40 Acres and a Mule or go Bust?

Our "people's" government mismanages and underutilizes vast millions of acres of vacant land in the United States. Lands which could be converted to private and/or community ownership for purposes of food security, food safety, carbon sequestration, climate change, soil and water conservation, and community betterment. Poor management of publicly held vacant lands which are virtually locked from public utilization, results in land which only the government and it's "gilded" few have opportunity to enjoy and to receive benefit.

The federal government owns one-third of the land in the United States. Four federal agencies - the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service, and National Park Service - are tasked with managing most of this land. However, these agencies are not doing a good job as recent reports by the federal government’s own watchdogs point out. The cost of eliminating the agencies’ reported backlog of maintenance problems on public land exceeds $12 billion. The Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Agriculture found serious accounting and financial reporting deficiencies in the Forest Service. A Congressional Research Service analyst found that a 1996 GAO study did not use a General Services Administration analysis of the amount of land each agency managed because of discrepancies between the GSA’s numbers and those reported by the other four agencies.

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports that federal agencies continue to face long-standing challenges in several areas of real property management including effectively disposing of excess and underutilized property.

Fire Sale or 40 Acres and a Mule? Non-action or apathy regarding underutilization of public lands, is likely to continue to lead to decades (or centuries) more of the elites in our country, in ownership and mismanagement and control of vacant lands.

Land Conservation organizations and Land Trusts have played a key role in recent years to protecting public land and some have reached very value public goals. They are and will continue to be responsible for safeguarding small quantities of our nations land surplus. The that the scale of this problem is outside the financial reach of the public who is willing to finance good stewardship of the land.

Private business, government and education has an opportunity to bring solutions to the table, which do not rely only upon donor money and unwarranted restrictions to land use and wise stewardship models of land management.

Pehaps it is time to re-evaluate the concept of the government providing to the people, "40 Acres and a Mule". The front of the line for such allocations, when other reparations have not been, could start with indigenous peoples, African Americans and then the rest of our people based upon the need/desire for food security, affordable shelter and rural living.

Of course the naysayers will most certainly claim impending doom upon the environment. Are they kidding? Our environment is being damaged by the lack of stewardship in which indigenous peoples, African Americans and rural America once collectively cared so intimately for the land. The care for land, fields, water, soil, animals and the environment by rural people's. returning to the land, can once again interconnect man to the stewardship of our natural systems.

My experience, working and living in very rural area of our country, is the good stewardship of the land is the rule, rather than the exception. History has ample examples of exceptions to good stewardship, however, my belief is that their has always been a direct correlation to big business and poor care of our natural resources.

Why 40 Acres and a Mule? Our country has excess and vacant land which is underutilized and which is mismanaged. This mismanagement has led to uncontrolled wildfires, the loss of sequestered carbon at rates which some scientists say will doom our planet and ecologies.

The intrinsic value of the increase in rural living, which would result from a new land allocation system is without limit, in my way of thinking. We the people, have a choice, to continue allowing government and big business to convince us to live and work in Urban environments and to allow cities to become even more massive and resource dependent, than already envisioned.

Perhaps I am like the character in Don Quixote, and this dream of safe shelter, food security and outdoor living and healthy lifestyles for those most in need/lacking, is for me my "Windmill"...

As the return to the land movement builds interest, our lawmakers have an opportunity to provide for our people. With our government owning/controlling almost 1 Billion Acres in the USA, 30-40 acre allocations, by my rough math, could one day be distributed to some 25 million needy US citizens. Of course 25 million mules, to cement this deal, would have to be sustainably sourced and carefully considered prior to distribution.

Imagine, green energy farms interconnecting to each other, to towns and cities across the country, supplying our nations energy needs. Wind, solar, geothermal, fuel-cell and biomass energy a byproduct and "planted" as energy demand and economics warrant.

Homelessness, food insecurity and waste/pollution reduction and other urban scourges of our day would be thus minimized.

40 Acres and a Mule or go Bust!