Comment by ekidd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ekidd | Hacker News Reader

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> The article said that two former California governors threatened to sell public land to balance budgets so the private ownership seems to be a mitigation.

This is a well-known concern in land preservation. There's apparently an offshore island near Maine that's too small and too far out to be of much use to humans, but it's an important migratory bird resting point.

IIRC, it was donated to the state once by conservationists (long ago), sold by the state, and then repurchased and preserved by a non-profit foundation. The state won't be getting it again!

The usual approach in the US is for the land conservation foundations to split up the ownership rights between two different local organizations in a way that prevents developing the land without agreement from both organizations.

As a general rule, most towns are happy with this setup. It provides them with public walking trails, and possibly areas for other outdoor sports. Many towns choose not to tax these lands, within reason.

It's a fundamental problem with almost anything to do with the state (in the general sense), including budgets. Anything that is discretionary will eventually be raided by an opportunistic politician and binding future policy makers is very difficult, if not downright impossible.

As long as the general rule of law is strong with robust property rights, however, creating a new private organization like a trust with a strict charter that limits its future stakeholders is a lot easier.

It's not just the state. All human institutions can change. I hope these nonprofit land conservancies can continue their mission forever, but it's not guaranteed.

Hell, look at monasteries. Several societies with large religious followings couldn't prevent the dissolution of monasteries - Tang Dynasty China (cutting down Buddhist ones), and Tudor England (cutting down Christian monasteries).

> The usual approach in the US is for the land conservation foundations to split up the ownership rights between two different local organizations in a way that prevents developing the land without agreement from both organizations.

What a clever approach!

It works until one of them stops caring. I could imagine that, if a town is dying, it would be very difficult for them to justify spending resources related to nature conservation, and would then again require the conservation foundation to step in and provide resources.

I think the point is that both have to stop caring for the land to be developed. A kind of two phase commit. Also helps in case one of them becomes defunct.

In the 1980s, to get around compulsory purchase orders able to take land from even the most determined charity, campaigners split up a field into a few thousand small parcels, sold on for a pound or two. The idea being that trying to get them all back would be unaffordable, even the most corrupt charity would be unable to sell the land.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice%27s_Meadow

Also sounds quite clever!

> The usual approach in the US is for the land conservation foundations to split up the ownership rights between two different local organizations in a way that prevents developing the land without agreement from both organizations.

Is it possible to instead write something in the terms of the donation preventing this? Maybe that would require larger action from the state, like a state congressional vote though.

First right of refusal I think is what you're looking for.

My football club in the UK has a lot of ground which is legally only allowed to be used for sporting purposes according to the will of the person who donated it. Not sure how it works but this is prime City-center land which remains green due to this.

Lots of charitable trusts find themselves under new management who has a new interpretation on what the real intentions of the founder were. And then there's a lawsuit, and then a judge rules that this or that interpretation is in the public interest, regardless of what anybody wanted.

The Helsinki Foundation does this - in the constitution it states that the land use cannot be changed without permission from all donors, effectively giving each donor a veto right (and donations can be 1$).

As I understand it, the terms of the donation cannot survive forever (although they can for a very long time).

In Finland, there's an organization literally named "The Forest Government" which takes responsibility for many forests / lands.

I haven't dug deep and the organisation probably has ton of issues, like parasites attached to a host, but the general picture I got is that the public trusts it.

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Humans never evolved to coordinate as a society. Our natural course: the most psychopathic humans ruin the environment and the masses of "good" humans don't look / react because they don't have a sense of urgency. Philip K. Dick's story Project Earth tells about Project C (Earth being Project B), a species designed to solve this.

Similarily in Poland. We have an organisation called "State's Forests" and it has 24% of the entire surface of the country under it's management. (30% of the surface of Poland are forests). These are not "old growth" forests(such are only in national parks), but we'll managed commercial forestry. In general (despite the usual issues in organisations of this size) people are pretty happy with it. It is also because of the laws we have here that essentially give certain use rights to the public. For example, everyone has the right to collect mushrooms and or berries etc. Everyone can enter and use the forests for recreation (except when it's too dry due to fire risk). Also timber production and sales are pretty transparent (anyone can bid online). But as anything that matters to national economy/security it's under attack by various groups sponsored by shady money.

If it's owned by a non-profit its generally exempt from taxation by statute.

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