It’s not like invasive species plan an invasion of an area. In many cases they don’t seek take over an area, kill native species, cause economic harm or job losses. Instead, they are just looking to survive and reproduce in a suitable habitat. Moreovercalling something an invasive species rather than a introduced species is a very political statement – introduced species are defined by humans as being helpful rather than harmful.
There are few terms I dislike more then “landowner”. This word got a lot of play in New York during the debate over fracking.
“Landowner” in it’s most general meaning is a farmer, a person owning a hunting camp or home in a rural area or other person to who owns land. But for many anti-natural gas activists, landowner was used to describe a greedy individual who wanted to profit and domination over their personally owned natural resources. Many in the anti-natural gas community use the term landowner as negatively as one might use “slaveholder” today.
I would argue that no farmer who works the land, and no hunter who hunts their land is doing it in domination of their land. You can’t stomp into the woods and shoot a deer, you can’t carelessly throw seed in the air and hope it to grow. Natural resources have to be carefully managed and sustainability harvested for generations to come. You can’t exploit the land without limitation and expect to keep it going on. You have to carefully understand the woods and field, observe what is going on, understand the consequences of your action.
Sitting in the woods with a shotgun watching the wildlife can teach you much. You can’t just jump into the woods, you have to prepare and think about your surroundings. You have to understand the science, the risks and rewards. You have to have a deeper connection to the land, you’re more then just a “landowner” out to exploit the land.
Pennsylvania often calls people who lease their natural resources, “farmers”. And indeed many if not most of them are. Even though not every landowner cultivates a field with a tractor or milks and feeds cows and hogs, most landowners are “farming” their land for wildlife to hunt, wood to chop or harvest, and natural resources to sustain themselves.
Many states – West Virginia and Pennsylvania have implemented purple paint laws that allow landowners to paint trees purple to indicate private property, replacing the Posted No Trespassing signs which used to require that the property owner be listed to ask permission to access or hunt or contact them about other concerns about their land.
The idea is that people can nowadays find landowners either by the county websites with their interactive GIS browsers, via their ArcGIS REST Services or various apps such as OxHunt. No need to list the landowner on the sign – traditionally posted signs were pretty expensive to post in a legal number, a few bucks a sign which can really add up if you are posting more than a few acres. Purple paint in contrast is cheap.
The DEC has been marking their property borders with yellow blazes for some time now to supplement their state land signs. Paint means you can cover a lot more area for cheap. Does purple paint mean that more land owned by private owners will be closed off from public use or does it just reinforce existing posted signs?
Honestly I think the solution should be a hybrid model. Maybe their should be some relaxation on the distance of posted signs with the use of purple paint but I think traditional posted signs with landowner contact information posted at major access points like corner posts, driveways, or road borders. Online databases are good but no trespassing signs are more effective and I think landowner information should be listed near the entrances.
