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The Bush administration is proposing the largest sale of forestland in decades. More than 300,000 acres of rural forests around the country and 85,000 acres in California may be sold to raise $1 billion over the next five years.
The sale would be of less than 1 percent of the 193 million-acre national forest system.
Congress must approve the plans before any land can be sold. The money raised from the sale will go to rural schools and roads that were once supported by tax revenue from logging, which has been cutback with regulations. To pay for these schools and roads the government is planning on selling public land, and the usual environmentalists are chiming in.
The Sierra Club wants the land to be preserved for future generations. Preservation is a worthy cause but not at the expense of students.
“There’s no reason why the world’s biggest economic power needs to sell parkland to make ends meet,” said Sierra Club spokesman Eric Antebi to the San Francisco Chronicle.
There is no reason that the world’s biggest economic power should be unable to educate it’s population to read at a sixth-grade reading level or perform basic arithmetic. The sale should continue if it can rectify some of the education problems.
If there is a choice between saving schools or public land, I’ll go for the schools. There is no point saving a forest for future generations if half the population in rural areas can’t pass the requirements set forth by the No Child Left Behind Act. We need to protect the earth, but we also need to buy schoolbooks for children living in Podunk, U.S.A.
Instead of sacrificing education for trees, the Sierra Club should buy land if they really want to ensure it for future generations. Students can join the Sierra Club for $25 and $35 for others. By my calculations if all of the Sierra Club’s 750,000 members paid at least $25 that would mean they have access to at least $18,750,000, which would fetch more than a few acres. The Sierra Club can buy the land from the government and the government can then buy more books for children.
I love the outdoors and the environment. My Arbor Day trees are still growing in my parent’s backyard. It’s just ridiculous to hurt education in rural parts of the country to save land from being sold.
As far as I can tell, it’s the government’s restrictions on logging that has caused this problem. This sale will turn land over to the free market where it can be better utilized. Ted Turner owns 1.8 billion acres across 10 states.
Save the forest whenever possible, but not at the expense of the future generations.
Submitted 02-16-2006
MALIBU, CA
