The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) was arguably one of America’s most successful ways of raising needed funds for the protection of the wild spaces.
A simple and logical mandate: If companies are going to use the resources of the American people for profit, then they should kick a little over to John and Jane Q. Taxpayer in return. It is not a tax; it is simply what the companies should do that is logical, fair, right and ethical.
Most people support this fund. Millions of dollars over the years have been raised to help protect and promote our wild spaces. And a variety of outdoor groups, of all political stripes and leanings, are greatly saddened over the demise of this long-standing fund.
We are already subsidizing the companies that use our natural resources. With the ending of the LWCF, we are further subsidizing them and leading us further long the road of opening our public lands to private interests.
It is perhaps not too late. Write, call and make your voice known.
Act.
Not just about the LWCF, but all the trends that continue to make the public lands and wild spaces a subsidized feeding trough for corporations.
As a reader of this site once said about the Pawnee Grassland:
“So bring your friends back to enjoy what you have seen as soon as you can. I hope that at some point in time people won’t look back at our images and think “where was that? It’s just a field of oil wells.”
Let’s not let that happen anymore…