‘Everything's for sale’: the shocking film on the privatization of American public lands

Public Trust highlights the 640m acres owned by the country's citizenry, lands that some in the Republican party want to sell off

Towards the middle of the new film Public Trust, about the continued push by zealous conservatives to privatize ownership of the United States' federally-managed public lands, the stakes are laid bare: If you don't get engaged, you lose," says Land Tawney, president and chief executive of the nonprofit Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. When you get complacent, things are done to you."

Tawney is speaking of the 640m acres that are owned by the country's citizenry. Few things in politics are as quintessentially American as the country's vast system of public lands. No other nation on earth has this much property that belongs to its people and is intended to be management by the government for the benefit and uplift of all. Yet selling off those lands is still listed as a goal in the Republican party platform, and the Trump administration seems singularly focused on rolling back protections to usher in more drilling and mining.