Greenbacks for owls.

Here's a novel idea for the Greens who temporarily uprooted themselves from Washington, D.C., to attend President Clinton's forestry conference in Washington state last week: "Put your money where your mouth is." That was suggested by Montana's Political Economy Research Center, which thinks the timberlands that the Greens want reserved for the spotted owl should be opened to competitive bids by loggers and environmental groups alike.

"Let environmentalists preserve timber by buying it and not cutting it," PERC said. PERC notes that environmental groups should be well able to bid against logging companies. The ten top Green groups in Washington, D.C., have annual budgets totaling $522 million. Moreover, if they were putting their money into conservation rather than into fancy offices, lobbying, and scare campaigns, they might be able to raise a lot more money from the public. (We might even give them a plug.)

To be sure, the feds would need to alter their timber contracts, which currently specify that the trees must be cut down within a certain time. Stephen Gordon, a conservation-minded rancher with land in the Shoshone mountains of Nevada, recently sent a check for $100,000 (and promised another $300,000 later) for the timber rights to land adjacent to his in order to preserve it from logging. But the government returned his check. You see, Washington knows best which trees should be felled, and those Shoshone trees just had to go.

Where environmentalist groups actually own land they sometimes become less dogmatic about preserving the place in pristine fashion and quietly allow some accompanying resource development. For example, the National Audubon Society allows nothing less than oil and gas production at its bird preserve at Rainey, Louisiana. Green groups in the West might find ways of mixing some judicious logging with wildlife preservation.

But the Green groups are very quiet about all this. And why not? Under the existing law, if they can find endangered species on private property, they can effectively confiscate the land for their all-wilderness cause. They get it all without having to bid a penny, and without having to take responsibility for management.