03:56 PM CST on Friday, February 17, 2006

By Nancy Holland / 11 News

The Bush administration has offered to sale more than 300,000 acres of national forest and other public land, including about 4,000 acres in Texas.

KHOU

The Sam Houston National Forest is used by hunters, hikers, birdwatchers.

An hour north of Houston, the Sam Houston National Forest is used by hunters, hikers, birdwatchers.

But the government wants to sell five isolated tracts.

"Access to them is extremely difficult," said Ranger Randy.

On the map, the scattered spots of green are surrounded by private lands.

The government argues, money from a sale would help counties that don't get tax revenue from public land pay for schools.

Historically, the Forest Service has given counties money from logging.

"We've always given back money to them. The forest service is not cutting as much timber as much as we used to in the past and stuff so the revenue has gone down a lot and some of the counties have suffered that," explained Randy Prewitt with Sam Houston National Forest.

But for all the controversy over timber sales, there was still the land itself.

The people at the forest service say there really hasn't been a lot of money to acquire new lands in the last couple of years. In fact, they say most of the land has come through swaps.

The Sierra Club says it has no problem with swaps and consolodation but argues you can't swap what has been sold.

Sierra Club member Brandt Mannchen calls it the nibble, nibble, bite, bite loss of public land.

"They're always gone. It's perpetual. It's forever," said Mancnchen. "You're not going to get those back."

Mannchen and others will have until the end of March to have their say before Congress decides.