Republican politicians blocking the recovery of America’s national icon, the American bison, are not true conservatives

These are big government cronyists of the kind they claim to abhor

In evicting bison from public lands leased by American Prairie in northern Montana, Governor Greg Gianforte and the Federal Bureau of Land Management are using a big government playbook to tilt the playing field in favour of the cattle industry. Cattle are already lavishly subsidised, and have use of 800 million+ American acres, of which around a third is public land leased to ranchers by the American public for a peppercorn rent. Most of it is in a terrible state due to poor management.

American Prairie buys land on the open market from willing sellers, legitimately leases public land from the BLM and works with private landowners and native American reservations in order to piece together and restore a great tract of prairie. The organisation is pioneering a new economic model for the remote plains, one which includes cattle ranching alongside ambitious nature recovery; is creating tons of new jobs; all while restoring an American icon, the bison, which currently numbers less than 0.1% of its historic population. It does all of this without deviating from the principles of free markets, private property rights and good stewardship.

You’d have thought conservative regulators would applaud this new approach for an area increasingly known for economic, ecological and social decline and rural depopulation. But no, the return of the bison is simply too much for local and federal republicans. And so, under pressure from shady cattle industry lobbyists, they’re bending and breaking long-established public lands rules to get the bison gone.

Real conservatives believe in private property rights, free market enterprise and a level playing field. These new kind of ‘conservatives’, however, are in fact cronyists, who go full socialist whenever one of their favourite industries, such as coal, corn-for-ethanol, sugar in the Everglades (a particular monstrosity), industrial fishing, logging, cattle, etc., begin to come up against reality. Big government intervention, state protection, and ever greater subsidies for the status quo are really not conservatism.

What *is* conservatism is standing up for America’s natural inheritance, which these politicians are betraying. Real conservatives would cheer the return of the bison to a remote corner of the Great Plains. These politicians are on the wrong side of history.

Poll after poll shows that nature really is non-partisan. Young-old, rich-poor, rural-urban, left-right - people across the board love nature and want it rebuilt and protected. That’s why, at the state level, good things are happening across America. Consider the Florida Forever program of land acquisition for conservation; the dramatic expansion of the Texas state parks system; and the adoption by Illinois of rewilding as a core principle of public land management.

I should note, before the trolls get going again …

I am not an American, unlike the overwhelming majority of AP donors. My involvement in American rural policy is precisely zero. But I was for ten years Chair of the UK Conservative Environment Network and I am amazed by the chutzpah of fellow conservatives across the Atlantic going all socialist in their increasingly hysterical efforts to stand in the way of nature recovery - all while burnishing their free market, conservative credentials.

PS, yum

I had Alison Fox, chief executive of American Prairie, as my first ever Rewilding the World podcast guest a couple of years ago. Here is the episode. I have invited Alison to come back onto the podcast in the coming weeks to talk about all of this.