Inholding

An inholding is privately owned land inside the boundary of a national park, national forest, state park, or similar publicly owned, protected area. Inholdings result from private ownership of lands prior to the designation of the protected park or forest area, which then end up grandfathered within the legally designated boundary.

In the United States, the main causes of inholdings are checkerboarding due to railroad land grants under the Pacific Railway Acts beginning in 1862, homestead claims under the 1862 Homestead Act, and mining claims patented under the General Mining Act of 1872, along with the more recent Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. The railroad checkerboarding primarily affects national forests, while inholdings due to the other types of claims occur frequently within national parks and national forests throughout the western United States. Over the last several decades, conservation groups have lobbied the United States Congress to acquire inholdings especially within designated wilderness areas, either by direct purchase or via land exchange which trades the inholding for other federal lands located outside of national parks or wilderness areas.

According to the Colorado-based Wilderness Land Trust, the development of wilderness inholdings has the following adverse impacts:

• Fragmentation of pristine ecosystems and environmental damage such as air and water pollution, soil erosion, loss of solitude and disruption of wildlife.
• Nonconforming uses such as aircraft landings and motor vehicle intrusions.
• Degradation of the wilderness experience of visitors due to physical structures and human activities.
• Conflicts between land owners and visitors, and public outcry associated with proposed development.
• Complex land ownership patterns make managing wilderness more expensive and time consuming for land agency officials, particularly when there is controversy.

References and external links

• Tanner, Randy (December 2002). "Inholdings within Wilderness". International Journal of Wilderness 8 (3): 9–14. http://www.wilderness.net/library/documents/Tanner1.pdf. Retrieved 2007-02-22. 
• Wilderness Land Trust
• Nature Noted: Outing the Inholdings
• National Inholders Association