National Forest Land Sales

So the environmentalists are flipping out again about the release and sale of some parcels of national forest properties.

A U.S. Forest Service plan to sell nearly 15,000 acres in the Carolinas could undermine efforts to link the fragmented pieces of the states' national forests, conservationists say.

The service late last week proposed the biggest sale of public forests in decades. While the proposal lists the acreage to be sold -- more than 300,000 acres nationwide -- maps showing precise locations won't be out for weeks.

Conservation groups fear tracts around the ragged edges of the forests, valuable to wildlife and plants, will go on the block.

"It just goes completely against what common sense would tell you needs to happen," said Dr. David Jones, director of the N.C. Zoo in Asheboro. "Instead of selling off land, they need to be stitching it up."

Of course, the criteria for sale isn't exactly unreasonable.

The Bush administration's 2007 budget plans to raise $800 million by selling the national forests acreage and other public land. Carolinas' parcels range from less than an acre to more than 500 acres. Terry Seyden, a Forest Service spokesman in Asheville, said the Washington and regional offices identified which N.C. tracts to sell.

The criteria: isolated tracts, surrounded by private land, that were difficult to manage.

The money would temporarily continue a program that helps pay for schools and roads in rural counties thick with forests. N.C. counties got about $1 million from the program last year, South Carolina $3.2 million.

Read "difficult to manage" as being "expensive to manage" or "not managed." There is nothing restricting state or local government buyers from bidding on the property either. If there is a local interest in preservation than there should be local investment.

But then you have this interesting statement.

"As long as the money from the sale goes back to the community, we wouldn't have a problem with it," said Swain County manager Kevin King. "We wouldn't want the money going to California or Nevada, put it that way."

Local municipalities have been given a say in how properties are utilized since Bush yanked out the Clinton era executive order disallowing new roads into the parks. But King seems to miss that the funds that come to maintain these parks come from all the states, including California and Nevada.

This initiative seems more than reasonable to me. If the local citizenry have a strong concern about the property, then they can invest in its preservation.