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| Opportunities & Exposures: Environment |
Green Elephants
Carolin H. Atchison
10/01/2005
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The principle of local control informs bipartisan
conservation efforts on the East Coast as well. When the real estate boom of the
1990s began to impact Cape Cod, Democrats and Republicans, real estate agents
and environmentalists deemed it critical to find the right fiscal formula to
preserve their charmed way of life. Yet, in January 1998, Cape real estate
agents and Republican state representative Thomas George opposed a ballot
initiative crafted by Democratic state representative Eric Turkington and
environmentalists, calling it unfair. When voters agreed and the measure failed,
Turkington promptly offered to work with his conservative opponents on a new
solution, an offer they accepted.
As a coalition dubbed People United for a
Cape Cod Land Bank, Turkington and George offered voters a new proposal that
offered a small surcharge on property taxes combined with state funding.
Furthermore, each town was given the power to decide how to run its own land
bank, appoint its open-space committee and, at town meetings, let residents vote
on what lands to preserve. No new bureaucracy, no hidden costs. The second
version was a resounding success adopted by all 15 towns on the Cape. Since
then, the land bank has raised about $150 million for the purchase and
protection of 5,000 acres of land for various purposes. The Cape Cod Land Bank
was the model for Massachusetts’ Community Preservation Act, which to date has
been adopted by 100 out of 142 towns in the commonwealth.
Do we dare dream
that someday the GOP will reclaim its rich conservation heritage at the national
level? Or that we will hear Bush declare, as Teddy Roosevelt did in 1910,
“Conservation is a great moral issue, for it involves the patriotic duty of
insuring the safety and continuance of the nation”? As some Republicans like to
say, “Conservation is conservative.”  | Carolin H. Atchison is a writer
and conservationist living in Encinitas,
Calif. |
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