BOZEMAN, MT—Yesterday, the Bureau of Land Management announced a significant change to federal land leasing. The rule change allows federal land to be leased for voluntary conservation and restoration.
Though more work remains to advance conservation leasing, this announcement represents a positive step forward toward that goal.
“The Bureau’s proposed rule is a big step in the right direction toward putting conservation on equal footing with other uses like drilling, mining, and ranching. Empowering conservationists to channel their interests through a market mechanism is more effective than zero-sum political warfare.”—Brian Yablonski, CEO, PERC
PERC believes that creating markets for conservation on public lands would allow resources to be managed for their highest-valued uses, whether that means consumption or conservation. Open markets that give everyone a seat at the table would be a cooperative way to make trade-offs in land use decisions and reduce conflict through voluntary exchange.
Explore PERC’s resources on this topic:
Conservation Groups Should Be Able to Lease Land to Protect It
The Case for Conservation Leasing
Why Don’t Environmentalists Just Buy What They Want to Protect?
