
Subject:
[cohp] Digest Number 5245
From:
cohp@yahoogroups.com
Date:
1/29/2016 2:43 AM
To:
cohp@yahoogroups.com

County High Pointing in all 50 states
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Digest #5245
1
Private Land Access: There's An App for That? by "Beth Lakin" beth3up

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Private Land Access: There's An App for That?
Thu Jan 28, 2016 8:31 am (PST) . Posted by:
"Beth Lakin" beth3up
High Country News had an article today about using apps to facilitate
communication and liability issues between landowners and public users.
(Sadly, only a preview is available to non subscribers. I will paste full
article below although I encourage anyone interested in the west to
subscribe to HCN.)

I'm not sure that this would be a great solution for many CoHPs as there is
also a certain resistance to technology but it does have potential for
landowners to know who is on their land ("Oh, a white Jeep? That must be
that girl who requested access last week...").

Thoughts?

http://www.hcn.org/articles/want-public-access-to-private-land-theres-an-app-for-that

Full Article:

Not a day goes by without someone bemoaning the lack of public access to
private lands in the West. Gone are the good old days, some say, when
landowners welcomed visitors. Today, it often seems like there are NO
TRESPASSING signs across every gate and orange paint on every fence post,
blocking public access to hiking, fishing and other recreation
opportunities on private lands.

Why are landowners so reluctant to provide public access? The problem might
be that we just havent figured out a simple and effective way to work with
them. Knocking on doors to ask permission can be awkward and
time-consuming, so many people avoid asking altogether. And while most of
us treat other peoples private property with respect, a few bad apples can
make landowners wary about allowing any access.

That might be changing. Consider the sharing economy, which is
revolutionizing the way we tackle similar problems elsewhere. From Airbnb
and Uber to countless startups in between, entrepreneurs are finding new
ways to rent underused assets, such as vehicles and spare bedrooms.
Technology reduces the transaction costs between suppliers and demanders,
making sharing easier and cheaper than ever before.

The challenge is to build a platform that connects users and landowners and
creates a sense of trust. On Airbnb, homeowners invite total strangers to
sleep in their own homes. On Uber, drivers pick up passengers they dont
know. Online reviews, ratings systems and background checks provide some
reassurances for both sides, fostering trust among suppliers and demanders.

With the tap of your smartphone, you could rent hiking access to a local
property, book a fishing pass to a neighbors spring creek, or lease
short-term hunting access on a nearby ranch. Willing landowners could
enroll in an online service, set a price, define certain conditions and
limits, and receive the assurance that their property would be treated with
respect. In the process, they could diversify their incomes and have even
greater incentives to restore or conserve their land.

To limited extent, this is already happening. Hipcamp
<http://www.hcn.org/issues/47.12/private-land-camping-startups-offer-alternative-to-public-lands>,
a venture capital-funded startup based in San Francisco, is providing
camping opportunities on private lands. The company has about 60 landowners
enrolled in its land-sharing program, with prices ranging from $30 to
$300 per night. Likewise, in Michigan, a college student is creating a
land-sharing app
<http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2015/10/kettering_student_to_create_ap.html>,
called Rod, Gun, and Bow, that would allow hunters and anglers to lease
private land on a short-term basis.

These services help resolve another important issue: liability concerns.
Hipcamp provides liability insurance and a property-protection plan to
protect landowners from accidents or reimburse them for any damages caused
by campers. A single-strike policy also ensures that rule-breakers are
swiftly identified and banned from the service.

All across the West, there are potential suppliers of outdoor recreational
experiences. Most are not opposed to public access. They simply dont want
their private land open to everyone, just as homeowners on Airbnb dont
want everyone sleeping in their spare bedrooms. Landowners, like all of us,
need to have some control and protection against possible damages to their
property. The sharing economy can provide that.

While not every public-access concern can be resolved in this manner 
battles over prescriptive easements and access to public roads are much
more complicated legal questions  the underlying principle remains: As
recreationists, we need to find better ways to work with landowners, not
against them.

This is a radical departure from the way we typically approach public
access in the West. Here in Montana, for instance, we pass laws that mandate
public access <http://www.perc.org/articles/stream-access-across-west>across
streams on private property, try to penalize private landowners
<http://billingsgazette.com/lifestyles/recreation/lawmaker-says-requirement-of-public-access-for-damage-hunts-extortion/article_3261e4e5-08d5-5f19-9d9b-21735dccc27f.html>
who
dont allow public hunting, and pressure companies to allow free access to
private timberlands
<http://helenair.com/news/article_44864247-a69c-510d-be4a-0d454ed533ba.html>.
But these approaches can backfire, straining relationships with landowners
and making them even more reluctant to grant access. Worse yet, by
attempting to wrest control away from landowners, they can undermine their
incentives to invest in private-land conservation.

So, instead, what if we took a sharing-economy approach to public access in
the West? The West, and the people who share it, might be better off for
it.

*Shawn Regan is a contributor to Writers on the Range, the opinion service
of* High Country News. *He is a research fellow at theProperty and
Environment Research Center <http://www.perc.org/>in Bozeman, Montana, and
a former backcountry ranger for Olympic National Park.*
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