THIS LAND SHOULD BE OUR LAND
The federal government owns almost one-third of the land in the United States. The vast majority of that is in the West, comprised of national forests, parks, grasslands, wilderness areas, and wildlife refuges. A mishmash of agencies control, a/k/a mismanage this tremendous asset. This is not what the Founders intended. Re-read our Constitution, Article I, Section 8 which provides in part, Congress may "exercise like authority over all Places purchased by the consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful Buildings...."
So, how did we get this so mixed up? Colorado provides a good example. When the Colorado became a state over 66 millions acres of land were available for private ownership and development under the Homestead Act of 1862. Read about how that law GAVE up to 160 acres of land to any citizen who would put it to good use. Today we see the legacy of this visionary legislation in Centennial Ranches, property which has been owned by the same family for one hundred years or more. One of these, the Stanko Ranch here in Routt County was awarded the Aldo Leopold Award . That represents the pride of private ownership. Compare Colorado's Centennial Ranches, or the Trapper, Colowyo, and Twenty Mile mines with how the federal government has mismanaged the Rocky Mountain ecosystem.
Today, more than three million acres of trees are dead north of I-70 in Colorado alone. And that is just the tip of a tragedy that extends north into British Columbia where over twenty million acres of trees are dead. Smoky the Bear stopped forest fires, natures' way of managing forests. Bureaucrats caved in to do-gooders who wanted to "save" forests from logging. The result is stem densities that are often more than a hundred times the natural carrying capacity of these forests. Someday books will be written about this colossal mis-management which, when the story is told, will make Katrina and the Gulf oil spill look like blips of environmental damage in comparison. The trees the feds "saved" are dead.
In Obama's first 100 days he implemented policies and orders that continue to shut down the use of our lands. Ken Salazar announced that more federal land will be "Wild Lands" (not Wilderness and not subject to the legislative process) Read: no way to get the dead trees cut and sold for timber before we have a multi-million acre forest fire. No way to touch all the energy resources there.
Ken Salazar has turned his back on Colorado, once again, in a huge and damaging way. Utah and Wyoming strongly opposed the new land grab. But with his brother John Salazar heading up Colorado's Department of Agriculture the Brothers are firmly entrenched in this atrocity. And we sit back because our economy is so wildly out of control that a small thing like taking state property seems inconsequential right now.
The West is the center of this country's food and energy resources. What exactly does it take for people to understand the critical nature of this federal takeover? Our food and our energy, taken from private producers is turned into "protected" wilderness and forest areas, and our dependency on the government and foreign imports increases.
Now: a call to action and this is radical. Unfortunately, from what we're hearing, our representatives are not even responding to the most basic questions by phone or e-mail. We are burning daylight. We do not have time to wait for them to decide which position is best to get themselves re-elected. We are losing our land and our livelihood and the state government in Colorado seems to be marching in lock-step with the federal government. In Northwest Colorado there are millions of acres of dead trees that need logging. Why don't we just start taking back the land?
Homesteading is a lifestyle of simple self-sufficiency. What "sustainable developer" could argue with that? Read about the history of homesteading in Colorado and the West. Homesteading died when the Act was repealed in 1976, with Alaska grandfathered in until 1986. The feds decided they could do a better job managing our land than families like the Stankos. Thanks gang.
The concept of homesteading is becoming popular again but of course the feds will not give up their land and our state legislature seems hog-tied by the Brothers Salazar. Homesteading is not "squatting" where vagrant or homeless people set up a tent. It is our own agenda: the sustainable and productive development of OUR land by we, the people. What do you think?
