There is a battle currently raging over what the future will hold for our public lands. At this moment, one campaign is arguing that the vast majority of all federally managed public land should be transferred to the states.

At first glance, it seems like the states should be able to do a better job of managing public land than the federal government. However, things aren't quite so simple, and transferring federally managed public lands to the states could result in the general public losing access to these lands. In this article, I will discuss why I think this is a bad idea.

The federal government currently manages approximately 640 million acres (1 million square miles) of land in the United States. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the United States Forest Service (USFS), the National Park Service (NPS) and the Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) manage the vast majority of the land and are responsible for about 609 million acres between them.

Most of the federally managed public land is concentrated in the western states of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California and Alaska. The federal government controls more than 50 percent of the total land in these states. Not surprisingly, people in these states tend to have strong feelings one way or another regarding the future of public land.

Tensions have simmered below the surface for years over disagreements between locals and the federal government on how to manage this land. These disagreements have flared up from time to time and even turned violent on occasion, such as the recent standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.

When taking into account incidents like this, along with the growing amount of distrust of the federal government in some segments of the population, it is no surprise there is a growing desire to remove these lands from federal management and have them managed by the individual states.

Nobody is denying that some problems exist with how federal lands are currently managed, and there is certainly a lot of room for improvement on this front. However, by transferring these lands to the states, we might be going from the frying pan into the fire.

Look, I'm no apologist for the federal government. Certain federal agencies have reputations for being ham-handed and insensitive in their dealings with individual citizens. As with any large bureaucratic organization, "one size fits none" approaches seem to be the rule rather than the exception in many areas.

However, let's not forget the things about what works well.

The idea of "public land" that anybody can just go out and enjoy basically for free is a concept that is foreign to people in virtually every other country in the world. Being able to go hunt, hike, camp, view wildlife or fish in a national forest or other piece of public land is something many of us take for granted.

If we transfer these lands to the states, there is a real possibility the average person could lose access to millions of acres of land. Don't believe me? Consider the following.

States are mandated to manage their state trust lands in such a manner that these lands generate the maximum revenue revenue possible for schools and other public institutions in the state. This means logging, energy development and the leasing of the land to private entities for the purpose of generating revenue take precedence over outdoor recreation by average citizens.

The government tried an experiment in privatization of the 89,000-acre Valles Caldera National Preserve in New Mexico several years ago. The experience there illustrates some of the perils of attempting to generate revenue from former public land.

As was demonstrated at Valles Caldera, if we transfer federally managed public land to the states, public access to this land might still be allowed, but it would likely involve increased access fees. At the same time, since there would be so much incentive to maximize the revenue from the land, people interested in outdoor recreation on public land would likely have to deal with excessive logging, grazing, mining and energy development. Who wants to pay extra money for that?

The experiment at Valles Caldera failed miserably. Even when conducting large-scale logging and resource extraction, charging high fees for public access and selling grazing rights for significantly more than the market price, the preserve was never able to generate enough revenue to cover even a third of its expenses.

There is also the possibility that the states could just sell the land outright if they face a budget crunch. The memories of Weyerhaeuser ending free public access and charging hundreds of dollars for access permits are still fresh in the memories of Washington and Oregon residents.

That was a private company deciding to start charging hunters money access for land it had owned for a long time, and it was still met with outrage. Can you imagine how you would feel if your state sold off hundreds of thousands of acres of what used to be a national forest so it could be logged and/or developed into condos and shopping centers?

Let's also not forget one of the primary reasons we have so much public land out west today is because conservationists like Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot fought to set aside millions of acres of land for use by the public instead of giving it away or selling for pennies on the dollar to timber, mining and railroad companies.

Though it was an incredibly controversial decision at the time, we have them to thank for the vast tracts of public land we still enjoy today. Because of this, we should be even more cautious about doing anything that might squander our rich public land heritage for future generations.

Another aspect of land management that is often overlooked when talking about transferring public lands from federal control is firefighting and suppression. As we have seen in recent years, a bad wildfire season can turn out to be extremely expensive, and the federal government is much better equipped than the individual states to fight large wildfires.

Instead of tearing down the entire program for federal management of public lands, we would be much better served by devoting our energy toward reforming the current system. Like I said earlier, there are many areas where federal management of public lands could be improved.

It won't be easy, but I'm confident that if we put our minds to it, we can come up with some reforms that result in the land being managed in a manner more sensitive to the needs and desires of local residents while at the same time maintaining our rich public land heritage.

Remember: The federal government may manage these lands, but they are owned by all Americans. We are incredibly fortunate to have such a rich and bountiful heritage, and we would be extremely foolish to give up this incredible resource.