An Environmentalist Deception

If the government buys the forest, should the citizens make a sound?

Last week the R Street Institute, which claims to advocate free market policies, issued a statement celebrating the anniversary of the establishment of Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument in 1982. This is, at best, misguided. The federal government’s ever-growing control over and continuous acquisition of land across America is the antithesis of the institution of private property and undermines conscientious private stewardship of land, waters, and other natural resources. 

Every day, we see the results of a century of mismanagement of government-owned forests. Failure to harvest timber allows the forests to become overgrown and filled with overstressed, diseased, beetle-ridden, dying, and dead trees—leading to millions of acres scorched by catastrophic wildfires every summer, year after year.

READ MORE:  http://spectator.org/archives/2013/09/04/an-environmentalist-deception