Willing Seller Needs Your Help NOW

from Bruce Matthews, Executive Director, NCTA and the American Hiking Society

North Country Trail Association Asks for your help:
The long-awaited Willing Seller legislation (more than 7 years in the making) that corrects our NCNST legislation and makes it consistent with other national scenic trails is included in S-22--the Senate's Omnibus Trails Bill that will hopefully see action over the weekend.

We're being told it is in trouble and under fire by property rights activists. We need your immediate contact of your Senate delegation letting them know your support.

Here's the important piece of the language:
"North Country National Scenic Trail- Section 5(a)(8) of the National Trails System Act (16 U.S.C. 1244(a)(8)) is amended by adding at the end the following: "No land or interest in land outside the exterior boundaries of any federally administered area may be acquired by the Federal Government for the trail except with the consent of the owner of the land or interest in land."

We need your help TODAY to urge Congress to pass the Senate Omnibus Public Land Act (S. 22), an important bill that will protect and recognize some of the most significant hiking opportunities and natural resources in America.

This bill will have greater positive effects on the hiking experience than any other legislation considered this year. This bill is a "bundle" of more than 100 different pieces of legislation, including language to designate the Arizona National Scenic Trail, the New England National Scenic Trail, the Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail, and the Washington - Rochambeau Revolutionary Route National Historic Trail. This legislation also authorizes several important feasibility studies of National Historic Trails and gives federal land management agencies the tools to protect trails by acquiring land within their Congressionally designated corridors. Notably, this "bundle" contains the National Landscape Conservation System Act - simple, straightforward legislation that will recognize the incredible natural and recreational resources of the Bureau of Land Management's National Landscape Conservation System, including more than 5,000 miles of National Scenic and Historic Trails.

Please contact your Senator immediately asking them to support S-22. Your Find your Senator's e-mail addresses