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This chapter aims to determine precisely how macroeconomic and sectoral policies influence soil conservation with the use of an optimal control model. It shows that in general, it is not possible to predict how policy reforms affect soil conservation. Knowledge of the technical details of agricultural production is needed to predict how policy reforms affect soil conservation. Though this conclusion may seem unsatisfying, it compels us to rethink the premise that policy reforms are good if they conserve soil and bad if they don't. The flaw in this view is that our concern should not lie with soil per se. Unlike many other environmental resources, soil does not contribute to well-being directly; its value is as an input in agricultural production. Even if policy reforms cause further depletion, the ability of the land to yield an income may still be greatly enhanced. This conclusion relates only to the on-site impacts of soil erosion. There could be other externalities due to eroded soil to downstream and other users. Correcting such externalities may be difficult because shadow prices are not directly observable and are location-specific.

This chapter explores the forest management agendas and environmentalist ideologies of colonial forestry as expressed at the Empire Forestry Conferences during the first half of the 20th century. In keeping with the broad structure of the conference deliberations, the discussion comprises two parts: the ‘classical’ problems associated with paradigm articulation, and the policy dilemmas posed by agro-forestry challenges such as shifting cultivation and soil erosion.

The wide-scale cultivation of soil by humans has accelerated erosion, which in turn deteriorates soils and negatively impacts their productivity. Questions such as ‘How serious is soil erosion?’, ‘What are the costs of soil erosion?’, and ‘Why and where is it happening?’ are difficult to answer because they require interdisciplinary approaches and funding. This chapter considers some of these problems. It makes an inventory of accelerated erosion rates, and places these within the context of both soil formation rates and erosion rates under natural conditions. The chapter examines the effects of erosion on agricultural productivity and the importance of erosion-induced productivity losses for agriculture, concluding that erosion-induced onsite productivity losses as well as the downstream effects of erosion may become an important environmental threat.

This chapter is an overview on soil sustainability and conservation. Soil is the Earth, supporting life and nourishing its growth, containing both mineral fragments and millions of microorganisms that contribute to its development. Because soil is the ultimate foundation of the terrestrial food chain, it is vital to preserve it. Preservation here ultimately means retaining the soil's capacity to support life, but soil is now being diminished in many parts of the developing world, where poor soil husbandry and poor agricultural practices are leading to increased soil erosion and depletion. The chapter thus looks into the particular environmental risks and human impacts to soil, and provides some suggestions as to its continued preservation.

The chapter focuses on the sustainable use of land which is fixed in availability and has competing uses for meeting the requirements of any economy. As agriculture for food supply is the most critical use of land it outlines the theory of land use and rent with reference to soil or land quality and defines the carrying capacity of land in terms of providing life support to people in calorie units. It critically discusses the issue of food security with reference to the adequacy of carrying capacity of land and points to both the challenges of distribution as well as augmenting carrying capacity using biotechnology and developing genetically modified crops. It further discusses the actual pattern of land use and land degradation in India, and their causal factors, like soil erosion, chemical and physical degradation of land, poverty, overpopulation and dependency on ecologically fragile resources with their policy implications.

This chapter presents evidence that knowledge of both the dangers presented by soil erosion and the means to successfully address it exist deep in the memory and experience of agricultural societies and were understood by the white settlers who colonized North America. Yet, even as knowledge of the problem and efforts to contain it in the United States and around the world grew, so did the erosion crisis. As the erosion crisis developed in colonial societies, addressing its root causes was out of the question for those in charge because doing so “may well require a social and political revolution.” Colonial officials and colonists could not consider the radical social change needed to address the root cause of extreme socio-ecological crises because such change would threaten the racialized colonial social order. This is the denial represented by green capitalist and colonial approaches to ecological problems, which dominated early conservationists' attempts to address soil erosion.

This chapter challenges typical interpretations of the Dust Bowl and puts the disaster into a global frame, linking the past to the present. In so doing, the common roots of contemporary and past developments and struggles are revealed. The Dust Bowl was one spectacular instance of a global problem of soil erosion associated with capitalist colonial expansion. While the official interpretation suggests that agriculture suited for a humid region was imported to an arid region, precipitating the crisis, contemporaneous accounts illustrate how much larger the crisis was, tied up with specific social and economic developments that imposed new socio-ecological relations upon peoples of the world and upon the land irrespective of local climatic conditions. Ultimately, the common denominators across the world—from North to South America, Australia to Africa, and Southeast to East Asia—were not climate and geography, but capitalism and colonialism.

Changes in the land itself are the subjects of chapter five. The first section which considers contemporary debates over the causes of different types of soil erosion, in particular drifting sands, dust storms, similar to those on the Great Plains during the Dust Bowl, and the growth of ravines and gullies. The chapter moves on to consider debates over whether the steppes were drying out and the water table falling, and whether the fertile black earth was becoming exhausted. By the time of the drought and harvest failure of 1891 there were growing concerns about desertification. By the end of the period, most specialists agreed that human activity had greatly exacerbated these changes. All the changes in the environment considered in part II were detrimental to arable farming on the steppes.

This chapter argues that the Dust Bowl is a perfect example of the accumulation of catastrophe, the result of decision makers shifting ecological problems down the line and denying the nature of the changes required to develop sustainable farming on the plains. As a result, the plains and the people living there in the 1930s suffered what Russell Lord, who worked for the Soil Conservation Service, called “the most spectacular mass sacrifice to strictly commercial mores in the history of mankind.” Over the decades, cultivated soils have become more exhausted and eroded. Agricultural science often has been applied to mask the effects of this degradation rather than to restore natural soil fertility. Moreover, the increased use of insecticides and herbicides in lieu of more ecological approaches to controlling weeds and insects, and synthetic fertilizers to replace lost soil nutrients, has led to further problems.

One of the earliest formal efforts of collaborative conservation—called cooperative conservation at the time—began in the 1930s in Coon Valley, Wisconsin. There, Aldo Leopold became an adviser to the first watershed-scale soil conservation demonstration area designated by the U.S. Soil Erosion Service (now USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service). As many as 418 private farming families worked with researchers from the University of Wisconsin, the Soil Erosion Service, and other agencies to restore soils, watercourses, forest cover, wildlife habitat and recreational values to 40,000 acres of land that had become highly degraded by poor farming practices. Local bankers helped finance new projects. The cooperative effort continues today and attracts attention from scientists and land steward advocates. The region has become a hub for sustainably produced and organic products, including the highly successful business, Organic Valley. In addition, it now supports a thriving fishery and flourishing recreational fishing economy.

This chapter examines the water quality and resources of the 370-mile-long Green River and the surrounding wetlands, reservoirs, and streams. This river demonstrates the interrelation between geology, soils, climate, hydrology, and vegetation and their impact on aquatic life such as mussels, fish, and crustaceans. Conservation programs such as the Mississippi River Basin Health Watersheds Initiative and the Green River Bioreserve provide numerous opportunities to protect the Green River Basin and other watersheds throughout the Commonwealth from unnecessary pollution and damage.

This chapter explores the environmental regime in developing countries, focusing on the direct effects of industrial emissions, the impacts of untreated waste (industrial and human) on air and water quality, congestion effects of traffic, soil erosion, and open-access resource problems (including forests). It looks at the many difficulties involved with adequately characterizing this regime, not the least of which is the heterogeneity across both environmental problems and policy responses in the developing world. Enforcement and compliance (which are typically lax in developing countries) also play a central role in defining this regime. The chapter argues that there is a tendency in much of the literature of the last few years to equate environmental problems in developing countries with pollutants (or emissions). It also discusses the relationship among growth, environmental policy reform, and environmental quality. Finally, it contends that the welfare gains from moving to full internationalization would seem to be the more appropriate comparative measure of the severity of environmental problems across countries (or changes over time).

The end of the frontier in 1890 as proclaimed by Frederick Jackson Turner has been exaggerated, but fears over soil depletion and declining agricultural yields spread due to pro- imperialist and neo-mercantilist concerns for the withering of the agricultural basis of American power. Resistance to alarmism developed within the US Department of Agriculture; reform became manifest not so much over the conservation of soils, though a beginning was made, as in the search for the sustainability of rural life. This chapter documents the rationale for and the concepts behind the Commission on Country Life, showing that rural life was viewed as a potential resource for preserving an aesthetic counter to the ills of industrial society. Further, it is argued, Roosevelt and his advisors proposed reform of rural life as a conservation measure understood as environmental and social sustainability, and as a racial foundation for national power.

With land-related ailments, such as soil erosion and loss of wildlife habitat, quickly growing into a major global threat, simply adopting a more environment-friendly lifestyle or disconnecting from the grid and living off the land are no longer adequate solutions. Affecting change at the level of individual behavior is just too difficult and would take much too long. This book suggests a middle course based on sound cultural values that provide a new way of viewing and valuing land. This middle course recognizes man's interdependence with nature and each other, focusing on the social and cultural roots rather than just the visible symptoms of the problem.

Environmental Impacts of Fishing. All food production has environmental costs, including greenhouse gases, nutrient release, water use, antibiotic use, soil erosion, and biodiversity loss. Where data are available, we compare the environmental costs of capture fisheries to aquaculture, livestock, and crops. The biodiversity loss through capture fisheries is much lower than through crops or livestock because fisheries depend on sustainably harvesting a natural ecosystem, whereas crops and almost all livestock depend on transforming a natural ecosystem to an artificial production system with most native biodiversity lost. Capture fisheries use little freshwater, no antibiotics, and very little, if any, toxic compounds. Greenhouse gas emissions depend greatly on the kind of fishery.

In Ethiopia, 85% of the population is engaged in agriculture (CSA, 1999). Agriculture supplies a significant proportion of the raw materials for the agro-industries, and accounts for 52% of the gross product and 90% of the export earnings. A wide range of climatic, ecological, and socioeconomic diversities influence Ethiopian agriculture. The dependency of most of the population on rain-fed agriculture has made the country’s economy extremely vulnerable to the effects of weather and climate, which are highly variable both temporally and spatially. If rains fail in one season, the farmer is unable to satisfy his needs and pay his obligations (tax, credit, etc). Farmers remain in the bottom line of poverty and lead a risky life. Moreover, due to climatic change and other human-induced factors, areas affected by drought and desertification are expanding in Ethiopia (NMSA, 1996a; WMO, 1986). There are three major food supply systems in Ethiopia (IGADD, 1988; Teshome, 1996): crop, livestock, and market-dependent systems. Cropbased systems are practiced principally over the highlands of the country and comprise a very diverse range of production, depending on altitude, rainfall, soil type, and topography. Any surplus above the farmer’s need is largely dependent on, for example, good weather conditions, absence of pests and diseases, availability of adequate human and animal power. Failure of rains during any cropping season means shortage of food supply that affects farmers and others. The livestock system constitutes about 10% of the total population, which is largely based in arid and semiarid zones of the country. This system is well adapted to highly variable climatic conditions and mainly depends on animals for milk and meat and is usually supplemented by grains during nondrought years. Approximately 15% of the Ethiopian population is market dependent and is affected by the preceding two food supply systems. Its food supply (grain, pulses, and oil seeds) has been facing serious shortages due to recurring droughts. People’s purchasing power determines access to food in the market-dependent food supply system. In Ethiopia, an agricultural drought is assessed using the concept of the length of growing period (LGP).

The city of Kuala Lumpur, lying at the junction of the hills of the Main Range (Banjaran Titiwangsa) of Peninsular Malaysia and the coastal plain, has many of the environmental problems that beset the urban areas of Southeast Asia. It has to cope with heavy, intense rainfalls, frequent local nuisance flooding, unstable hillsides, complex foundation conditions, and the impacts of mining and construction activities. The citizens, engineers, and planners of Kuala Lumpur have had to find ingenious solutions in order to live in harmony with their environment. While careful investigation and skilful applications of science and technology has overcome many of the problems, others remain unresolved. The persistent problems arise because the links, and thus responsibilities, associated with changes in one place and impacts elsewhere are not acknowledged and the available understanding of hydrologic and geomorphic systems is not applied. Founded by Kapitan China Yap Ah Loy at the confluence of the Gombak and Klang Rivers in 1857 as a tin-mining settlement (Gullick 1983), Kuala Lumpur quickly outgrew its floodplain and fluvial terrace site to spread onto the adjacent hills. The British resident, Captain Bloomfield Douglas, moved his headquarters to Kuala Lumpur from Klang in 1880 and soon after built his official residence on the hill to the west of the Gombak River, where the prime minister’s residence now stands. So began a tradition of the elite living on the hills which has persisted to the present day. In December 1881 the new township and the surrounding tin mines were hit by floodwaters (Gullick 1983), so establishing the problem of living with fluvial extremes which still besets the city. Virtually every wet season in the first eighty years of Kuala Lumpur’s existence brought some flooding to the town. The river channels became choked with silt carried down from the mines upstream (Gullick 1983). Record rainfall in December 1926 led to a flood 1 m deep in the town centre. After the floods, a new, wider channel, with a double trapezoidal cross-section was built through the town centre. These works enabled a major flood in 1930 to pass through the town without causing any damage (Gullick 1983).