Who really owns America's public lands, and who is trying to take them away?

Episode three, "The Plunderers," follows the money. It opens with four hunters from Missouri who crossed from one corner of public land to another without ever touching a wealthy landowner's ranch — and were sued for eight million dollars for it. That case is the small version of a much larger story: how enormous private wealth is converting what belongs to all of us into what belongs to them.

Hosts Bill Hedden and John Leshy trace the pattern across the country. In Minnesota, a Chilean mining magnate who was once landlord to the president's daughter is pressing to dig at the doorstep of the Boundary Waters — the most visited wilderness in America. In Alaska, the federal government has taken an ownership stake in a mining company while approving ...