Privatizing the Public Lands

Keywords

federal land, livestock management, agricultural economics, federal land use

Abstract

The federal government owns and controls more than 47 percent of the land in the Western United States’. The Interior department has jurisdiction over approximately 450 million acres, most of it used primarily for livestock grazing and is managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The federal forests, managed by the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture, contain about 325 million acres and include some of the prime timber growing lands in the world. Vast acreage’s are also found in the national parks and Indian reservations. Most of federal land is used by recreation&s of many types and is a valuable watershed for the country as a whole. All of these factors create complex fiscal and management relationships between the federal government and state and local governments and between the government and people who reside in the region.

Original Publication Citation

Privatizing the Public Lands, Focus On Utah, A Sutherland Institute Policy Study, Number 1, July 1996: 1-18.

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

1996-7

Permanent URL

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/5943

Publisher

Focus on Utah

Language

English

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Economics

University Standing at Time of Publication

Full Professor

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