A Public Trust Argument for Public Access to Private Conservation Land

Abstract

Urban renaissances notwithstanding, American cities have dramatically changed in the last fifty years. Downtowns and small towns are on the way out. Suburbs have replaced towns, and corporate campuses are preferred to skyscrapers in expanding cities.' In general, people are building lower and wider. Necessarily, this kind of development requires land. As cities sprawl out, they incorporate more and more previously open land. Faced with changes they do not like, concerned residents have become activists, fighting to protect open space. And the first logical place to start is Washington, D.C. The federal government owns twenty-nine percent of land in this country, predominantly in the western states and Alaska.2 Federal land management policies have developed as the country has grown, and many give greater preference to resource developers than preservationists would like.3 The ranching industry, for example, depends heavily on cheap federal grazing permits.4 Countering development