Tipi Village Land Struggle

[Wylden Freeborne]

Hey y'all.
So, I have posted on here over the last year, detailing some aspects of tipi living, year round. I have receive dmuch encouragement for this from PA folk, and am always grateful for that. Right now, our villag eis attempting to save our land form being absorbed  by the Federal Government for purposes of "conservation", which equals, no hunting, no camping, no foraging and NO HUMAN LIVING. this is able to be thwarted and we are reaching out for help. Check these two videos out and see if you want to participate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da0Y_Cckj94

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ftIL2vx3M

Thanks and aim true fellow benders!

[Parnell]

So the land has been privately owned up to this point and is being sold?  Or is this the state trying to seize land somehow?

[JW_Halverson]

Private land "inholding" lying within a larger tract of Public Lands. They are seeking to "liberate" the land from becoming public domain by buying it before the landowner agrees to sell it to the National Park Service or whoever. 

[rileyconcrete]

This makes me very upset. We need to stand up for what we have.  They are doing the same things here in Idaho. Soon we will have no public lands, or lands we can use. First goes the logging then the fires come then goes the land into conservation areas or wilderness areas to keep people out.  Something needs to happen soon before we lose it all. I'm behind you all the way Wylden!

Tell

[Parnell]

But currently this is private land not public.  Government "conserving" land isn't a bad thing either.  I love our park systems.

Is there ANY land left in the United States this isn't paid for privately or owned by the government?  Does that exist?

I think it's an interesting way to live Wylden and admire the groups intentions, however, essentially what's the difference between a tipi surrounded by beautiful land or a cardboard box complex behind a building in the city?  People living in an equivalent fashion in urban areas still hunt, forage, build shelter, and work together in a community fashion.  I've seen it many times.  It's just not as pretty.

I wish I could say that land shouldn't belong to anyone and that life would be great living the way aboriginal cultures lived.  It's romantic, but I can't afford that point of view and neither can my ill wife. 

I wish your community every success in gathering the money for your lifestyle and pursuit of happiness.

[robby]

Sorry, Any money my wife and I donate, goes to St. Jude Children's Hospital. I had to work scrape and save to get my little piece of paradise.
Robby

[JW_Halverson]

So, if you get this land, have you determined how you are going to handle sanitation for the long term?  Slit trenches are good for short term, but you will eventually befoul your drinking water with e. coli, typhus, and the like.  Furthermore, without waste treatment, you will rapidly foul the groundwater which will eventually become someone's stream.  Are you prepared to prevent point source contamination and pay for remediation, should it happen?

Do you have a range management plan for the non-forested land?  Without some form of grazing, many native species will choke out and be replaced with invasive species.  Additionally, do you have plans for controlled burning to also control invasive species and help propagate native species that are fire-adapted or even fire-activated species?  Back to grazing, does the land already have effective fencing to prevent animal incursion onto neighboring land?

Do you have plans for wildland fire supression?  If a fire starts on your land and spreads to the neighboring Federal Land, you may be found responsible for the cost of the firefighting.  Any fire larger than 5 acres runs to an easy 6 figure bill,  A crowning fire will easily run several hundred acres in a day and fire supresion costs are easily tens of millions.  There is insurance for this situation, but you will quickly find that any open fires will not be covered under your insurance. 

Have you checked into tax assessment for this property?  When you purchase it, will it be zoned at ag land rates or residential rates?  In some areas, they have substantially rased the bar for what is considered agricultural land in order to prevent people from buying acreages for trophy homes and running a cow every 4 years across the land in order to classify as ag.  You might be required to document sources of income (agriculture vs any other incomes) in order to get the lower tax rate reserved for farm/agriculture versus residential land. 

Lotsa fun with owning land, eh?

[Wylden Freeborne]

Well, JW, it seems you take some position that somehow we may not be prepared to live the way we live on this land, despite having done it successfully as a community for six years, and as humans for 2 million. Cool. I get it. You work really hard and think no one deserves to not. I think, though, that while we may live differently, with any experience in the community, you would see that we do in fact work hard and we also take responsibility for how we live.  You know, though, it is not in my interest to convince you or anyone that how we live is alright for us. It is my intention to share our experience with those who are are interested, dare I say enraged at the direction this technogarbage world is going.

The truth of the matter is this, now that we have stood our ground against the state moving in and taking the land for federal use only, we have been treated to chemical spraying in the head water of the creek we live on, bathe in and drink from, for the purpose of "conservation" spraying what the BLM agent called "agent orange". Following that, the party attempting to purchase the land on behalf of the national monument hired a lawyer to re-interpret the existing county codes that up until now have allowed tipi living to continue. You guessed it, now it is illegal for us to live this way, as per an interpretation that tipis are now considered recreational dwellings. It just shows what happens to those who strike out to live a way that challenges the dominant forces in any way. You get hammered down. Plain and simple. So long as we continue to believe that there is only one way to live, we will kill our selves slowly. Thanks for following the updates over the last year, and I will keep updating our Bandit lifestyle as it continues.

Aim True!
Wylden

[Wylden Freeborne]

JW, it is also the very reasons you mentioned, as well as many others,  that we see so much flaw with land ownership within a system of dominance and control. This topic may be too heated for PA, but thought it was important to let folks know exactly what happens when you try to live free in this modern world.