Grassroots volunteers from Kansas and Nebraska are campaigning to educate citizens of both states on the consequences of allowing the federal government designation of the proposed Kansas Nebraska National Heritage Area (NHA).
Convention of States Kansas District Captains Angel Cushing and Beth Salmans are among the organizers of a series of meetings stretching across the Kansas-Nebraska border. Nebraskan and agriculture advocate Trent Loos is teaming with Colorado rancher Norman Kincaide to expose the intentions and strategies employed by the National Park Service and NGO’s like the Nature Conservancy to control development of private property in a proposed Canyon and Plains National Heritage Area in SE Colorado.
The Canyon and Plains NHA as well as NHA’s in Missouri, Arkansas, Washington, and Virginia were successfully defeated by citizen action while the government has prevailed across the country including the Freedom’s Frontier NHA that spans the Kansas-Missouri borderlands and has used taxpayer-funded grants to impose anti-agriculture zoning and land use regulations without landowner input.
The National Park Service uses the NHA land grab based on their assumptions that the goal for set aside federal lands should be at least 30% of all US lands by 2030, known as the 30 x 30 Plan.
This goal will transition agricultural lands and the Kansas/Nebraska economies to economies based on tourism and energy production. The compensation to the counties would come in the form or grants that would fund permanent easements which would allow the NHA to rewrite planning and zoning decisions by the counties.
This is clearly an encroachment on local counties and their ability to govern themselves. An example includes the NHA’s ability to ban barbed wire fences and transform the county to a Homeowners Association. For information on their goals and plans click here.
Currently the NHA has control over the Flint Hills Regional Council, the Nature Conservatories in Kansas, K-State Preservation Land, and the Tall Grass National Prairie Preserve in Chase County. Their ultimate goal is confiscation of Kansas lands to eliminate agricultural production.
The proposal waiting for approval by Congress with confiscate the 49 counties in Kansas and Nebraska for management by the Secretary of the Interior.
A statement issued by Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts indicated the initiative “comes with unquantifiable and unknowable risks for the future.” The initiative constitutes a move by the federal government to take over the management of the land without consent of the landowners.
Kansas Governor Laura Kelly has declined to comment regarding the matter.
According to Angel Cushing, “We know that those who support these initiatives have a fundamental purpose to convert farm and ranch land to parks and recreational areas. The consequence is that the sources for animal protein and agricultural production will be transitioned to alternative substitutes and remove our choices at the dinner table. We want to alert citizens of Kansas to become informed about the serious challenge ahead of us and to organize forces to champion against the initiative. We must maintain the integrity of our livelihoods and our lifestyles in both states.”
COS supporters in Kansas and Nebraska are encouraged to share this post with friends who may reside in the proposed NHA. The heritage of private property rights is far greater than claims of the Nature Conservancy and other anti-agriculture groups.
