does the government really sell off conservation land?

does the government really sell off conservation land? if so this seems like a nightmare. i have read about them trying to but people fighting to stop the sales.

It's kind of a big question. Which governments, where? Which sort of conservation statuses?

One narrower answer that I do know. The United States Forest Service will sometimes swap timber land to private parties (such as Native corporations in Alaska) in exchange for larger or better-situated parcels. It's always controversial and often litigated, but the government defends it on the grounds that they always make trades advantageous to the permies. So the notion is, they might swap a 1000-acre inholding in a wilderness area that a private party owns for lower-value timberland elsewhere in a non-wilderness area. Thus the wilderness area is enhanced, but at the cost of some national forest land getting logged off somewhere that might otherwise not have gotten logged. It's a bit of a special case since the Forest Service is supposed to manage its forest for multiple use (including logging) anyway; I don't suppose most folks would consider Forest Service land "conservation land". But people still get excited when it passes into private ownership.

State governments definitely do from time to time and depending on the politics of the state gov at the time. Considering that there are 50 different states, and a large number of political bents which effect conservation in varied ways (anyone looking for a good masters thesis topic?), it should be no surprise that this land is sold off. Sometimes its to a conservation group, all to often its to the highest bidder.

all to often its to the highest bidder.

Or worse yet, to a friend of a Senator, or the Governor's former business partner.

Wesley johnsen wrote:does the government really sell off conservation land? if so this seems like a nightmare. i have read about them trying to but people fighting to stop the sales.

What exactly is 'Conservation Land'?

Here in Australia I have a friend that worked for an environmental agency in the Govt. Basically what they would do is find an endangered area or ecologically valuable area, buy as many of the block of land that surrounded that, change the status/use of the land so that it couldn't be used for industrial or agricultural purposes, add native vegetation and a small dwelling, then sell them off quite cheap.
Effectively they made more conservation land, and it acted as a buffer zone around already ecologically valuable land.