Robert Keiter
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300092738
- eISBN:
- 9780300128277
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300092738.001.0001
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Nature
This book, which analyzes the contemporary public land policy debates with a view to bringing some perspective and coherence to a newly emerging era, addresses public land policy in its entirety, ...
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This book, which analyzes the contemporary public land policy debates with a view to bringing some perspective and coherence to a newly emerging era, addresses public land policy in its entirety, focusing on the interconnections between the diverse lands, resources, agencies, and communities that occupy so much of the western landscape. The alarming rate of species decline has pushed biodiversity conservation into the limelight; and the amorphous concept of ecosystem management has taken hold within the federal bureaucracy. Long-standing preservation notions—whether of entire landscapes, river corridors, wetlands, or species—have assumed new urgency in the face of the growing extinction crisis, burgeoning urban sprawl, and widespread environmental deterioration. These developments have profoundly influenced public land policy and shifted its focus toward ecological management, preservation, and ecosystem restoration. This book chronicles the changes that forecast a new direction in public land policy, examines the institutional forces driving those changes, and offers tentative observations on what the future may hold. To do so, it highlights key examples of the new ecological management movement: the Pacific Northwest's spotted owl controversy; the Yellowstone wolf reintroduction; fire as an agent of ecological change; the new wilderness debates; the transformation of southern Utah's Colorado Plateau; and the Quincy Library Group's forest management initiative. Drawing upon these examples, the book focuses on the ideas, forces, and institutions that are effecting—or resisting—change on the public lands.Less
This book, which analyzes the contemporary public land policy debates with a view to bringing some perspective and coherence to a newly emerging era, addresses public land policy in its entirety, focusing on the interconnections between the diverse lands, resources, agencies, and communities that occupy so much of the western landscape. The alarming rate of species decline has pushed biodiversity conservation into the limelight; and the amorphous concept of ecosystem management has taken hold within the federal bureaucracy. Long-standing preservation notions—whether of entire landscapes, river corridors, wetlands, or species—have assumed new urgency in the face of the growing extinction crisis, burgeoning urban sprawl, and widespread environmental deterioration. These developments have profoundly influenced public land policy and shifted its focus toward ecological management, preservation, and ecosystem restoration. This book chronicles the changes that forecast a new direction in public land policy, examines the institutional forces driving those changes, and offers tentative observations on what the future may hold. To do so, it highlights key examples of the new ecological management movement: the Pacific Northwest's spotted owl controversy; the Yellowstone wolf reintroduction; fire as an agent of ecological change; the new wilderness debates; the transformation of southern Utah's Colorado Plateau; and the Quincy Library Group's forest management initiative. Drawing upon these examples, the book focuses on the ideas, forces, and institutions that are effecting—or resisting—change on the public lands.
Strachan Donnelley
Ceara Donnelley and Bruce Jennings (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780813167275
- eISBN:
- 9780813175669
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813167275.003.0003
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
In this autobiographical essay Donnelley explores the animating childhood experiences growing up in Libertyville, Illinois, that have informed and propelled his relationship to nature and to the ...
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In this autobiographical essay Donnelley explores the animating childhood experiences growing up in Libertyville, Illinois, that have informed and propelled his relationship to nature and to the vocation of philosophy. The essay begins with a reminiscence of playing Little League baseball on makeshift fields bordered by cow pastures, a cemetery, and a trailer park. This becomes a metaphor for the life of engaged thinking and acting on big ideas concerning the human place in and impact on nature as a larger reality of life and meaning. Such a life requires openness to the disciplines of ontology and cosmology. The remainder of the essay is a discussion of the history and development of cosmological thinking since the pre-Socratic philosophers, such as Heraclitus, through seventeenth-century philosophers like Descartes and Spinoza, and finally post-Darwinian thinkers such as Ernst Mayr and Aldo Leopold.Less
In this autobiographical essay Donnelley explores the animating childhood experiences growing up in Libertyville, Illinois, that have informed and propelled his relationship to nature and to the vocation of philosophy. The essay begins with a reminiscence of playing Little League baseball on makeshift fields bordered by cow pastures, a cemetery, and a trailer park. This becomes a metaphor for the life of engaged thinking and acting on big ideas concerning the human place in and impact on nature as a larger reality of life and meaning. Such a life requires openness to the disciplines of ontology and cosmology. The remainder of the essay is a discussion of the history and development of cosmological thinking since the pre-Socratic philosophers, such as Heraclitus, through seventeenth-century philosophers like Descartes and Spinoza, and finally post-Darwinian thinkers such as Ernst Mayr and Aldo Leopold.
Robert B. Keiter
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300092738
- eISBN:
- 9780300128277
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300092738.003.0001
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Nature
This chapter presents an introduction to the contemporary public land policy of America. Approximately 663 million acres, or 29 percent, of the nation's land is owned by the federal government. The ...
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This chapter presents an introduction to the contemporary public land policy of America. Approximately 663 million acres, or 29 percent, of the nation's land is owned by the federal government. The vast majority of this acreage is concentrated in the eleven western states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming), where federal ownership encompasses more than half the land base. The chapter reveals that no single event signaled the beginning of a new policy era during the waning years of the nineteenth century, when a new utilitarian conservation philosophy first surfaced. It finds that over the past century, federal and state officials have worked assiduously to control fire on public lands in order to protect precious timber and range resources, as well as surrounding private property and scenic vistas.Less
This chapter presents an introduction to the contemporary public land policy of America. Approximately 663 million acres, or 29 percent, of the nation's land is owned by the federal government. The vast majority of this acreage is concentrated in the eleven western states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming), where federal ownership encompasses more than half the land base. The chapter reveals that no single event signaled the beginning of a new policy era during the waning years of the nineteenth century, when a new utilitarian conservation philosophy first surfaced. It finds that over the past century, federal and state officials have worked assiduously to control fire on public lands in order to protect precious timber and range resources, as well as surrounding private property and scenic vistas.
