Conservationists Seek to Buy Rights to Public Lands - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/us/conservationists-seek-to-buy-rights-to-public-lands.html?ref=us
recently, environmental advocates have begun banding together with ranchers, hunters and rich landowners with a novel tactic to preserve the landscapes of the West: they buy out their opponents.
(...) one cannot simply buy a forest or mountain to keep it from being drilled.
Instead, conservation groups are trying to buy the mineral leases that oil and gas companies purchase from the federal government at regular energy auctions, sometimes for as little as $2 an acre.