Transcript Slide 1
Chapter 10
Land, Public and Private
Who Owns a Tree?
Julia Butterfly Hill vs. Maxxam
Pacific Lumber Company – leader in environmental stewardship
Selective cutting vs. clear cutting
1986 – Pacific Lumber bought and renamed Maxxam
Drastic changes made
Tree Sit (1997- 1999) – Julia Butterfly Hill
Organized by Earth First! Organization
Outcome?
Tree sit caused:
Brought attention to the unsustainable practices
Maxxam filed for bankruptcy in Jan. 2007
Important questions
Do citizens of the US have the right to influence what activities occur on
private or public lands?
Do you think Julia Hill was a hero or a villain?
Human land use affects the
environment in many ways
• Using land benefits humans
– Negative consequences…
• People do not always agree on land use and
management priorities
• 3 concepts essential for understanding land
use:
– Tragedy of the commons
– Externalities
– Maximum sustainable yield
The Tragedy of the Commons
• In history – land viewed as common resource
– Problem…
• In 1968 – Garrett Hardin described the “tragedy
of the commons”
• Tragedy of the commons- the tendency of a
shared, limited resource to become depleted
because people act from self-interest for shortterm gain
– Applies to any publicly available resource that is not
regulated
Tragedy of the Commons
Externalities
• Externalities- a cost or benefit of a good or
service that is not included in the purchase
price of the product or service
– Positive externality
– Negative externality
• Concern about negative externalities…
• How do we fix this? (prevent ToC)
– Private ownership Regulation by local or federal
government
Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY)
• Def: maximum
amount of a
renewable resource
that can be
harvested without
compromising the
future availability of
that resource
– Varies case by case
• Difficult to calculate
MSY with certainty
International Categories of Public
Lands
• National Parks- managed for scientific, educational, and
recreational use, and sometimes for their beauty or unique
landforms
• Managed Resource Protected Areas- managed for the sustained
use of biological, mineral, and recreational resources.
• Habitat/Species Management Areas- actively managed to
maintain biological communities
• Strict Nature Reserves and Wilderness Areas- established to
protect species and ecosystems
• Protected Landscapes and Seascapes- nondestructive use of
natural resources while allowing for tourism and recreation
• National Monuments- set aside to protect unique sites of special
natural or cultural interests
Public Lands in U.S.
Public Land Classification
• Resource conservation ethic
– people should maximize
resource use based on the
greatest good for everyone
• Many uses for land
– Problem
• More than 95% of federal
land is managed by:
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Bureau of Land Management
US Forest Services
National Park Service
Fish and Wildlife Service
Rangelands
• Dry, open grasslands that are primarily used for
cattle grazing
• Overuse of rangelands leads to loss of
biodiversity, soil degradation, wind erosion
• Taylor Grazing Act of 1934
– Permit system
– Critics
• BLM – focuses on mitigating damage caused by
grazing
– Problem
Forests
• Areas dominated by trees and other woody
vegetation
• More money spent managing the timber
program and building/maintaining roads than
receives from royalties
– Logging roads built
• Problems
Timber Harvest Practices
Clear-cutting
• Removing all, or almost all
the trees in an area
• Easiest and usually most
economical
• Regrowth – must plant trees
or reseed area
– Resulting trees will be the
same age
– Sunlight issue…
– Usually monoculutre
• Problems:
Selective Cutting
• Removing single trees or
relatively small numbers of
trees from a forest
• More expensive
• Regrowth – logging creates
many small openings
– Trees will be at various ages
– Optimum growth…
Timber Harvest
Practices
• Clear-cutting vs.
Selective Cutting
Timber Harvest Practices
• Ecologically sustainable forestry – goal is to
maintain all species (plants/animals) in as
close to natural state as possible
– Uses animals (ie horses) to reduce impact and
cost of machinery use
– Expensive though
Logging, Deforestation, and
Reforestation
• ~30% of commercial timber in world
produced in US and Canada
• Logging problems:
– Disrupts habitat
– Replaces complex forest ecosystems with tree
plantations
– Biodiversity protection regulations not specific
• Critics vs. USFS
Fire Management
• Fires – release nutrients
in dead biomass back
into soil
• How do we deal with
the fact that fires are
important?
– Prescribed burns
– Natural burns
• Yellowstone
National Parks
• Established to preserve scenic views and unusual
landforms
• NPS manages 391 national parks and other areas
• Goals of National Park Management
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Based on multi-use principal
Primary purpose of NPS …
Concern
Each park is treated individually in needs/policies
• Human Activities
– Primary challenge of NP
National Wildlife Refuges/Wilderness
Areas
• Wildlife refuges - managed for the purpose of
protecting wildlife
– Managed by FWS
• Wilderness areas – preserves large tracts of
intact ecosystems or landscapes
– Created from public lands
– Allow limited human use
– Previous uses
Federal Regulations
• National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)mandates an environmental assessment of all
projects involving federal money or permits
• Process to go through:
– Environmental impact statement (EIS)
– Environmental mitigation plan
– Public gives input to environmental assessment
Residential Land
• Suburban- areas
surrounding
metropolitan centers
with low population
densities
• Exurban- similar to
suburban areas, but
are not connected to
any central city or
densely populated
area
Urban Sprawl
• Urban sprawl- the creation of urbanized areas
that spread into rural areas
– Removes clear boundaries between urban and rural
areas
– Characterized by…
– Between 1992 – 1997 US farmland being converted to
residential uses at rate of 1.2 million acres per year
– Concerns:
• Dependence on automobiles
• Each family has more land
Causes of Urban Sprawl in U.S.
• Automobiles and highway construction
• Living costs
• Urban blight – the degradation of the built and social
environments of the city that often accompanies and
accelerates migration to the suburbs
• Government policies – influence urban sprawl
– Highway Trust Fund – pays for construction and
maintenance of roads/highways
– Zoning – a planning tool to separate industry and business
from residential
– Federal Housing Administration – established during Great
Depression
Smart Growth
• Smart Growth – focuses on strategies that encourage the
development of sustainable, health communities:
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Mixed land uses
Create a range of housing opportunities and choices
Create walkable neighborhoods
Encourage community and stakeholder collaboration in development
decisions
Take advantage of compact building design
Foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of place
Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty and critical
environmental areas
Provide a variety of transportation choices
Strengthen and direct development toward existing communities
Make development decisions predictable, fair and cost-effective