Sagebrush and seabed

Claiming the commons

In the 1970s, ranchers in the American west demanded greater control over the federal lands on which they grazed their cattle. For decades they had had their way in federal policy, purchasing grazing rights at bargain prices and rarely encountering pesky regulators. But the emerging environmental movement complained of the damage overgrazing did to the public grasslands and insisted that the ranchers cut back and pay up.

Many of the ranchers came from families who had been generations in the west. They considered themselves better stewards of the land than any outsiders. They resisted the environmentalists’ demands with a movement of their own, dubbed the Sagebrush Rebellion, which was mostly rhetorical and political but occasionally involved armed occupation of federal lands. The sagebrush rebels applauded the installment of one of their own, Wyoming's James Watt, as secretary of the interior under Ronald Reagan. The success of the movement has waxed and waned. It remains a force in western politics today.

Donald Trump is about as far removed from the American west as one can be in this country in the 21st century. Yet he has adopted a policy approach in keeping with the philosophy of the sagebrush rebels. Certain parts of the deep seabed are littered with nodules containing valuable minerals. Only recently has technology emerged allowing economically viable gathering of these nodules. The International Seabed Authority, an agency under the aegis of the United Nations, has jurisdiction over the seabed, on the premise that the resources of the ocean are the common property of all humanity. The ISA has not yet authorized mining. Nonetheless Trump issued an executive order encouraging American firms to move swiftly to grab the nodules before other countries can do so.

Both of these issues — regarding the American west and the deep seabed — pivot on the question of who should have access to natural resources that are held or claimed in common. The western ranchers wish to control land that belongs to the American people collectively. Some want the federal lands to be turned over to the states. Some want the lands to be privatized. The ranchers believe they have a moral right to the land by virtue of long residence in the area and long use of the land.

The environmentalists counter that the land has always belonged to the American people as a whole — at least since the Indians were dispossessed of it — and that residents of Brooklyn should have as much say in the management of the land as residents of Cheyenne.

The case of the seabed is an international version of the same thing. The Trump administration and mining companies believe they can make best use of the seabed’s mineral resources. They themselves will benefit, but so will humanity as a whole, they say.

The opponents of the deep sea mining — environmentalists and governments of most other countries — declare that the American government and mining companies have no business stripmining the seabed just because they have the technical capacity to get there first.

There's a larger question beneath these two issues and every other issue dealing with the use of land and natural resources. Can any human legitimately claim ownership of that which no human created? If you build a house, I'm willing to grant that you have a special claim on the structure itself, which wouldn't exist if you hadn't built it. But you didn't build or otherwise create the land that the house is on. The land predated you and every other member of Homo sapiens by millions of years. In a charitable moment I might call you a custodian of the land, with limited rights of use. The limits would forbid uses that degrade or destroy the land to the detriment of subsequent custodians — that is, subsequent generations.

But, say the sagebrush rebels and the deep sea miners, conferring ownership rights on individuals is necessary for the development of the resources. Otherwise they will simply lie unused.

Precisely, say the environmentalists. Sometimes the best use is no use at all. In any event, such rights as governments confer are simply rights of convenience, not natural rights. If Americans decide, through democratic processes, that more grazing on the western rangelands is a good idea, then the ranchers can expand their herds. But the ranchers have no natural or moral right to do so. The land was never theirs.

As to the seabed, neither the United States government nor the government of any other country has the unilateral right to claim its resources. Until our approximation of a world government, the United Nations, weighs in on the matter, the seabed should be left alone.

But it probably won't be left alone. The United Nations lacks the ability to prevent a country like the United States from doing what it chooses. The deep sea is a wild west where the powerful rule.

Meanwhile, in the original wild west, the sagebrush rebels are encouraged by the return of Donald Trump, a man after their hearts if not of their region. He’s already dismantling environmental regulations for the country as a whole. There's no reason to think the west will be spared.