One of my favorite summer activities is going motorcycling. Luckily for me, I live close to a lot of great outdoor recreation areas. My friends and I particularly like a place called Bell Marsh Canyon. We have been going there for years. It’s a particularly popular spot for those close to Pocatello. The trail head is used for hiking, mountain biking, and trail riding for motorcycles. Unfortunately, it’s getting tougher every year to gain access to Bell Marsh Canyon because the private lands that surrounds it is quickly being bought up by private investors, usually from out of state.

Idahoans know the value of public lands. We take the preservation of those public lands very seriously. Public lands are an integral part of the Idahoan identity. We use them for recreation, hunting, fishing, and several other activities throughout the entire year.

You can’t talk about Idaho without talking about our amazing outdoor recreation and that’s in large part due to our abundance of public lands.

Unfortunately, these public lands are at risk. Even the national news has noticed a large effort to transfer our public lands into private hands. In fact, according to the New York Times, just 100 families own 42 million acres in the country. And, the amount of public land that is being bought up by wealthy, out-of-state buyers is growing at an alarming rate. For these buyers, Idaho is particularly attractive. There are currently about 34 million acres of federally owned public lands that are ripe for the picking to outside buyers. With a Republican supermajority Legislature that doesn’t seem interested in protecting public lands, a state full of privately owned land might be in our near future.

These buyers could restrict individuals from accessing the private land and, potentially even worse, could use their privately-owned land to block access to public lands. The story of the Wilks brothers gives us the cautionary tale of what could occur if we don’t take action soon. The brothers, who own around 700,000 acres of the United States, have made it clear that they are not willing to keep public lands in public hands. In the land that they own in Idaho, they have shut down trails leading to public lands, blocked access to their private properties (some that lead to public properties), and hired armed security to patrol the land that they own.

The type of behavior that the Wilks brothers are exhibiting is fairly typical for owners of private land. These restrictions create a variety of issues. The first, and most obvious, is that they threaten our way of life. Idahoans cherish their access to public lands. Without public lands, families can’t go on hikes together, summer motorcycle trips would be canceled, all the fish belong to the landowner so fishing will become impossible, and the list goes on. When we start changing the foundations of what it means to be an Idahoan, we put businesses at risk. Studies conducted through the Idaho Business for the Outdoors have found that employers use outdoor recreation and public lands to attract employees. Idaho is already suffering for employees with over 6,000 STEM jobs unfilled. If we don’t have public lands, we take away an important tool that companies use to fill jobs that are necessary for our economic success. Furthermore, public lands make up an important part of our economy. For example, think about what you buy when you take your family out for a day on public lands. You have to buy food and water, appropriate clothes for everyone to be outside in (to not be too cold or too warm), the gas to get where you’re going, and whatever recreation equipment you’re using. Idahoans invest millions of dollars every year in outdoor recreation and much of it goes directly into our economy. Losing that would be just a small part of the negative impacts of closing down our public lands.

Idaho is beloved for its access to public lands, but those lands are at risk of being bought up by private, out-of-state investors. If we don’t take action soon, we will lose one of the most valuable things about our state. There are so many reasons why this would be terrible for Idahoans. Many Idahoans have already lost access to some of their favorite places to visit, but the Legislature has turned a blind eye. We have to work harder to keep public lands in public hands.

This column was written by state Rep. Chris Abernathy, D-Pocatello.