If I told you that a federal agency had dismissed voluntary conservation on the grounds that environmental protection should be done only by government planners and regulators, you'd be forgiven for thinking I was referring to a previous administration. But the Biden administration actually endorsed conservation leasing, a free market approach to reduce conflict and litigation over federal land. In rescinding those policies, the Trump administration's Department of the Interior is embracing its inner statism.

In 2024, the Bureau of Land Management adopted the Public Lands Rule, which allowed conservation groups to lease public land for conservation, just as ranchers, energy companies, and many other interests do. The goal was to put conservation on an equal footing with other uses and give conservation groups a voluntary, free market alternative to lobbying and litigation to pursue their interests. The Biden administration also hoped to promote cooperation over conflict, with one official telling Congress that the "key to the success" of the program would be conservation groups paying ranchers and other public-land users for voluntary stewardship.

What would conservation leasing look like in practice? Voluntary conservation on private land offers endless examples. In West Virginia, Trout Unlimited has restored 25 miles of stream, along with 500 acres of riparian habitat, and purchased easements from willing landowners to protect those investments. In the Southeast, The Nature Conservancy and American Forest Foundation have established a program to pay family forestowners for conservation practices, including carbon sequestration. And in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the Ricketts Conservation Foundation and my organization, the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), partner with ranchers to replace miles of barbed wire with "virtual fences" that improve cattle management and remove barriers to wildlife migrations.

Last month, the BLM rescinded the Public Lands Rule, rejecting any role for private, voluntary conservation on public lands. According to its interpretation, government planning, environmental reviews, and regulation are sufficient tools, and private competition and complements are unnecessary. In effect, the administration declared that the federal government should have a monopoly when it comes to conservation on public land.

When the government insulates its decisions from markets and competition, the results are predictable: poorer service, higher costs, and political gamesmanship. This story has played out again and again in government monopolies in mail service, education, and healthcare. When the government is the sole provider of something and prevents private competition, outcomes—and politics—worsen. 

In the conservation space, government bureaucrats wielding planning, permitting, and regulation are no substitute for private groups investing in conservation outcomes they care about. Government planners face an insurmountable Hayekian knowledge problem, in that information about what people value, and how much they value it, is dispersed and constantly changing. The BLM director simply cannot know what the public desires with the precision needed to perfectly plan across the 245 million acres he oversees. Only prices can reveal that information, which requires market mechanisms to allow for competition among competing uses.

A government monopoly for conservation projects will also lack accountability. When a bureaucrat mismanages a landscape or spends a lot of money on an ill-conceived project, the consequences fall on the public rather than the bureaucrat or his agency. However, if the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation invests its own money in removing invasive species, implementing a prescribed burn, or improving wildlife habitat, it has strong incentives to deliver the best results at the lowest possible cost.

Channeling conservation exclusively through politics also leads to less durable investments and results. Recently, the Bureau of Land Management upended a 20-year bison restoration program by suddenly changing its interpretation of a century-old law in response to political pressure. Federal agencies are inherently political animals, and their commitments are only as reliable as the next election. Property rights and contracts, on the other hand, provide durable commitments and spur investment in conservation.

Then there's rent-seeking. If conservation of public lands is purely a question of politics, every side has an incentive to exaggerate claims and push the government to favor their interests. For years, public-land controversies have generated scorched-earth political battles, with industry actors claiming that conservation would be ruinously expensive and conservation advocates predicting development will cause the sky to fall. 

Some of the chief benefits of markets are to force people to put their money where their mouths are and to create incentives for compromise. A conservation group that knows a conservation lease that blocks energy development entirely will be ruinously expensive has a direct stake in finding creative ways for commerce and conservation to coexist. But if the costs exclusively fall on political opponents, why moderate? 

The BLM's decision is especially disappointing because it undercuts the administration's own signals that it understands these problems. Last July, President Trump signed the Make America Beautiful Again executive order setting out the administration's environmental vision, which is "to prioritize responsible conservation, restore our lands and waters, and protect" outdoor recreation. Specifically, it called for policies to "encourage responsible, voluntary conservation efforts" and "cut bureaucratic delays that hinder effective environmental management." BLM's decision repudiates both principles in favor of a statist vision of top-down, regulatory conservation.

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