[Talk-us] National Forests and Private Ownership

[Kevin Broderick]

Outside of Congressionally designated, capital-W Wilderness, are they
actually subject to significant additional oversight or management?

I'm not lucky enough to own such an inholding so as to need to know all the
details, but in recent news coverage of such a parcel in Montana's Crazy
Mountains, the USFS response seemed to be, "we wish it weren't being
developed, but it's private land and not within Wilderness, so it's not
really our business." (My paraphrase, I don't have the article handy).
There was also a point made that most, if not all, such parcels have a
right of access across USFS lands.

In that case, inner polygon exclusion seems appropriate, as it accurately
depicts the situation on the ground. Actually tackling such a project in
Montana (and I'd guess large parts of the West)  would be a nightmare due
to checkerboard ownership, but even identifying inholdings that were posted
against travel would be a helpful start.

I am aware of similar inholdings in Vermont state forests, too, although
I'm not sure of the legal issues involved.

On Mon, Oct 14, 2019, 16:45 Mike Thompson <miketho16 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for the reply Kevin!
>
> On Mon, Oct 14, 2019 at 2:06 PM Kevin Kenny <kevin.b.kenny at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> At present, I don't specifically map the inholdings - eventually they
>> probably ought to have mapping for some combination of landuse and
>> landcover. Instead, I simply have them as inner ways in the
>> multipolygon that represents the forest (or wilderness area, or park,
>> or whatever).
>>
> Not representing them as part of the National Forest seems to be less than
> ideal.  They are part of the National Forest, and the land owners may be
> subject to "additional federal and agency-specific regulations..."[1]  If
> you went to the agency who manages the National Forest (US Department of
> Agriculture, National Forest Service) and asked them for the boundary of
> the land they manage, they would give you the larger area that includes
> both government and privately owned land (it appears that the current
> boundaries in OSM came from the Forest Service). Regarding "inner ways",
> these holdings are sometimes on the edge of the property owned by the US
> Government, in which case the outer way would have to be modified.
>
> Mike
>
> [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inholding
>
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