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Our Common Ground
The little-known story of how the U.S. government came to
hold nearly one-third of the nation's land and manage it primarily
for recreation, education and conservation. \"A
much-needed chronicle of how the American people decided--wisely
and democratically--that nearly a third of the nation's land
surface should remain in our collective ownership and be managed
for our common good.\"-Dayton Duncan, author of The National
Parks: America's Best Idea America's public lands
include more than 600 million acres of forests, plains, mountains,
wetlands, deserts, and shorelines. In this book, John Leshy, a
leading expert in public lands policy, discusses the key political
decisions that led to this, beginning at the very founding of the
nation. He traces the emergence of a bipartisan political consensus
in favor of the national government holding these vast land areas
primarily for recreation, education, and conservation of
biodiversity and cultural resources. That consensus remains strong
and continues to shape American identity. Such a success story of
the political system is a bright spot in an era of cynicism about
government. This book is essential reading for anyone who cares
about public lands, and it is particularly timely as the world
grapples with the challenges of climate change and biodiversity
loss.
eBook
Grand Canyon for sale : public lands versus private interests in the era of climate change
\"Saving Grand Canyon is a carefully researched investigation of the precarious future of America's public lands: our national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, monuments, and wildernesses. Taking the Grand Canyon as its key example, and using on-the-ground reporting as well as science research, the book makes plain that accelerating climate change will dislocate wildlife populations and vegetation across hundreds of thousands of square miles of the national landscape. So what's the plan, as the next phase of our political history begins? Consolidating protected areas and prioritizing natural systems over mining, grazing, drilling and logging will be essential. But a growing political movement, well financed and occasionally violent, is fighting to break up these federal lands and return them to state, local and private control. That scheme would foreclose the future for many wild species, part of our irreplaceable natural heritage, and it leads directly to the ruin of our national parks and forests. The author also documents the current federal mismanagement of public land, which often favors private interests over natural systems and endangered species\"--Provided by publisher.
Book
Stimulus for land grabbing and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon
We assessed the impact on the Brazilian Amazon of a 2017 land law that reinforces a mechanism for acquiring land rights historically linked to deforestation, since land grabbers clear the forest to signal land occupation and claim land rights. In particular, we assessed two significant potential impacts: (i) the loss of government revenue due to the sale of public land below market prices and (ii) the risk of future deforestation and associated CO2 emissions in 19.6 million hectares allocated to expand land privatization. The short-term revenue loss ranges from U$ 5 to 8 billion for 8.6 million hectares; the future revenue loss ranges from U$ 16.7 to 23.8 billion for 19.6 million hectares; and between 1.1 and 1.6 million hectares would risk being deforested until 2027, which could emit 4.5-6.5 megatonnes of CO2. The Brazilian government should review the decision about this area allocation; prioritize land allocation for conservation and, if selling part of this area, charge market prices.
Journal Article
Securing Africa’s land for shared prosperity
This book covers land administration and reform in Sub-Saharan Africa, and is highly relevant to all developing countries around the world. It provides simple, practical steps to turn the hugely controversial subject of \"land grabs\" into a development opportunity by improving land governance to reduce the risks of dispossessing poor landholders while ensuring mutually beneficial investors' deals. This book shows how Sub-Saharan Africa can leverage its abundant and highly valuable natural resources to eradicate poverty by improving land governance through a ten point program to scale up policy reforms and investments at a cost of USD 4.5 billion. Formidable challenges to implementation are discussed. These include high vulnerability to land grabbing and expropriation with poor compensation, as about 90 percent of rural lands in Sub-Saharan Africa are undocumented, as well as timely opportunities since high commodity prices and investor interest in large scale agriculture have increased land values and returns to investing in land administration. The book argues that success in implementation will require participation of many players including Pan-African organizations, Sub-Saharan Africa governments, the private sector, civil society and development partners. Ultimate success will depend on the political will of Sub-Saharan Africa governments to move forward with comprehensive policy reforms and on concerted support by the international development community.
eBook
Land grabbing in Southern Africa: the many faces of the investor rush
The popular term 'land grabbing', while effective as activist terminology, obscures vast differences in the legality, structure and outcomes of commercial land deals and deflects attention from the roles of domestic elites and governments as partners, intermediaries and beneficiaries. This paper summarises initial evidence of the characteristics of recent acquisitions of public lands and land held under customary tenure in Southern Africa, and their distribution across the region. It draws attention to their diverse manifestations - to questions of size, duration and source of the investments; the commodities and business models through which they are implemented; the tenure arrangements and resources accessed; the terms of leases and compensation; the degree of displacement; labour regimes and employment creation; and changes in settlement and infrastructure. The article proposes a schematic analytical framework for distinguishing between different types of land deals and considers the implications for unfolding and future trajectories of agrarian change.
Journal Article
Loss of seasonal ranges reshapes transhumant adaptive capacity: Thirty-five years at the US Sheep Experiment Station
Transhumance is a form of extensive livestock production that involves seasonal movements among ecological zones or landscape types. Rangeland-based transhumance constitutes an important social and economic relationship to nature in many regions of the world, including across the Western US. However, social and ecological drivers of change are reshaping transhumant practices, and managers must adapt to increased demands for public rangeland use. Specifically, concerns for wildlife conservation have led to reduced access to seasonal public lands grazing for western US livestock producers. To understand how managers adapt to loss of grazing areas (called “seasonal ranges”) we create agroecological calendars from manager records spanning 35 years (1986–2021) at the US Sheep Experiment Station in Idaho and Montana, US. The calendars illustrate how a loss of winter and summer ranges after 2013 coincided with shifts in the operation’s adaptive strategies, leading to more grazing of fall crop residue and purchased winter feed, and reducing flexibility to move livestock to cope with variable forage conditions. These changes shifted the job duties and experiences of farm workers and managers, and raised several new questions related to sheep production and vegetation management outcomes that merit future research. Transhumant system transformation has implications for human relationships with nature, rural communities, sheep genetics, production, and vegetation communities. For livestock operations that rely on government-managed lands to sustain transhumant traditions, innovative forms of collaboration and social adaptation that help secure access to seasonal ranges will be as important as technological innovations to address biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation, and food system sustainability issues that are reshaping access to grazing lands.
Journal Article