In nearly every place in America, rural or urban, you can turn on your car radio and tune into one of 50 or more radio stations on the AM or FM band. The radio frequencies are publicly owned, but the radio stations are private businesses that lease their frequencies from the government, and provide the public with the benefit of a constant stream of music, talk, or other programming. Radio stations derive their revenue mostly from advertising or “underwriting messages”, with only a small portion of non-profit stations coming from the government or donors.

Most people agree this arrangement works pretty good. Yes, we all tire of the constant barrage of advertising for DWI lawyers and car dealers, but accept this advertising as part of deal when it comes to listening to free over-the-air radio. For most part it’s a good deal, and if we don’t want to listen to the advertising, we can just change the channel and find another station playing the tunes we like.

Our public lands are similar. Most public lands are free for the public to use for recreational purposes, such as camping, fishing, hunting, hiking, mountain biking, snowmobiling, riding ATVs, or even scenic driving along dirt roads. These lands derive much if not most of their revenue from timber sales, grazing leases, and sales of mineral rights. The state and federal government uses sells resources on public land to pay for its recreational uses, while also benefiting the public by providing access to needed resources as at an affordable price.

Public land resource sales are governed by strict regulations relating to their siting, process, and restoration process. A company that wants to drill for oil or gas, must have a plan and bond posted to restore the site to original condition once the extraction has concluded. Timber harvest must occur in a way that protects water resources, and provides for reseeding of the trees, so new trees grow up and replace the harvested trees. Impacts of resource sales are to be temporary on the public’s use and enjoyment of the resources.

There should be a small number of areas where wilderness areas should be designated to prohibit most extractive use of public lands. These lands are paid entirely from general tax revenue. There should also be intensive use parks, that are fully developed with picnic tables, flush toilets, playgrounds, and swimming pools, in small portions of public lands. These are generally paid through user fees, collected at toll booths at entrance, and general tax revenues.

But for the vast bulk of our public lands should be free-to-recreate with the balance of income for facilities coming from the responsible extraction of resources by private for-profit corporations. That means, much like advertising on the radio, the regulated cutting of timber, the drilling for oil and gas, and the grazing of cattle, are just part of what we must accept for wonderful, large, essentially wild spaces where the public can use for recreation with minimal constraint or cost.

“Where conflicting interests must be reconciled, the question shall always be answered from the standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run.”

~ Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson (1905)