The Cherokee National Forest with 85,000 acres in Carter County is protected as public land. (John Iwanski/Flickr)
U.S. Rep. Diane Black of Tennessee is on a committee in Congress working on a potential framework to transfer public lands to local control.
But a group of attorneys general in Western states has studied the legal merits of the idea – and says it won’t work.
Many people in Carter County in the northeast Tennessee might agree. They experience the benefits of public land daily, through their economy and quality of life.
County tourism director Kayla Carter says the 85,000 acres of Cherokee National Forest are a big draw.
“People come here to stay in cabins, to explore those public lands,” she points out. “If we didn’t have our public lands, we wouldn’t see as many people coming to visit and contributing to our tax base in that way.”
A report adopted by the Public Lands Subcommittee of the Conference of Western Attorneys General found little legal merit to these land transfer cases.
John Leshy, a land-use expert with the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law, says he’s followed this debate for a number of years.
“It’s not surprising from the standpoint of mainstream legal thought,” he states. “Anybody who knows anything about these issues thinks that these claims are kind of bunk.
“But it’s refreshing to have the Western AGs basically agree, and issue this report that’s saying, ‘Yes, there really is not anything to these claims.'”
According to Carter, private developers make a lot of promises of economic development in her county, but preserving the land is priceless.
“They might argue that they’re going to build something with jobs, or they might contribute in a different way, but we can’t have complete dominion over everything, all of our land,” she states. “There needs to be some preserved for future generations.”
Nationwide, outdoor recreation, natural resource conservation and historic preservation activities contribute more than $1 trillion annually to the economy.
