Public Lands In The United States

The conquering and development of natural land has in the past, been seen as a mark of human civilization. In the United States, our progress is often measured by growth and development, but should this be re-examined? There are many opinions on the subject of urban sprawl and its effects on wildlife, but one thing is for certain, we are expanding. From 1955 to 2005, urban and suburban areas grew by 300%, however, the population only increased by 75% over the same period (Ewing, Kostyack and Chen). According to NatureServe, a non-profit conservation organization, urban sprawl threatens one of every three endangered species in the United States. NatureServe’s analysis states, “rare and endangered species data shows that three-fifths (60

One of America’s greatest conservation achievements is the Wilderness Act of 1964. Fifty-two years later, this act has a legacy to withhold. A legacy that meant something in 1964 and remains the same today: to protect unspoiled land. Even though, through this act millions of acres have been conserved, the key word is continue. That is why America should pass laws to preserve the wilderness before developers spoil them.

Decisions regarding environmental problems require both knowledge and values. Placing value on specific issues can be sorted into four categories of justification: utilitarian, ecological, aesthetic and moral. California Blue focuses on the interplay of environmental issues and ethics emphasizing the conflict between industry and species preservation. Timber cutting in the Northwest United States is a mainstay of the economy. Although clear cutting is not as environmentally sensitive as selective harvesting and redwood cutting, some is essential to America's continued growth and prosperity. To ban timber operations and to throw people out of work, all to preserve an endangered blue butterfly, is to test the limits and logic of ecological priorities. The national policy of preserving endangered species serves the purpose of promoting biological diversity, which if not followed might threaten the ecosystem. This national policy of species preservation is a matter of social policy balanced with the competing interests of the local economy and human needs. Under the utilitarian approach one must balance the benefits of species preservation with the detriment of stopping human activity which threatens that species or the environment in which the

“Timber!” is a word that engulfed Woodrow Wilson in fear, as a loving, determined environmentalist he was the driving force behind the Organic Act of 1916. Wilson’s Organic Act set grounds for the founding of the National Park Service, which sets and enforces regulations that protect National Parks. Woodrow Wilson’s determination, conveyed by his adamant support for the Organic Act, was evident throughout Wilson’s lifetime. Wilson realized how important it was to protect America’s land and took action to protect it. Through the Organic Act, Wilson was able to save the current thirty-five national parks and land for hundreds of future national parks throughout the United States. The founding of the National Park Service was a major part of Wilson’s plan to preserve and protect America 's natural land. Wilson’s idea of preservation of the United States’ land has lived throughout the years through the National Park Service. The National Park Service today continues with the same responsibilities along with a multifarious collection of others. The actions taken in the Organic Act of 1916 have helped eternalize the ideas proposed by President Wilson by preserving the scarce remaining natural land of America.

1 The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has stepped in to provide restorative practices upon 500,000 acres of heavily degraded public grasslands. This land is suffering from severe soil erosion as well as degradation due to overgrazing. The suppression of natural fires has caused shrubs and invasive weeds to encroach upon the grasslands. A full scale assessment will take place on this land before restoration efforts begin. The first thing that would need to be assessed is the soil, for it is eroding and holding little nutrient value. Samples would be taken of this soil from various parts of the grasslands including the eroded gullies. Each soil sample would be taken from at least 1 foot below the surface, to test for carbon richness below the topsoil. These would then be tested for texture, density, water retention, and chemical composition. Typically, powerful, healthy soil will contain amounts of both Nitrogen and Phosphorous, which are essential nutrients in sustainable plant growth. These samples would also be tested for any build-up of salts, something known as soil salinization. Unhealthy, salinized soil is created over years of over-hydrating and deep plowing. Excess water will suffocate root systems of once-healthy crops, and salinized soils will reduce crop output up to 20% (Withgott &Brennan, 2011). The next assessment would be in the shrubs and invasive weed species on the land. Knowing the volume and location of these plants gives way to a better understanding of

Through strictly regulated hunting we have reintroduced and repopulated various game species into areas where they were previously wiped out due to extremely excessive hunting by settlers. In the early 1900s all of Indiana’s whitetail deer were virtually extinct. By the 1930s whitetail deer were beginning to be reintroduced into Indiana. In just 20 years after initial reintroduction the population was at a sustainable level so that regulated modern hunting programs could begin. Conservationism has been a necessity to the ecology of the United States and many other countries around the world. The U.S. Forest Service by itself manages 193 million acres of public land nationwide or roughly 8% of the total land in the United States. The management of this land would not be feasible without the funding hunters provide through licenses, tags, and stamps. The 193 million acres does not include any public recreational land on the state level. There is 2,260,380 acres of public hunting land in all the states

“Conservation laws” (document 8) positively impacted the environment, especially the National Conservation Commision (1909) which was put in place to conserve US natural resources. The National Reclamation Act raised money from the sale of public lands which funded irrigation programs in western states. This Act was installed by Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 “to increase” the land’s “usefulness” (document 6), the irrigation systems allowed crops, animals, and people to prosper. In addition, perhaps the most important act, the National Park Service Act which was enacted in 1916 by Woodrow Wilson after he expressed that “we have not stopped to conserve the exceeding bounty of nature (document 2). The Act was put in place to conserve “scenery”, “natural and historic landmarks”, “wildlife therein” and to “provide enjoyment for future generations”(The National Park Service Act). Environmental issues in the Gilded Age such as resources depletion, ecosystem destruction, air pollution, and public land exploitation all lead to the environmental reforms of the Progressive

The Biodiversity Treaty sanctioned that countries whose biological resources are exploited by bioprospecting companies have a right to share the financial benefits resulting from the sale of these resources (Adair, 1997). National parklands are owned by the federal government. Therefore, our national parks have the legal right to share in the financial benefits that

An important part of this model was to divide the Champion lands into separate but complementary ownerships on the basis of ecological values and basic management purposes: areas with the greatest ecological significance would be publicly owned and protected, with timber harvesting precluded on substantial acreages to allow natural processes like forest succession to occur unimpeded; and the most productive timber lands, with fewer special ecological values, would be kept in private ownership with a requirement that they be managed for long-term sustainable forestry. Public access for a variety of historic uses and other activities would be guaranteed on the entirety of the property.

Duerksen, C. & Snyder, C., (2005). Nature-friendly communities: habitat protection and land use. Case Study for Austin, TX; Washington, DC: Island Press Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy.apus.edu/lib/apus/Doc?id=10149942

In 2016, the National Park Service (NPS) celebrated 100 years of preservation and conservation of our nation’s parks, monuments, and historical sites. Currently, the federal government has proposed significant proposed budget cuts to the National Park Service. If the government makes these cuts, then Americans could lose the national parks along with the beauty, culture, and history that comes with them. This would happen because the NPS would lose most of its funding that is needed in order to keep the national parks well­preserved. Investing in the NPS should be a priority in our nation because it provides educational programs, unites all ages and races, and preserves and conserves the national parks.

It has been suggested that the main goal of this Act is to further enable government policy that allows industry to propose amendments to park boundaries. Once research within park boundaries is completed, as allowed by the Park Amendment Act, and a project is deemed feasible, the government would then invoke British Columbia’s Boundary Adjustment Policy to adjust park boundaries, removing the land involved to accommodate the project. This may result in parks containing large tracts of unprotected areas, causing fragmentation of wildlife habitat and threatening the ecosystems within parks that should be

The Issue of National Park conservation has become a widely controversial issue today. With the National debt reaching 17 trillion dollars some politicians think it is alright to either sell off national park land to commercial foresters, miners, and even foreign nations or to just close some parks entirely to make up some of the national debt. They are completely unaware that the parks arent just a “pretty area of land for tourists”. Many cities depend on the parks for their well-being. A quote from a local newspaper in California supports this “National parks don’t boast concession stands or charge tax, but data indicates they bring in millions of dollars to local economies each year”(Tree). Supporters of cutting the parks include big CEO’s of major companies and some of them not even in this country.

that in the midst of all this that anything can be accomplished at all, but

Right from the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th Century, there has been a fierce debate concerning how economic growth or development affects the environment or ecological setup of a country. The debate has its basis on whether it would be recommendable for a nation to concentrate on growing its economy while at the same time hurting or harming its ecological system. Naturalists like Pinchot Gifford, John Muir, Love Canal and Cuyahoga County always argued in favor of environmental preservation as opposed to concentrating all efforts towards developing the economy (Olmes 154; Miller 150-51). This paper will, therefore, discuss the struggle between economics and ecology specifically looking at particular events across the Twentieth Century. It will also attempt to explain the factors involved in the pursuit for change on the way people and the administration perceived the environmental conservation as opposed to economic growth.