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In this Our Changing Climate environmental video essay, I explained how federal lands have become embroiled in a battle between federal and state’s rights. I look at how the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Forest Service, and the National Park Service are tasked with the difficult job of managing federal lands for multiple uses. As a result, this has led to events like the Sagebrush Rebellion and the struggle over Bears Ears National Monument.
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Transcript Provided by YouTube:
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[Music]
00:13
westward expansion the Louisiana
00:16
Purchase and the Homestead Act if you’ve
00:19
made your way through the American
00:21
school system chances are you’ve
00:23
encountered at least one of these
00:25
historical markers of America’s terrain
00:28
because the United States is a country
00:30
often defined by its public lands lands
00:33
that occupy a large amount of our
00:35
country but can be difficult to define
00:37
have muddied and complicated pasts and
00:41
uncertain futures some of America’s six
00:45
hundred and fifty million acres of land
00:47
allow for the outdoor recreational
00:49
activities that many Americans love but
00:52
much of this public land is defined
00:54
broadly is overseen by a number of
00:57
different departments understanding the
00:59
makeup of our public lands then is
01:02
important to comprehending how we treat
01:04
our treasured landscapes so today let’s
01:07
parse out exactly what the United States
01:09
is public lands are and how they’ve
01:11
grown into a battleground between
01:13
federal and states rights federally
01:17
owned lands come from a variety of past
01:19
land purchases broken treaties
01:21
colonization and state sessions with the
01:24
passage of the Homestead Act in 1862
01:27
much of this federally owned land was
01:29
transferred into the hands of private
01:31
citizens in order to drive development
01:34
in the western territories as a result
01:36
eastern and midwestern land was claimed
01:39
by private interests like ranchers and
01:41
miners homesteading was much harder in
01:44
the West however due to its poor soil
01:47
conditions and rocky terrain so much of
01:50
the public lands in the West and Alaska
01:53
are still managed by government agencies
01:55
but this land is not patrolled by
01:59
government agents stopping everyone from
02:01
stepping onto its borders in fact most
02:04
of it is accessible to hikers bikers
02:06
miners loggers and oil men this is where
02:10
America’s public lands get confusing its
02:13
classifications there are five agencies
02:17
that oversee public lands in the United
02:19
States the Bureau of Land Management the
02:21
Forest Service the Fish and Wildlife
02:23
Service the National Park Service
02:26
and the Department of Defense each have
02:29
their own niche but all work in tandem
02:31
to manage the vast federal lands
02:34
throughout the country for example the
02:36
National Park Service almost exclusively
02:38
deals with 417 quote-unquote units
02:42
consisting of national monuments
02:44
battlegrounds like Gettysburg and parks
02:47
like Yellowstone but the vast majority
02:50
of lands are overseen by the Bureau of
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Land Management or BLM for short and the
02:56
Forest Service the to deal with a
02:58
complicated balance of multiple usage or
03:01
as the Congressional Research Service
03:03
puts it in their overview of the United
03:05
States’s federal lands agencies BLM
03:08
management responsibilities are similar
03:11
to those of the Forest Service sustained
03:13
yields of multiple uses including
03:15
recreation grazing timber watershed
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wildlife and fish habitat and
03:21
conservation in essence their job is to
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manage public lands in such a way that a
03:27
hiker and a logger might use a landscape
03:30
for generations to come as a result of
03:32
this seemingly conflicting mission
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statement these agencies are criticized
03:37
constantly for either too much or too
03:39
little management we can see this
03:42
dissension at play across modern history
03:44
in cases like the sagebrush rebellion
03:47
the first iteration of this so-called
03:49
rebellion began in the late 1970s as a
03:53
reaction to the 1976 federal land policy
03:56
Management Act which high country news
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nodes shifted the BLM’s mandate from one
04:02
of maximizing extraction to one that
04:05
attempts to preserve public lands to
04:07
some extent combined with previous
04:09
legislation like the Wilderness Act in
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1964 which allowed Congress to portion
04:15
off wilderness areas in public lands
04:18
federal land management started to lean
04:20
more towards preservation so those who
04:24
made their living on the resources of
04:26
public lands felt as if they had been
04:28
fouled by an overbearing
04:31
political groups and the local
04:33
communities reacted accordingly they
04:36
sought to gain more control of public
04:37
lands by seeking to transfer management
04:40
to the state and local levels however
04:42
this would eventually lead to many
04:44
states selling off land to private
04:47
interests in order to balance their
04:49
budgets
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although the rebellion eventually
04:52
diffused with the election of Ronald
04:54
Reagan who associated strongly with the
04:56
rebellion mentality the battle over
04:59
federal versus local management
05:01
continues to simmer
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most recently it exploded into an armed
05:05
takeover a Wildlife Refuge in Oregon by
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Amon Bundy and his brothers who sought
05:11
to protest what they saw as a federal
05:13
overreach on BLM managed franching lands
05:17
well the people need to be in control of
05:20
their own land
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clearly public land management is a
05:24
complex issue tied up in not only the
05:27
best practices of land conservation but
05:30
also in livelihoods and larger
05:32
historical battles over federal
05:34
regulation with Trump in the White House
05:36
the issue of federally controlled lands
05:39
now leans towards a lighter regulatory
05:42
stance that favors extraction industries
05:45
seeking more resources to fuel their
05:47
businesses we can see this most clearly
05:49
in the controversy surrounding bears a
05:51
year’s National Monument the 1.35
05:54
million acre area of land was originally
05:57
proposed by a coalition of five Native
06:00
American nations in order to protect
06:02
their historical and cultural landscapes
06:06
in December of 2016
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Obama used the 1906 antiquities act to
06:12
proclaim bears ears a National Monument
06:14
this would bar new mineral extraction
06:16
and be overseen by a commission
06:19
consisting of one elected official from
06:21
each of the five Native American nations
06:23
however most recently Trump shrunk the
06:26
borders of the National Monument by 85
06:28
percent in order to open land up for oil
06:31
interests and extraction and in this way
06:34
the Trump administration revealed its
06:36
clear business heavy stance towards
06:38
public lands
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as long as public lands exist in the
06:42
United States there will always be a
06:45
struggle between federal oversight and
06:47
private concerns this is merely a
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reflection of the varied interests of
06:52
those that use America’s public lands
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America’s landscapes are steeped in
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layered meanings that make up a
06:59
complicated balance of use and
07:01
management and it’s here that the
07:03
federal government attempts the ever
07:05
difficult task of creating and shaping a
07:08
landscape rooted in culture business and
07:12
identity
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[Music]
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[Music]
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this one ended up being a lot longer
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than most of my videos just because I
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felt like it needed a little more room
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to breathe so thanks for watching if you
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like my videos please consider
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supporting me on patreon you can chip in
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$1 or $2 or $3 for every video I make
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and it really helps me out otherwise I
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will see you next time
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This post was previously published on YouTube.