Steven Davis
One remarkable thing about Steven Davis’ new book, In Defense of Public Lands, is the photographs. There are 12 of them, including the cover, all taken by the author. They depict places of great natural beauty throughout the United States: the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan, Zion National Park in Utah, Coconino National Forest in Arizona, White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, and even Owen Conservation Park, on Madison’s west side.
Steven Davis
The photographs powerfully remind the reader what is at stake — the future of the idea, now under unprecedented attack, that our nation benefits from having places owned in common for the public good, as opposed to being parceled off for private profit or relinquished to the states.
“Hardly a month seems to go by without the emergence of new threats to our public lands, whether in the guise of radical state and federal legislation to privatize, declassify, or transfer public land, or the seizure of public land facilities … by armed militants,” Davis writes in the book’s preface.
Davis, who lives in Madison and is a professor of political science and environmental studies at Edgewood College, builds an impressive case for preserving the nation’s bounty of public lands, on economic, political and ecological grounds. The book, his first, published by Temple University Press, examines the arguments for and against publicly owned land, which makes up more than a third of the United States. It’s clear from the start which side he’s on.
“This book sets out to offer, at this pivotal moment in the national debate, a fuller, more comprehensive, and multidisciplinary argument for why public land should remain firmly in the public’s hands,” he writes. The book is subtitled, The Case Against Privatization and Transfer.
Davis credits the progressive movement, which had deep roots in Wisconsin, with helping secure the nation’s bounty of public lands by “emphasizing the public interest over individual self-interest.” He describes how the federal government came to acquire vast tracts of land, especially in the American West. He affirms the ecological importance of public lands (including that they are home to 70 percent of Wisconsin’s wolf packs) and quantifies their economic value.
Public land sustains millions of jobs and produces billions of dollars in economic benefits. Counties with a significant percentage of federally protected land have more jobs and higher incomes. And it is, as Davis writes, “one of the greatest bargains we will ever enjoy.”
And how. The United States, Davis notes, spent twice as much each year during the height of the Iraq war air-conditioning its bases than it did funding its land management agencies—$20 billion versus $11.1 billion.
Despite all this, public lands are a ceaseless target of ideological attacks, from anti-government yahoos, conservative think tanks and politicians, and some academics. One prominent pair of privatization advocates argues that prioritizing endangered species over market forces amounts to letting “people with one set of moral values get what they want at the expense of others.”
“In other words,” Davis writes, “the idea that it is a biologically bad outcome to build luxury homes on an endangered butterfly habitat is, in actuality, just a subjective preference being rammed down society’s throat at its own expense.”
Davis also convincingly demolishes the argument that, because government sometimes doesn’t do a great job managing land, that privatization represents a better way to go. Of course, this approach could, and likely would, be worse. Davis calls it “simply fantasy” to believe wild lands containing marketable resources can survive without “purposeful government action.”
The good news, as delivered by Davis, is that there is overwhelming public appreciation for public land. One study in Nevada and Colorado found 97 percent support for the view that public lands are essential and should be preserved for future generations. The bad news is that the minority that thinks otherwise has been handed vast new opportunities under President Donald Trump. Already, the federal government is opening up public land to aggressive resource extraction and rescinding acquisitions made by President Obama.
In Wisconsin, Davis notes in an interview, state lawmakers in recent years ordered the sale of 10,000 acres of public land and “there’s nothing to stop them from doing more of it.”
Davis’ book offers strategies for pushing back, including his call to frame public lands as a “patriotic imperative” and build broad coalitions across diverse interest groups. But his best argument may be those 12 photographs. n
Steven Davis will discuss In Defense of Public Lands on July 19, 7 pm, at Barnes & Noble East and on Aug. 17 at Mystery to Me bookstore, 7 pm.
