The Sagebrush Rebellion
In the United States, some believe that land controlled by the Federal Government should be transferred to State or local authorities or sold off to private owners. In the 1970’s and 1980’s there was a large push for policy to change so that the land, mostly covered by sagebrush, could be used for various purposes (Wikipedia contributors, 2022). These purposes included the want to extract resources, grazing areas for animals and other development in thirteen of the Western States (Wikipedia contributors, 2022). In 1976 the Federal Land Policy Act was enacted and those who had previously complained that the land was unfairly controlled turned to rebellion to attempt to invoke change and demonstrate how they felt that use of the land was unjust (Wikipedia contributors, 2022). While the act required that the Federal Government regulate land for use in agriculture, farming, grazing and mining it also included consideration for conservation (American Patriot, 2017). Although conservation was viewed as important by some it was more important that control of the land be turned over to State and local authorities to decide how the land should be disbursed.