Replies

I really do appreciate your efforts. Much of your provided anecdotal evidence does pass the sniff test. My curiosity about this particular group is not so great that I want to rifle through volumes to find out about it, and I appreciate summaries from people who do know... I now view this group with a healthy skepticism, and think they need watched. Groups like this can be pressured too... Leadership changes, some of the philosophies will be better than others in an organization as big as this.

The stories of the government overpaying cause me worry... The validity of appraisals on properties unseen are tough to measure, but I will take you word for it that we need to look very carefully at the deals. The seller has the right to ask a price. The buyer is buying with our money in this case and should definately be made to account for it. Thank you, by the way, for watching them on our behalf.

As for the strong-arming tactics... possible, yes... probable if they have been putting together a big chunk of land as a preserve and one guy in the middle of it doesn't want to sell. I can picture that. We need to watch them. There can be a disagreement over how much the NC could know about competence and desire to change a will. I have now seen one win and one loss. There is potential for abuse, and the courts will always have to solve particular cases.

The little exposure I have to this process was one local land trust, unaffilliated with NC I think, who had a project to acquire the properties surrounding an estuary. They resold some of the property as buildable lots with conservation easements on part of it, and advertised it "Own your own nature reserve!". There was nothing sneaky about the encumberances, the preservation effort was used to market the property to nature lovin' buyers. I like the concept still.

I am defending the concept more than this group in particular. I hate the knee jerk reactions to environmentalism that conservatives have. I hate a lot of the silliness of the enviro-whackos too, yet I see a need for preservation of undeveloped space.

The woods has its own value as woods, but we are part of the landscape too. If there are plants or critters that cannot adapt to changing landscape and reasonable effort to just leave room, there is no artificial measures we can do to save them. We cannot stop time. Species have either adapted or gone extinct since before we were here, though we do have to acknowledge that we have an awful lot of impact where ever we go, and it is important to me to save some spaces. There are so dang many of us.

It is important to say that my definition of "save" does not mean exclusion of people, and that is an important point. Public lands must remain open to those that wish to venture there. Some places should be harder to get to than others, to please the rugged among us, but public lands must always be open. I will always lobby for that. My definition of "save" does not mean it cannot be logged and replanted and used. We just need to be smart.

Your story about "view-shed" strikes a chord. I know what you mean. Some have gotten so twisted as to think humans are not a natural part of the landscape. The answer is in the middle somewhere. Somewhere between the extremes. Conservatives do repel people with their callousness in response to conservation efforts. No one wants to buy into a "my right to piss on it" platform. If we are right about the silliness, then we need to find a way to sell our ideas as attractive ones. The ugliness of some of the attitudes on this forum bothers me because others are watching and listening too.

Thank you very much for your time.

I too like the concept of using easements, etc. to protect the environment. For this reason, I was a fan of NC that is before I heard R.J. Smith's speech.

Smith is not a knee-jerk conservative on environmental issues. He is a dedicated environmentalist (and once served as president of the Sierra Club). Part of Smith's anger against the NC, is that it is stealing the limelight from several praiseworthy, but little known, free market oriented environmentalist organizations who do not engage in strong-arm tactics or sleazy "partnerships" with bureaucrats.

While I share with your fear of knee-jerk attitudes, we need to be equally on guard against the danger of being "suckers" for environmentalist organizations, such as the NC, which misrepresent themselves.