[aomurphy]

Various environmentalists have tried this in the US. Here's a reason article about several attempts: https://reason.com/2019/11/18/why-dont-environmentalists-jus... Kind of frustrating the OP's article doesn't actually do any research on why it's hard to actually do this "clever" idea. There is an actual power structure that is opposed to these sorts of actions!

In general in the US it's very difficult to do this on state/federal land. You usually must make use of your rights or the leases will be revoked. Even when there is a state like Idaho where you can buy grazing rights and supposedly not use them, the state bureaucracy isn't interested in it.

I guess you could do this with coal rights but the coal markets have been so bad for the last decade it's hard to see this as worth doing.

[Jiro]

>Here's a reason article about several attempts

If you read the article carefully,

-- This is about leases. Leases come with conditions. You're not buying the land.

-- The first example is about someone who lied and made a bid that he had no intention or ability to pay. Turns out that's actually a crime. That's not "power structure opposed to these sort of actions" in a nontrivial sense.

-- There's a very good reason for much of this: Grazing, hunting, and even logging are part of maintaining the land. The owner of the land (the government) doesn't want you to stop maintaining the land and so makes sure the lease requires that you maintain it. And resource extraction comes with paying royalties to the owner, who doesn't want you cheaping out by not extracting any resources and not paying anything.