BLM, SEC maneuvering to sell off public lands; future of camping & F.R travel could be significantly impacted

[hikeaz]

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR- ... -22041.pdf
Sounds as if they intend to hock 'public' lands.

[Jim]

That is the NYSE plan to allow for public trading of companies that basically trade nature, similar to the plan to trade carbon offsets. Only way it works is if you destroy or degrade somewhere else, and buy some type of offset in the company to manage or restore other areas. Maybe a good money laundering scheme, too? Otherwise, it would be a great short!

The purpose of the company is to
actively manage, maintain, restore (as
applicable), and grow the value of
natural assets and their production of
ecosystem services.

How would that be valued? On some level, we have that with private timber land owning companies that own and manage lands (although not always in sync with an ecosystem; see southern pine plantations) and sell hunting rights.

I didn't see BLM in there, though. That would require far more than just an SEC filing. Not that the SEC isn't corrupt or have a revolving door between regulators and big institutions.

The
financing gap for biodiversity is
estimated between US$598 and US$824
billion per year 7 and for climate change
is estimated at over US$5 trillion per
year, 8 and likely an order of magnitude
larger for the transition to a more
sustainable, resilient, and equitable
economy. 9

On the one hand, it sounds like a good idea, on the other it seems like things always have unintended consequences that make things worse. How do you save one area by not destroying another?

When RCWs were listed in the late 1980s, it didn't preserve or save them, it resulted in many scared landowners not wanting to have Federal overreach onto their private lands just clear cut all the longleaf pine on their lands to rid themselves of the endangered bird so they wouldn't have had to deal with the Endangered Species Act. Could a company like this have helped? Maybe?

If it worked for existing private lands, then I say go for it, but I do see struggles related to profitability. It shouldn't be used to justify selling any large tracts of public lands to private companies. Perhaps it could be used to help restore and re-establish existing public lands to functioning ecosystems, but again profitably? Well, that only seems to work with regulation that forces another landowner to buy some type of offset.

[hikeaz]

BLM >> https://www.blm.gov/press-release/inter ... blic-lands
I had also wondered about the 'opportunities' for more money-laundering after watching the $150 B go out to Ukraine without an iota of accountability.
AND.... Does "conservation" in their minds include wind turbine farms or solar arrays from being erected all over the place? Corporations rarely invest in something that is not going to make them money.

[Jim]

It also proposes conservation leasing, a tool authorized by the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), to facilitate restoration work on public lands in cooperation with community partners. A conservation lease is a time-limited lease of public land that allows interested organizations to conduct specific restoration or mitigation activities and would generate revenue for the American taxpayer. This tool has the potential to expand opportunities to accelerate restoration of big game migration corridors or establish carbon markets, for example, and directly responds to comments from state and industry partners on the need for a reliable path on public lands by which to pursue compensatory mitigation to facilitate development projects.

That?

[hikeaz]

@Jim_H
If these writers had a restaurant they should name it 'Word Salad'.

[chumley]

Word Salad

No entity does it better than when lawyers get in bed with the gubmit.

• FWIW, there is a fairly plain-language FAQ available at the bottom of the main website for this rule here: https://www.blm.gov/public-lands-rule

• Interested parties may wish to view the bullet-point slides from the public meetings last summer: https://www.blm.gov/sites/default/files ... Slides.pdf

• ... or if watching YouTube videos is your thing, the entire two-hour presentation is available there: [ youtube video ]
I found the public questions to be most interesting and helpful as it discusses the conservations leases and specifically hiking. You'll find that begins at 1:08:00.

While this entire topic is based on a proposal from nearly a year ago in April 2023, the 90-day comment period resulted in over 200,000 comments; 8,000 of which were apparently valid enough to consider.

Unless you know of any additional source of information on the topic, all I can infer is that the revised rule based on the public comments received ( ) will be published — and thus take effect — "later this winter".