American Prairie Unlocks Another 70k Acres in Montana

You can bet on a price but it’s not yours. Unless the state defends it and agrees that the piece of paper you call title is binding.

To the conqueror your paper means nothing.

It’s not a universal or god-given right. It’s a privilege granted to us by the state we reside in. People sacrificed their lives so that we could enjoy this benefit.

Therefore, when I encounter individuals in my generation who haven’t participated in any wars and assert that they own their land, not the state, I can’t help but believe they require a reality check.

We call it adverse possession now but they had some different old timey term for it (the name escapes me) and the laws that they inherited from the english were far, far, more favorable to the possessor than what we have now because it was all built around the reality that the peasants who would be the ones working the land might have some rights but never really owned shit at the end of the day and that if some peasant who had the right to use some spot wasn't using it then the next guy was free to use it productively because at the end of the day the lord/church/crown/village whatever would extract their cut regardless, more productivity, more cut for whoever. Papering over "but you said I could graze my animals there" vs "yeah but you weren't using it" type disputes makes sense in that context.

What happened in parts of New England was people were expanding into native territory, the natives would show up appeal to these people's governments "hey, one of your assholes built a farm where I hunt, tell that guy to GTFO" and sometimes they'd win but usually the .gov would say basically "you weren't using it in any way we recognize, piss off", basically using the historical doctrine they got from England (which you can't really fault them for in the absence of other doctrine, though clearly their strategic vision was lacking), until eventually, farm by farm and pasture by pasture so much had been taken that the natives were so squeezed a lot of them cast their lot in with King Phillip. And after that the various lawmaking bodies started saying things like "hey maybe that weird Roger guy was onto something with his whole 'they're using it their own way, we oughta pay em for it' schtick" and writing protections for dis-used property into law and restricting what we now call adverse possession so as to reduce/prevent such disputes from reaching a boiling point going forward.

And TBH I think legally things would have gone that way anyway. The sort of adverse possession laws that make sense in a country of mostly landless peasants who have rights and permissions but don't actually have final say because they don't own the land are going to be very different than the sort of adverse possession laws in an agrarian society where most people own the land they work (i.e. the US 1700-1870ish).

edit: this conversation is a waste of time. retracting my comment

I wouldn’t use that phase for sand grains exactly because there are so many. If you added a qualification like “… that is colored blue” then it sounds fine again to me.

This article claims the idiom predates Merriam-Webster.

https://grammarphobia.com/blog/2020/12/one-of-the-only.html

Words change. Meanings change. This has always happened an always will. If enough people are ironically using literally, even if unknowingly, then yeah, the meaning will change and we need things like dictionaries to describe this new meaning.

I still don't really understand this. If I own 2/4 grid squares in a checkerboard, can't I go in and put some tall fences on the "corners" of my property. Maybe the two fences are physically joined. But my fences are 16 ft tall, how are you going to put a ladder over that?

Sometimes the checkerboarding is the result of indian reservation agreements. For example, Palm Springs is technically like this.

So not locked out of the area by any stretch of the imagination and no evil was done.

It reminds me of all the desert shithole land I looked at that had covenants created by a dead boomer back in the 80s that require something ridiculous like "we will only allow a mansion to be built next to our pigfarm."

In theory it's possible to reverse but in practice it requires something like standing on one foot, holding your breath, and reciting the entire bible.

People desperately need housing and even in bum fuck nowhere where I live they are desperate to build a little homestead just so they can have something, and then you have this insanity with people creating covenants that basically have dead people in their graves reaching out to smite living people.

All the while foxes, deer and birds can still develop their dwellings there. Blatant disregard of the law, I say.

"Boxing out the next generation" is exactly what the law is for. I guess we have to decide whether we want more natural wilderness or more luxury homes with nice views.

The only way I can think of to preserve the wilderness without any isolated homes for the wealthy is for the government to buy up the land. I'd probably support that, if we could get it done, but it does mean that if the money for it comes out of the general fund, then you probably have average people paying for more of it, instead of mostly the wealthy.

I mean, this is the entire intent. It lowers your resale value quite a lot too though, since it's not open for development.

I was moderately interested in a property in the middle of nowhere that had about 8 acres buildable (with two structures on it already) and about 220 acres of forest and a lake under a very strict conservation easement. It would have been the only property of that size and type I could even dream of affording. It was still expensive, but less than a million dollars where if that 230 acres had not been under conservation easement in the same area it'd have sold for over 10.

And it's not like indefinite means forever forever. If the next generation 4 generations from now decides these easements are not in their best interest they will be repealed. It's just a piece of paper in the end.

Outside of cities, land is already zoned like this. R5, R10, Ag20, Ag100, etc.

You don't even have to be particularly rich, you just have to be willing to live in the country.

Wouldn't that just be straight up fraud?

They just bought the land for $5.4 million, that was clearly the actual value.

Well, this may explain why the presenter said it is one of the most litigious parts of Real Estate :-)

Yes, I do know about the potential for fraud. Ultimately, this sounds more like a problem with the government not doing their due diligence as opposed to a problem with the idea itself.

And yes, this is fundamentally something only rich people can make use of. The average Joe doesn't have over $100K sitting around to buy a piece of land only to intentionally lower its value!

The example of the golf course they give is weird. You're not allowed to do it to a property that has a structure on it (at least not one with utility connections). Nor can it have paved roads. What kind of golf course was this?

Still, thanks for the article. It provides a more down to earth context.

Only if you assume those 'environmental groups' are true to their cause and not running a shakedown operation (like e.g. the SPLC does in another politically contentious area) where they'll start accusing you of developing on your land if you don't pay them some contribution/fee/bribe.

I’m fairly contrarian so I’m not surprised to get banned on occasion but I’ve noticed in the past few months completely innocuous statements are triggering the “you’re posting too fast ban”

I created an account because I didn't have one. I just thought I'd correct a comment which was ignoring what actually happens in the UK. We have wild herds. In the Highlands they can be massive herds. I've known a few people to be involved in serious accidents as a result of hitting deer.

Probably because of how aggressive the down-voting of unpopular opinions has become. Joke comments get upvotes, and thoughtful objections get flagged these days.

There are herds of wild deer a half hour outside NYC. Deer seem to be able to thrive anywhere as long as there aren't many predators.

The continental US (i.e. excluding alaska) has some 20+ mil wild deer, 200k bison, 1 mil bears, 3-4 mil coyotes, 13,000 wolves, 5 mil alligators, 10k+ mountain lions, etc, etc. Yes, most are in the vast western states. But deer and bears are common even in areas a just a couple hour drive outside of NYC. Thankfully no gators near NYC (except in the sewers, of course :-)

I'm talking about King Phillip's war a century and a half before most of the treaty violation stuff started happening in earnest.

In texas it is merely your property not the building, and tresspassing is a valid reason.

You the survivor are the only witness however. I suppose Trayvon Martin is old news at this point.

> Nonsense. The castle doctrine only lets you kill trespassers if they are threatening your life.

Depends on the state. In Texas using deadly force is permissible to stop crimes like robbery. https://legalclarity.org/in-texas-can-you-shoot-someone-on-y...

And there was a case where it wasn't even the homeowner, it was the neighbor who shot the burgulars

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Horn_shooting_controversy

Yeah same thing happens around here. A dude here bought some land which surrounded an old popular access road to Cleveland national forest (socal), and promptly put a gate up... For a while it was the only convenient way to drive into the mountains from riverside county. Alternative routes were either closed from fires, closed to vehicles, or located on the other side of the mountain range. Lots of Facebook drama between this guy and people in the area trying to access the national forest. He has a camera pointed at the gate and regularly posts altercations and threatens to shoot people.

I don't think we really disagree. We should have better laws preventing landowners from restricting access to public land, and we should have laws explicitly allowing things like corner-crossing. But these are mostly issues in areas of public land that border developed areas. Since the vast majority of public land in this country is freely accessible to everyone via public roads that can't be blocked by private landowners, there's never really been enough political will to do large-scale land access reform like they did in the UK.

Again, over 90% of UK land is private, and large land barons control the vast majority of that. We just don't have a similarly widespread issue with land access in the US.

The majority of new-ish master planned suburban communities I’ve seen do have walking paths, bikeways, and parks baked in. Usually with some large HOA maintained pool, theater, I’ve even seen man made beaches (100s of miles from a coast). Although, they still usually have fenced yards and cutting through someone’s fenced yard without explicit permission is highly frowned upon, I would actually say dangerous when combined with gun situation being what it is.

I live in a suburban American neighborhood, built in the mid 2010's, which has ample walking paths and wide sidewalks. In fact, I cannot think of any newer neighborhood in this area which lacks walking infrastructure. Good sidewalks are a minimum. Usually there are dedicated walk and bike paths.

What is lacking is places you would actually walk to. There are numerous parks and a pool. But that's it. Don't get me wrong, it's great if you have a dog or enjoy running or walking. But I still have to drive everywhere.

> I've gotten explicit permission to cut through when I'm walking my dog from the neighbors that own the most valuable shortcuts, but I wish there were a custom or law that covered this instead of needing to rely on the kindness of strangers.

If enough people cross their land over a long enough period of time (varies by jurisdiction) without permission, that creates a "prescriptive easement," which is essentially what you're asking for. Some decent info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easement#By_prescription

> Or maybe we could build suburbs with these sorts of walking-paths baked in from the beginning.

We can. They exist. I've been in some of them.

That's not quite true. There are huge in number, small in overall size, amounts of public land east of the Mississippi. They're mostly all state forests, nature preserves, etc, etc and 99.9% of them are wholly unremarkable and barely utilized because you can only hike in so many identical forests or walk to the top of comparable hills before you get bored.

50+yr ago they were far more utilized (per capita) because they weren't closed to motorized recreation and hunting and fishing hadn't yet been regulated with intent to discourage participation.

But yes, the vast BLM lands out west have no analogue in the east.

Your linked source omits state and local managed land.

For example compare their map of Massachusetts with this map from the state: https://www.mass.gov/how-to/masswildlife-lands-viewer

The U.K. does not have a right to roam. It's a sore point for ramblers et al.. The legal situation differs between England and Wales, and Scotland; and campaigners would like the Scottish right to be also available in England and Wales, which largely only has what is tantamount to a codification of what the common law situation used to be back in the 20th century.

And indeed in Northern Ireland, which has the most restrictive laws in the U.K. in this respect, even more restrictive than the current situation in England and Wales.

> You'd probably be shocked at just how much wilderness is in the UK.

You're right. I was shocked at just how little there is. If one's definition of large is more than a few square km, there's virtually none, for any sensible definition of wilderness, at least south of the Cairngorns.

I was watching a video of someone walking through rural england, and he kept talking about the "great forest" up ahead that was a unique and massive landmark. When he eventually got to it, it was the sort of bog-standard woods that everybody on the US east coast visits to walk their dog.

Try roaming through Area 51. Or White Sands.

Nordics let you roam on private property.

Implied dedication doesn't make the land public, it simply creates a public easement allowing the public to continue using the land in the manner it was being used that created the implied dedication.

For example, if people openly hike through part of a private property for 5 years (in CA), and the owner knows this and does nothing, then after 5 years there will be a public easement for the public to continue using that part of the land as a hiking trail and the owner can no longer prevent that. OTOH, if he puts up signs on the 12th month of the 4th year, saying "Hiking permitted by owner", then no public easement is created, and the owner can subsequently close off public access at any point.

>IANL. Under American law,

Good thing you IANL'd that because this is very much a state by state thing, not an "american" thing.