So there is really nothing to see here in the sense that these folks are just exercising their rights. That being said, new owners who disrupt long established patterns of public use of land or which cut off access to public resources are not always acting in an enlightened way regardless of their rights. But the fact remains, it is their right to exclude and that is our system of property rights.
Not once did the writer mention how the federal government attained the land they sold to the private owners. Not once did she mention that locked gates and armed guards kept us, Ndé, (the people) from our home lands, and incarcerated long enough to take what they wanted. Not once did she mention the hunting and fishing grounds that a handful of families "grew up" on was the livelihood of Indigenous Nations. Not once did she mention the legal Treaties that defined the homelands of the Tribes that are still being violated by the United States.
If you want to see the outcome of this current land grab, look at our history, ask an Indian.
15
Perhaps when forest and range fires occur on their land, I'm sure the Wilks' (and their ilk) will gladly provide their own fire fighting teams and the necessary equipment to fight fires. I certainly wouldn't want to impinge on their property rights and I certainly don't want local, state or Federal dollars going to put it out.
9
Perhaps this is overly conspiratorial, but I have to wonder if they are buying land they expect to be livable after decades of climate change. Will they build bunkers for themselves and their families?
4
@Mercury S
Yes, they will!!!
I, too, hate to see huge swaths of land in my state purchased by rich out-of-staters, who limit access not just to the land but try to cut off access to the streams that flow through it.
But I also have to note that many of those who use public (and some older private) lands for recreation have only themselves to blame for continuing to send Republicans into positions of power in state and federal government.
This includes Montana's current "representative" Greg Giantorte, allegedly the richest man in the House, who sued the state to try to prevent the public from crossing areas of his land.
We need to start looking at the last of these large holdings in western states as public land opportunities for our children and grandchildren, and the diversity of wildlife that rely on it, not just more land that rich people can buy up to keep the public out.
8
The problem with taxing based on “property size” or acreage is it would squeeze farmers and those with vast land ownership on paper but without the annual income stream to hang on.
Unless provisions were put in place based on net worth or these types of disclaimers.
Think about it. Should a soybean farmer in Wisconsin be subject to an extra “land mass tax” that a 5th Ave hedge fund director is immune from bc he is measured in sq footage?
These distinctions would have to be clear and beyond sleazy tax loops and avoidance schemes.
Hard for me to have much sympathy for people who want to drive around privately owned land on noisy snowmobiles or in ATVs. Show me you have more respect for peace, quiet, animal life, and undisturbed nature. Try cross county skiing, back packing, or horseback riding. Injecting the wealth, religious background, politics, and size of the owner’s acreage has little to do with the problem.
2
One question that to me the article begs, but does not answer, is: "Who owned these properties before these mega-rich people bought them?" If they were already privately owned, I'm not as concerned as I will be if I find out that these were formerly publicly owned lands. Any answers here?
2
Most likely they were one or more private ranches.
1
@Burt Hermey Mostly privately owned timber company lands. Go back a hundred years to see how they got ahold of them.
1
Those who, like the Wilks, attribute their wealth as "gifts" from God and then "protect" rather than share the bounty, always put me in mind of the story of the man who appeared at the pearly gates with a trainload of gold bullion in tow.
"What," asks an incredulous St. Peter, "is all this for?"
"St. Pete," the man replied, "they always said you can't take it with you. But I proved them wrong. I've managed to bring all my wealth with me to Heaven!"
"And," said the now even more incredulous saint, "the best you could do was paving material?"
Who did they buy the 300,000 acres from? That's very relevant information to understand this issue better.
1
@Abhilash I googled the question and the land they have purchased was privately owned. The previous owners didn't block access.
1
As the surfs and workers quibble over the details of fairness of access to the public's land, the society is on an accelerating glide slope to plutocracy. You may temporarily get your access back, (or not), but you'll never get your Democratic and pluralistic society back unless profound changes occur.
3
Look up Rome and ‘latafundia’ for the historical precedent (among many). Thus never ends well and you’d think we’d be smart enough to keep it from happening
1. The wealth class are buying homes, "reshaping the real estate market around the country, and driving up prices for everyone else."
2. We rely on thier noblesse oblige to pay off our student loan debts that others in their echelon have designed to profit from in the first place.
3. Now they're gobbling up the natural landscape and kicking us off it, using proceeds they've gained from destroying natural resources elsewhere, essentially, and ultimately, making those worthless to the rest of us.
Anyone with even an elementary sense of history knows where this is heading if left unchecked: A Revolution. And it will be the bad kind unless/until "our" representatives (at all levels) become beholden to "us" rather than the folks who contribute to their campaigns, fly them on their jets, hire them as lobbyists or otherwise subscribe to the now laughable "trickle down" theories that started us down this road in the '80s and have been sustained by both republicans (and some democrats) ever since.
For my children, and my childen's children, I pray to God your days are numbered.
5
This is a real tough one for me. I'm all for closing land off to the use of snowmobiles and giant pickum up truck trashing the land and soundscape. If on the other hand it puts more pressure on our public land to have these vandals loossed on our space than no it is not benign. It just shows that the whole so call conservative movement has very little to do with conservation. Here in Oregon when the Bundy bros and their Sagebruch anarchist showed up and squatted on our land the locals didn't like it, but the big mega ranchers kepted a low profile and not a peep was heard from them. I don't trust those ranchers almost as much as the Bundy Bros, but not quite. Their all a bunch of snakes with no public interest, only their own.
2
This doesn’t even address the Saudis buying farms all across the Southwest to seize the water rights.
3
There is no justification for any individual to own more than 5,000 to 10,000 acres of land. This land-grab by the super rich is criminal, however legal it may be on the books.
4
Interesting that local rurals in Idaho would scoff at super wealthy arriving and buying up land. Both groups share the same isolationist, irrational fear of government, "Don't tread on me" personal ideology.
It is almost funny to read how those who decry Democratic socialism object to this example of late stage capitalism. If we do not regulate how much money any individual is permitted by society, we will end up at the conclusion of a monopoly game- one person owns all the properties and hotels, and the rest of us limp by on the $200 for Passing Go, with no opportunity to ever rise beyond. It is fine for someone to be rich, but only up to the point where it ceases to benefit society. There is no good reason to allow any individual to have a billion dollars. I defy anyone to show me a single need a family cannot meet with a net worth of $150M or a benefit to society that 1 single billionaire provides vs 1M people having $1000 to buy school supplies and necessities.
9
if these rich persons are buying the wild lands with a sincere desire to truly keep them in a pristine state, then bless them. by all means limit access for as long as possible, and give the planet and all the innocent denizens of the natural world a respite from Us. all nine billion of Us - a recently predicted population in 2050. and then let Us slow down procreation for a generation or two to save this pearl of earth.
5
A federal tax on all owners of mostly undeveloped wilderness (50.001% or more) in the United States of $10/acre for every acre over 100 should do the trick.
24
@brian
Won't that either lead to MORE development and/or removal of lands from the county tax rolls as owners make strategic donations of such lands to the federal government?
I don't see how you could implement your plan successfully?
@brian Very bad idea. If you Levi taxes on something you own it. I’m against property taxes. Because they’re slowly squeezing me out of my own home.
@brian
That would certainly stimulate the development of that undeveloped land, perhaps drawing even more Californians to emigrate to those still wide-open spaces.
The Constitution covers this issue, explicitly limiting the federal government's power to own land to two purposes: the seat of government (Washington DC), and "forts and other needful buildings". And of course the Tenth Amendment guarantees that non-enumerated powers belong to the states and the people. So the situations described in this article are as the Framers intended the country to work.
Both environmentally and economically, state and private ownership of land is superior to federal control. States are more attuned to the "lay of the land" and their own individual needs, while private owners have their own skin in the game. This is why it is federal, leased land that is most often over-forested and clearcut, while private land is managed to maintain a sustainable supply of lumber.
Finally, remember that for the Wilks brothers to buy the land, someone has to sell it. So many of the lands mentioned here likely were already private.
4
@Charles With regard to the landowners selling, yes, you are correct,..they are offered way more than value if it is adjacent to their property. Many of these landowners are old and although they do not want to sell it,.but the amount is to much to pass on.
Where much of the debate lies is with state land, not federal. It also lies with easements, navigable rivers and access points that have been in place for decades and sometimes even maintained by the counties. Their puppets in the GOP have been for at least a decade trying to eliminate BLM, USFS and other federal lands so their benefactors can buy it.
9
@Charles
Uh, no. Gibson v. Chouteau, 80 U.S. 92, 99 (1872), Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, 336 (1936), Utah Power & Light Co. v. United States, 243 U.S. 389, 405 (1917), Light v. United States 220 U.S. 523 (1911).
1
@Charles
Most of what you say is correct, but evidence shows that "environmentally and economically, state and private ownership of land is superior to federal control" is untrue.
States like Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, etc have had proponents, including legislators, insist that the state could manage the land better. But time and time again it has been shown that those states do not have the revenues needed to maintain the land properly, and the rational conclusion is such lands will then pass on to private individuals or corporations who will then exploit the resources for their own needs, (which is fine) but they will also transfer all the risks and losses, such as pollution, land erosion, etc... to the public.
The free-market systems works until it stops working. We should not deceive ourselves with the former situation by ignoring the latter. With close to 70% of the population, and a larger chunk of the tax base not living in those states, it makes sense for this larger pool of money to be relied upon. Locals can manage the operations, as they should.
Finally, these lands were OBTAINED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. They belong to the citizens of the Republic. The Dept of Interior is our Land Agent, they represent our interests. Selling your land cheap to someone in exchange for kickbacks or contributions is a crime. Those who profess to respect ownership rights should know this well. Yet they say otherwise - what is their real intention? I say it is crookedness.
2
The BLM needs to establish limits on how much land one person or family can purchase over a lifetime, and how much contiguous land can be held. Long term leasing rather than outright sale is a much better idea.
Are the Wilks premillenialists setting up a private kingdom to rule over after the apocalypse? The alt-right political landscape is peopled by true believers in the end times.
Given the history of fringe groups of survivalists in Idaho, and other fairly isolated geographical locations, the real worry here is the potential for private para-military forces being created by wealth hoarding families wanting to establish fiefdoms within the US that are exempt from federal laws.
This happened before in the 1980's, part and parcel of the 'morning in America' political movement that enshrined wealth accumulation by means of unregulated capitalism as "god's will".
Public lands need to remain public, owned in common by all the citizens of the country.
17
Before reading this article today, I discovered the Swedish principle of the Freedom To Roam 'Allemansrätt’. What a contrast.
The Swedes have created a society that takes the same mutual respect and desire to be in nature that we have here in the US -- but instead of erecting fences and lawsuits, invites mutual exploration and enjoyment of our natural resources.
My defining moments of young adulthood were found during a summer spent in Alaska on a National Outdoor Leadership (NOLS) course. I have had the blessed privilege to roam on open land, encountering beauties and challenges that pulled me out of my childhood and taught me a self-awareness that I am integral part of a system, that my choices reverberate far beyond my home and immediate community.
I wish for each and every human to be blessed by returning to nature as often as possible. I wish for this message to be pondered and embraced by our largest land owners - who hold enough resources to shape the wellbeing of many generations.
Borrowing some lines from Charles Eisenstein's Sacred Economics "... the regime of property, the enclosure of the unowned, has made us all poorer... Even a billion-dollar landholding is smaller than the domain of the hunter-gatherer."
43
@John Turpin
Yes, the Swedes are light years ahead of the Americans on this issue and have long recognized the benefits to the overall society to giving each individual citizen easy access to wilderness and nature (even on private property) to feed the soul.
3
I'd really like to know if the result of this increase in wealthy owners provides a net environmental protection for the land and its species. Reading the article, it seems so, but maybe not.
If there is a net environmental protection for the West, then that is a positive from my perspective... the West is under a lot of environmental stress. That doesn't remove, however, the issue of an increasingly wealthy superclass buying up more and more land and other property. That is not a movement in a democratic direction -- it ends with an oligarchy. And many would say we are already there.
25
@Malcolm there are a few that are stewards of the land, but too often it is their fiefdom and they also sell hunting opportunities to those willing to pay. What is of concern are a couple of things. 1) lack of land management effects habitat and wildlife. 2) the continued loss of sportsman and women access will hasten the decline of those that participate in those activities. What that means if people are not buying licenses within a state or on a national level, hunting and fishing equipment, the Pittman-Robertson act is not being funded therefore federal and state agencies are losing critical funding for wildlife and habitat management, as that is where much of the money comes from. 3) less sportsmen and women mean a loss of jobs in the industry (approx 700,000 jobs). Hunters spend $22.1 billion annually, but this amount is shrinking.
2
@Malcolm That's long been a fundamental question of environmentalism -- starting with the vast estates in Britain being broken up as wealth left the aristocracy, and often replaced by housing that devastated lands that had been jealously protected for centuries. Even more so in Africa as the colony era crumbled. And as a westerner with family history that once controlled large ranching areas-- it is relevant here as well. My thoughts are that any environmental protection that requires these large inequalities is ultimately doomed. However, simply losing these lands to a more equal democratic society whose primary social glue is the ability to pursue material wealth is also an algorithm for rapid destruction. If we can reassert our common value in conservation and functioning ecosystems --and prioritize it -- eg by explicitly accounting for externalized costs (and thus largely public subsidies) of developing, then perhaps we can create a new position that inherently values equality that extends to our interface with the natural world. Easier dreamed than done.
2
@Malcolm the billionaire's featured here gained their ill gotten money by FRACKING!
They are destroying land, wildlife, air and water quality, and the entire planet via climate catastrophe, as they privatize their own "refuge".
We are a capitalist society. And we expect our government to protect the free market, not with a laissez faire attitude, but one that protects us from monopolies or other practices that subvert the free market. We expect laws to prevent one person’s freedom from limiting another’s. Zoning laws provide organization to our communities to protect everyone’s property values. Environmental laws protect neighbors from waste generated from a property. And so on. Government must protect capitalism from subversion in whatever form it takes. Whether it is true or not, this article is making the case that government is not addressing the public interest to maintain a free market. Oppression by government or oppression by the few is still oppression.
25
@dmoller So much of capitalism seems to depend on hiding externalized costs to society and the environment.
1
It’s ironic that Mr. Wilks believes that “our Heavenly Father has blessed us with many gifts” and that his family must protect them, yet he financially supports a party that vehemently supports deregulation and environmental destruction. I happen to agree that we are blessed with the beauty of nature, but believe we should be good stewards of the Earth. It’s sad to say though my one consolation in reading this article is that at least those opposed to the Wilks cannot blame the “coastal elites” for this one.
53
The Wilks brothers have acquired another valuable property, the Idaho legislature/Republican party. When legislation meant to give the public and local governments avenues to contest closures surfaced last winter, Wilks’ lobbyists quashed it and replaced it with one making the trespassing law more to their liking. It passed and signed by the governor over objections from law enforcement and recreational users.
31
@Fred Frahm
If the legislation is unconstitutional take it to federal court And mount day challenge. I see nothing wrong with allowing people to protect their property. I do not want recreational users on my property setting forest fires by ignorance and leaving dead animals shot just for the fun of hunting and not for the taking of food.
Humans lived around 200,000 years without money. We have never lived without earth. These billionaires get that. True wealth is not in Wall Street, it's in the land.
Perhaps these billionaires are shoring up land in preparation for the Climate Crisis? Perhaps there will come a time in the not so distant future when paper money means nothing again. But land will always hold value. Especially land that is not under water.
14
And in the arid Southwest, especially land that has water under it!
1
When paper money means nothing, these american oligarchs are toast.
Geographically Texas is not an actual western state and does not have vast tracts of public lands that Alaska, California, and other mountain west states do. As Texans, the Wilks brothers practice an "I can do whatever I want with my property" land use ethic. When Ted Cruz campaigned in Idaho during the 2016 election cycle, he openly advocated for the privatization of federal lands. Idaho's former (2006-2010) US 1st Congressional District Rep. Raul Labrador has done the same thing and fully supported the plank in the 2016 GOP Platform, which advocated the transfer of federally owned land to state control and final disposition. Hopefully, the majority GOP Idahoans will wake up and realize what people like the Wilk's, Cruz, and Labrador are advocating and choose their future candidates more carefully.
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@Roy C the GOP will not,..they are totally on board with fiefdoms. These Robber Barons control the GOP, they want NO taxes,..so part of that it to eliminate government agencies that provide the wealthy and corps no benefits,..ie; USFS, BLM, public lands,....get rid of the land and it kills two birds with one stone,...no agency means no tax dollars,....no agencies to protect the land and water means they can utilize the land for more $$ and no worries about breaking environmental laws. Win Win for them.
In the end, the Earth is “owned” by no one. The self-perpetuating wealth cycle in the United States—and around the world—is alarming, as evidenced by the acquisition of these enormous parcels of land by a small number of individuals. Realistically, we each only require a very modest piece of property for shelter and privacy; the vast remainder of our planet should be cared for and enjoyed by all. For the time being, limitations need to be established—via a public forum—regarding the amount of contiguous property one person or group of people can own. Perhaps taxation of the property could be proportionately scaled with regard to the level of public access.
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@Andre Hoogeveen Sounds good -- but the 'tragedy of the commons' is also a very real phenomenon. I don't know that we have strong enough shared values in protecting nature to avoid going down the road of degradation.
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Small detail called the "Takings Clause" in the Constitution might be a problem with your policy.
Land, and wealth in general, should be dispersed among as many individuals as possible. Neither the government nor the rich should be allowed to establish vast land ownership holdings that will forever exclude average persons from sharing in land ownership.
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As soon as ANYONE, even people I implicitly know as good and trust, cites God in their argument as does Mr. Wilks, I learned long ago there was a good chance their stance lacked much else in the way of articulate and reasoned defense.
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So the people of Idaho don't want the federal goverment to own the land, and they don't private ownership.But they feel free to use the state however they see fit.
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@Jack Actually most Idahoans are very happy most of our lands are public, and that is because they have been federally 'owned' since the Louisiana Purchase.
I put 'owned' in quotes because of course the peoples living here at that time had no part in such a decision!
1
I have a suggestion for this issue, create a new tax purely on property size. Even though they are rich, they cannot continue to pay the property tax indefinitely. And more money for the local government.
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There is much irony in the complaints of people, many of whom voted for Trump and Republicans. Now that unfettered wealth and capitalism is encroaching upon what they considered their rights, they're howling.
This is what happens when you vote for and support people who believe in a feudal system, which is the foundational philosophy of the Republican Party and most conservatives. They are anti-democratic, and believe in amassing as much power as they can, and care nothing for everyone else. Now this rapacious force is reaching into Trump Country. Welcome to reality folks!
Another irony, but probably lost on these people, is that this is s glimpse into how Native Americans might have felt when the white man came and started carving up their range, putting up fences and preventing them from roaming freely as they had since the beginning of time. "What goes 'round, comes 'round", as the saying goes.
Of course this isn't the end of this latest chapter of empire building and feudalism. Several Western states have been seeking the right to privatize federal land so that it can be exploited, either by the extraction industries, or simply to allow land barons to amass holdings the size of small countries. Although this land is owned by ALL Americans, these states see it as their private property. And most of the people who live here voted for the politicians who support these land grabs which limit access by ordinary Americans.
There are consequences for your voting choices.
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@Kingfish52 I don't think the plight of the native americans is entirely lost on those of us who now feel invaded in the West. Many of our ancestors, and certainly our government (especially the post civil war North as it turned its war machine west), participated in whole scale genocide. While acknowledging that our situation is not remotely comparable to that, we see the long standing need to fight to protect our valued relationship to the land.
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As the population of the country grew, land was always going to become an increasingly scarce resource. As the population of billionaires has grown, it was predictable that they'd be the people best situated to acquire that scarce resource, along with quite a number of others. One more development that pushes things in the direction of a potential neo-feudalism. We're not there, we may never get there, but the possibility exists. Assuming that climate change doesn't render mere questions about human society irrelevant.
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It's just so ironic that people who typically complain about government interference in their lives now find themselves in need of government assistance to rein in private landowners. They wanted small government and no regulations. This is the result. Enjoy.
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People have lived without money but people have never lived without land. Perhaps these billionaires recognize that in the not too distant future with the coming climate crisis, paper money may be irrelevant, but land never will be?
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Even though I have little in common politically with many of these conservative land owners, I admire and applaud their personal successes.
That being said, the irony of 'other' conservative locals who are finding their access restricted is too rich to fathom.
Public lands are the most valuable resource this country has, in all considerations at to what 'resource' means. To the degree that new private land owners are trying to emulate that, more power to them. Better that people who wish to conserve the land own it than if it were to be sold to developers. Having grown up on the East Coast, and as well having spent lots of time in Texas, I can say that lack of public lands is a death to the soul.
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My question is who is selling this land. If it the government, it raises a question of why and for what price. Did the buyers political leanings play a part? Was it an auction open to all or a closed sale. I'd like to know more.
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@Bill Glenn Much of this is timber land. In general, much of that was obtained from the Fed or State around a hundred years ago. Idaho is selling off a lot of our State land via auction, but we don't have that much compared the federal govt in the form of Forest Service or BLM public lands.
@Bill Glenn You are asking the right questions.
The new land barons of the West will have an opportunity to emulate an American iconic family if history is any guide. Having recently visited Acadia National Park in Maine, (one of America's top ten national parks) where the Rockefeller family bought then donated vast sums of pristine land in the last century, helping make Acadia National Park what it is today, we can only hope that the new land barons will follow in the Rockefeller family foot steps and donate some of their vast holdings back to the American people.
6
a paper published a few years ago in the academic environmental community concluded, given the current political climate, that the only way to protect wilderness areas was to buy them.
set aside the irony of rank conservatives doing the work of tree huggers, and you must concede: when viewpoints that far apart converge on the same conservation efforts, there is something real afoot.
note the multiple references in the article to increased population, housing prices, stress on the environment. and you thought this was about property rights? it's not: it's about the continuing increase in the human population.
billionaires can afford the absolutely best financial and investment advice -- gurus, savants, oracles, prophets of the future.
they're all advised to buy land in remote areas, shielded by no trespass signs, remote surveillance, armed guards.
ask yourself: what is it they know, that you don't? what is it they can foresee coming, that you can't?
11
This has been occurring for a long time now. I see it in billionaires' compounds on Lake Tahoe, blocking access to the lake. I see it all over coastal California, billionaires fighting public access to beaches near their homes. I see it in Hawaii.
All people, rich or poor and in-between, should have common access to lakes and rivers and oceans and public lands. I guess state and city governments are weak and spineless in the face of the almighty dollar.
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@Jules They don't have the same funding, which limits what they can do. And it is very unfortunate that Tahoe never became a national park. I grew up an hour away and until December I lived there for five years. Vail Resorts oversells ski passes and it's very difficult to get parking on the weekends. Heading west on Highway 50 over Echo Summit to Sacramento or the Bay Area routinely takes 6 or 8 hours now on winter weekends. Traffic gets so backed up in South Tahoe almost every Sunday that it can take 2 hours just to travel the 7 miles from one end of town to the other. You'll find locals walking 4 miles in snowstorms rather than sit in their cars and be late to work. It's terrible.
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One of the issues is that policy decisions are easily purchased. Money talks in DC and state houses throughout the country. In poor, rural counties big money has a very loud voice.
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When greedy billionaire's abuse private property rights by closing public roads and blocking public access to public lands, trails, forests, rivers, streams and lakes, then the US and State and local governments should exercise eminent domain power and take the private property.
When private property owners block public access to a publicly owned lake, then the State Fish & Game Department should prohibit fishing in that lake. The fish are a public resource, held in trust by the State.
7
It is precisely this sort of wealth concentration that will upend the Republic.
The notion of a wealth tax does not seem onerous in the face of such obvious excess.
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Remember public lands are owned by all of us, not just the very few of us.
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@louis v. Lombardo...Remember that private lands are owned by private parties, not every Tom, Dick, Harry, Jack, Jill and Mickey Mouse. Your private property is yours, not theirs.
“We want to be good neighbors,” Mr. Wilks said. “I know some people think we haven’t been, just because we haven’t let them freely roam across our property as they saw fit. But I’ll also offer: Do you want me camping in your front yard?”
Depends on the size of the yard. In more inclusive countries like Sweden, you can walk, cycle, camp, or ski anywhere in the countyside, regardless of ownership. Seems to work well.
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Meanwhile back at the ranch in the US the EPA is being gutted (already air quality is plummeting), the CFPB is being dismantled, Dodd–Frank is being compromised, the deficit is going through the roof, huge chunks of public lands are being sold off, world free trade is being seriously assailed, the justice department is being revamped with a slew of GOP biased judicial appointees, and all while the FBI is being disemboweled.
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The Wilks brothers are not conservationists. They are "protecting" this land in order to protect the value of the timber on the land. People are being barred from entry to protect their investment in forests that will be logged.
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@Maxfield Silverson Aren't they also planning on private hunting clubs / real estate development?
This article misses a few key points related to land ownership in the West:
1. I am *much* more concerned about the federal government allowing private industry to extract natural resources from land owned by all Americans - federal public lands - for private profit. Logging, mining, and ranching industries that decimate our natural estate are a much greater threat to our public lands and our ability to enjoy them than a few wealthy people buying what, in relation to the size of the federal estate, is a small portion of the West.
2. There is a concerted effort in several states - Idaho included - to decrease the size of federal landholdings by transferring their ownership to states. The state of Idaho has sold over 1.2 million acres of its lands to private owners, and the legislature continues to push for transferring federal lands to its control. But as even State Rep Mike Simpson note: "“When the state can’t afford it then they’ll starting selling some of it off, and guess what they’ll sell? They’ll sell the most beautiful areas to some billionaire in Texas, who then won’t let you cross those lands now so you won’t be able to get to your fishing hole.”
If people in the West want to maintain their ability to access public lands, they need to vote for politicians that recognize and act on that value, rather than the crop of crazies currently in control of legislatures in ID, AZ, and UT. Otherwise, their access to places they grew up exploring will be off limits - forever.
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@Kelsey Arthur...Huge tracts of federally owned lands in those crazy places are off limits to us "owners". Other huge tracts charge for access to our "our" lands.
1
If I read this correctly Mr Wilks believes that his guards and gates are protecting the gifts that his Heavenly Father has bestowed upon him. I would like to know how he squares this belief with the gospel of Mark verse 10:24 wherein Jesus says that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
If Mr Wilks believes that his riches come from God he should give some thought to what God would want him to do with it all.
8
These billionaires buying huge tracks of lands shows the problem of having so many ultra rich. They have way too much power to do what they want without regard for the rest of society. Sometimes they do good things with that power but as is common with all of us when we have power, we do things only for our own self interest with little regard for others.
1