As Americans flock to national parks this summer, we can learn a lot from national parks around the world. Field biologists the world over uniformly confirm the woeful conditions of national parks. The Nature Conservancy found many national parks in Latin America are at great risk. Even closer to home, Canada’s experiments with national parks […]
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BOZEMAN, MONT.- Snow is still ten feet deep on the Spanish Peaks just south of town, but summer is coming to the Gallatin Valley. Greening fields and the sudden emergence of kayaks and mountain bikes tells us the annual crush of tourists will soon arrive in the region’s national parks and forests. Recreation is serious […]
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New demographics and cultures are defining the next American West. Newcomers, urban and affluent, are escaping cities to build better lives. They work with information and manipulate symbols rather than stuff, and bring with them an utterly different value system for the land. A value system based on a romantic notion of the West’s ecosystems […]
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Economic analysis can promote environmental quality. By identifying subsidies, inefficiencies, and new opportunities, economists apply their powerful analytical tools to environmental ends. Yet despite its great potential, economic analysis has failed to improve environmental policy in many areas. Environmental regulators often ignore the importance of secure property rights and advocate regulatory “takings” of property with […]
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Beneath Greater Yellowstone, powerful thermal energies relentlessly shift tectonic plates. The subsurface motion creates rifts and faults, occasionally volcanoes and earthquakes. The fundamental tensions are always there. The tectonic plates of culture and political economy are also shifting and generating profound tensions in the new American West. In Oregon and Idaho, hi-tech industries now provide […]
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The epicenter of Ecotopia lies somewhere in the area encircled by Bellingham, Eugene, and Bozeman. Four colleges of forestry, dozens of environmental groups, and busloads of environmental writers are based there. Hence, the federal land management agencies are under intense scrutiny. But even here, the institutional arrangements are so perverse that often management is grossly […]
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Whether we’re trying to save species or specie, decisions are based on information and incentives. Reform that generates poor incentives simply won’t work. Good intentions are not enough. Congress tried to protect endangered species via the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973. Prior to 1973, landowners could operate even if their activities harmed the habitat […]
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On April 22 we will celebrate the 25th anniversary of Earth Day. This is also the last time I will teach the environmental policy course I began teaching in 1970 at Indiana University. When I began teaching environmental courses, many of my colleagues looked toward two reforms for ecological salvation: an environmental ethic to regulate […]
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In the late 1800s and early 1900s, there was great concern that America would run out of trees. Predictions of a timber famine were common among forestry “experts” of the time, especially from Gifford Pinchot, first chief of the Forest Service Pinchot and others correctly noted that timber harvests were far exceeding reforestation, but incorrectly […]
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THE idea of national parks is one of America’s best. Approval ratings exceed 90 percent. But political federal management of the parks is a terrible idea. Politics promotes ecological destruction and ethical corruption Two recent books, “Playing God in Yellowstone” and “Rocky Times in Rocky Mountain National Park,” publicize what experts have known for years: […]
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