Thinking Right or Wrong, Not Left or Right About National Parks and Other Public Lands

Government ownership of land is morally Wrong.

I love National Parks. Last time I counted, Maria and I had been to 37 of the 63 parks. The Southern Utah parks are my favorites. If you haven’t been to that part of the country, I strongly recommend adding it to your bucket list. The view from Angel’s landing in Zion N.P. will stay with you for the rest of your life.  

A few weeks ago, the WSJ published an article about the challenges our national parks are facing with budget cuts amongst an increase in park visits. It brought to mind an article I wrote about 12 years ago, National Parks Inc. I think it has held up rather well, but I decided it’s time to take a broader look at the National Parks Service and other public lands from a morally Right or Wrong perspective.  

The federal government owns approximately 28% of all land area in the United States totaling 640 million acres or 1 million square miles. The biggest owners are (million acres (thousand square miles)): 

• Bureau of Land Management (BLM): 244.4 (381,375)  

• United States Forest Service (USFS): 192.9 (301,406) 

• United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS): 89.2 (139,379) 

• National Park Service (NPS): 79.9 (124,844) 

• US Dept of Defense (DoD): 8.8 (5.633) 

Including states, local, and tribal public lands, government manages about 40% of the country’s area:  

While the NPS’s total land area roughly equals that of New Mexico, the fifth largest state, it doesn’t come close to being the largest public landowner as shown above. But national parks are huge emotionally. We’re talking about a “national treasure.” Nothing stirs the emotions as reading about uranium mining in the Grand Canyon and drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (I know it’s not a National Park, but you get the point).  

But from a morally Right or Wrong point of view, the government should be divested of national parks, because they are not part of the core government functions required for the protection of our individual rights. After all, the value of a “national treasure” is only what individual Americans put on it, and that varies from person to person; for some it’s zero, for others huge. Whether you fall in either camp or somewhere in between, forcing you to pay taxes to support the N.P.’s is a violation of your individual rights and therefore morally Wrong.  

Divesting the government of the National Parks means taking them private. I suspect the visitor experience would be significantly improved with private entrepreneurial involvement. No, I’m not lamenting the efforts of many dedicated NPS employees. But it is a government agency, and the red tape and the lack of funds tend to curb the enthusiasm of even the most committed individuals. With private ownership, the focus would be on growing revenue, rather than on cutting staff and budgets. Popular parks would see admission increases at busy times, more and better amenities, more services and experiences for people of all abilities for an additional fee—helicopter rides, river rafting, animal spotting, camping, glamping, canyoneering, off-roading, etc.—much of which exist on a small scale today but could be made much bigger and profitable. 

So how does one go about righting today’s morally Wrong? I suggest taking the NPS public, issuing one share to each American of voting age. This would include all title designations under the NPS: National Monuments, National Historic Sites, etc. As part of the package, we’d remove all federal regulations and restrictions and face out federal funding over a few years. Then we’ll sit back and watch what happens. Or become active investors if national parks are near and dear to us. 

I don’t have a crystal ball, but I suspect we’ll see National Parks, Inc. becoming more focused on its core assets, the top 20-30 or so sites, while selling off others to individuals or groups (I would put a ban on selling to state and local government entities as thinking morally Right or Wrong applies to all levels of government). I strongly believe we’d experience a surge in private investments. Not only for potential monetary profit, but for immaterial gains, as a lot of people put personal value on our national parks, monuments and historic sites. Speaking for myself, I’d consider adopting a hoodoo in Bryce, supporting a grizzly in Grand Teton, or sponsoring a gondola to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. 

As for public lands in general, the only proper role of government is as custodian of lands that haven’t been claimed for use by private individuals and entities. In the old mining days, staking and registering a claim on public lands gave you property (mining) rights to the claim. Similarly, under proper government custodianship, presenting a plan for public land use for any productive purpose—building a home, grazing cattle, drilling for oil and natural gas, managing a forestry operation, creating a ski area, etc.—would give you property rights to the area you’re claiming.

And to this day, if you stop actively working your mining claim you forfeit your property rights after a pre-determined period and the land is returned to government custodianship, if you don’t sell or transfer it before the deadline. The current rules may need adjusting, but the principle is correct.

Land use for other purposes would be subject to similar rules; you cannot just claim and keep in perpetuity a piece of land without using it productively. Property law is an intricate and complicated subject beyond the scope of this article, but the above outlines how to think morally Right or Wrong about public lands. Because, just as it’s morally Wrong to force people who don’t put a value on our national parks to pay for them, it’s morally Wrong to force them to pay for other public lands. 

Because of the dire situation we’re currently in with government debt and unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare totaling $175 trillion, it may be morally Right to auction off public lands to finance parts of the deficit. But once the government finances have been straightened out, the costs for claiming unused lands for productive purposes would be purely administrative: recording fees, title insurance, etc.

Unclaimed lands under government custodianship would have to be maintained. I suspect the minimum threshold would be to prevent property rights from being violated. For example, forest fire prevention would have to take place on unclaimed public lands to ensure neighboring private property is not harmed. The government would outsource maintenance to private entities and could most likely finance the operation with donations from private individuals and groups who put a value on it. Kind of an Adopt-A-Highway solution where the adopters’ involvement would result in goodwill and personal satisfaction. 

The one area apart from unclaimed land custodianship where government ownership may be morally Right is land used for proper role of government purposes: the military, law enforcement, and the judicial system. But such lands could probably be leased from private interests without requiring ownership. Most likely, in a capitalist social system with a properly limited government, more individuals would put a higher value on our country’s proper government functions and lease land to the government for below market or a nominal fee. For example, military bases, sheriff’s offices, and court houses, could be auctioned off with a lease-back contract option for a certain number of years at a preset price. The winning bidder could get additional, non-monetary return on investment in the form of naming rights and other non-material values as stipulated in the contract. 

We’re a long way from assigning the proper role of government to land ownership and custodianship. But the above principles should guide every champion of individualism, of respect for and protection of individual rights, and of a properly limited government. Who knows, the subject may come up at your next happy hour conversation. And if you’re a property rights experts, feel free to opine in the comments.