Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download The Nation's Largest Landlord PDF full book. Access full book title The Nation's Largest Landlord by James R. Skillen. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: James R. Skillen Publisher: University Press of Kansas ISBN: 0700618953 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 312
Book Description
It is the largest landholder in America, overseeing nearly an eighth of the country: 258 million acres located almost exclusively west of the Mississippi River, with even twice as much below the surface. Its domain embraces wildlife and wilderness, timber, range, and minerals, and for over 60 years, the Bureau of Land Management has been an agency in search of a mission. This is the first comprehensive, analytical history of the BLM and its struggle to find direction. James Skillen traces the bureau's course over three periods—its formation in 1946 and early focus on livestock and mines, its 1970s role as mediator between commerce and conservation, and its experience of political gridlock since 1981 when it faced a powerful antienvironmental backlash. Focusing on events that have shaped the BLM's overall mission, organization, and culture, he takes up issues ranging from the National Environmental Policy Act to the Sagebrush Rebellion in order to paint a broad picture of the agency's changing role in the American West. Focusing on the vast array of lands and resources that the BLM manages, he explores the complex and at times contradictory ways that Americans have valued nature. Skillen shows that, although there have been fleeting moments of consensus over the purpose of national forests and parks, there has never been any such consensus over the federal purpose of the public lands overseen by the BLM. Highlighting the perennial ambiguities shadowing the BLM's domain and mission, Skillen exposes the confusion sown by conflicting congressional statutes, conflicting political agendas, and the perennial absence of public support. He also shows that, while there is room for improvement in federal land management, the criteria by which that improvement is measured change significantly over time. In the face of such ambiguity—political, social, and economic--Skillen argues that the agency's history of limited political power and uncertain mission has, ironically, better prepared it to cope with the more chaotic climate of federal land management in the twenty-first century. Indeed, operating in an increasingly crowded physical and political landscape, it seems clear that the BLM's mission will continue to be marked by ambiguity. For historians, students, public administrators, or anyone who cares about American lands, Skillen offers a cautionary tale for those still searching for a final solution to federal land and resource conflicts.
Author: James R. Skillen Publisher: University Press of Kansas ISBN: 0700618953 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 312
Book Description
It is the largest landholder in America, overseeing nearly an eighth of the country: 258 million acres located almost exclusively west of the Mississippi River, with even twice as much below the surface. Its domain embraces wildlife and wilderness, timber, range, and minerals, and for over 60 years, the Bureau of Land Management has been an agency in search of a mission. This is the first comprehensive, analytical history of the BLM and its struggle to find direction. James Skillen traces the bureau's course over three periods—its formation in 1946 and early focus on livestock and mines, its 1970s role as mediator between commerce and conservation, and its experience of political gridlock since 1981 when it faced a powerful antienvironmental backlash. Focusing on events that have shaped the BLM's overall mission, organization, and culture, he takes up issues ranging from the National Environmental Policy Act to the Sagebrush Rebellion in order to paint a broad picture of the agency's changing role in the American West. Focusing on the vast array of lands and resources that the BLM manages, he explores the complex and at times contradictory ways that Americans have valued nature. Skillen shows that, although there have been fleeting moments of consensus over the purpose of national forests and parks, there has never been any such consensus over the federal purpose of the public lands overseen by the BLM. Highlighting the perennial ambiguities shadowing the BLM's domain and mission, Skillen exposes the confusion sown by conflicting congressional statutes, conflicting political agendas, and the perennial absence of public support. He also shows that, while there is room for improvement in federal land management, the criteria by which that improvement is measured change significantly over time. In the face of such ambiguity—political, social, and economic--Skillen argues that the agency's history of limited political power and uncertain mission has, ironically, better prepared it to cope with the more chaotic climate of federal land management in the twenty-first century. Indeed, operating in an increasingly crowded physical and political landscape, it seems clear that the BLM's mission will continue to be marked by ambiguity. For historians, students, public administrators, or anyone who cares about American lands, Skillen offers a cautionary tale for those still searching for a final solution to federal land and resource conflicts.
Author: Christopher Ketcham Publisher: ISBN: 0735220980 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 434
Book Description
"The public lands of the western United States comprise some 450 million acres of grassland, steppe land, canyons, forests, and mountains. It's an American commons, and it is under assault as never before. Journalist Christopher Ketcham has been documenting the confluence of commercial exploitation and governmental misconduct in this region for over a decade. His revelatory book takes the reader on a journey across these last wild places, to see how capitalism is killing our great commons. Ketcham begins in Utah, revealing the environmental destruction caused by unregulated public lands livestock grazing, and exposing rampant malfeasance in the federal land management agencies, who have been compromised by the profit-driven livestock and energy interests they are supposed to regulate. He then turns to the broad effects of those corrupt politics on wildlife. He tracks the Department of Interior's failure to implement and enforce the Endangered Species Act--including its stark betrayal of protections for the grizzly bear and the sage grouse--and investigates the destructive behavior of U.S. Wildlife Services in their shocking mass slaughter of animals that threaten the livestock industry. Along the way, Ketcham talks with ecologists, biologists, botanists, former government employees, whistleblowers, grassroots environmentalists and other citizens who are fighting to protect the public domain for future generations. This Land is a colorful muckraking journey--part Edward Abbey, part Upton Sinclair--exposing the rot in American politics that is rapidly leading to the sell-out of our national heritage"--
Author: National Research Council Publisher: National Academies Press ISBN: 0309048796 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 201
Book Description
Rangelands comprise between 40 and 50 percent of all U.S. land and serve the nation both as productive areas for wildlife, recreational use, and livestock grazing and as watersheds. The health and management of rangelands have been matters for scientific inquiry and public debate since the 1880s, when reports of widespread range degradation and livestock losses led to the first attempts to inventory and classify rangelands. Scientists are now questioning the utility of current methods of rangeland classification and inventory, as well as the data available to determine whether rangelands are being degraded. These experts, who are using the same methods and data, have come to different conclusions. This book examines the scientific basis of methods used by federal agencies to inventory, classify, and monitor rangelands; it assesses the success of these methods; and it recommends improvements. The book's findings and recommendations are of interest to the public; scientists; ranchers; and local, state, and federal policymakers.
Author: National Research Council Publisher: National Academies Press ISBN: 0309264944 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 399
Book Description
Using Science to Improve the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program: A Way Forward reviews the science that underpins the Bureau of Land Management's oversight of free-ranging horses and burros on federal public lands in the western United States, concluding that constructive changes could be implemented. The Wild Horse and Burro Program has not used scientifically rigorous methods to estimate the population sizes of horses and burros, to model the effects of management actions on the animals, or to assess the availability and use of forage on rangelands. Evidence suggests that horse populations are growing by 15 to 20 percent each year, a level that is unsustainable for maintaining healthy horse populations as well as healthy ecosystems. Promising fertility-control methods are available to help limit this population growth, however. In addition, science-based methods exist for improving population estimates, predicting the effects of management practices in order to maintain genetically diverse, healthy populations, and estimating the productivity of rangelands. Greater transparency in how science-based methods are used to inform management decisions may help increase public confidence in the Wild Horse and Burro Program.
Author: National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Publisher: National Academies ISBN: Category : Oil and gas leases Languages : en Pages : 24
Author: John B. Loomis Publisher: Columbia University Press ISBN: 0231505582 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 621
Book Description
Integrated Public Lands Management is the only book that deals with the management procedures of all the primary public land management agencies—National Forests, Parks, Wildlife Refuges, and the Bureau of Land Management—in one volume. This book fills the need for a unified treatment of the analytical procedures used by federal land management agencies in planning and managing their diverse lands. The second edition charts the progress these agencies have made toward the management of their lands as ecosystems. It includes new U.S. Forest Service regulations, expanded coverage of Geographic Information Systems, and new legislation on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Wildlife Refuges.
Author: Randall K. Wilson Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1538126400 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 396
Book Description
How it is that the United States—the country that cherishes the ideal of private property more than any other in the world—has chosen to set aside nearly one-third of its land area as public lands? Now in a fully revised and updated edition covering the first years of the Trump administration, Randall Wilson considers this intriguing question, tracing the often-forgotten ideas of nature that have shaped the evolution of America’s public land system. The result is a fresh and probing account of the most pressing policy and management challenges facing national parks, forests, rangelands, and wildlife refuges today. The author explores the dramatic story of the origins of the public domain, including the century-long effort to sell off land and the subsequent emergence of a national conservation ideal. Arguing that we cannot fully understand one type of public land without understanding its relation to the rest of the system, he provides in-depth accounts of the different types of public lands. With chapters on national parks, national forests, wildlife refuges, Bureau of Land Management lands, and wilderness areas, Wilson examines key turning points and major policy debates for each land type, including recent Trump Administration efforts to roll back environmental protections. He considers debates ranging from national monument designations and bison management to gas and oil drilling, wildfire policy, the bark beetle epidemic, and the future of roadless and wilderness conservation areas. His comprehensive overview offers a chance to rethink our relationship with America’s public lands, including what it says about the way we relate to, and value, nature in the United States.
Author: Adam M. Sowards Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1538125315 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 257
Book Description
Throughout American history, “public lands” have been the subject of controversy, from homesteaders settling the American west to ranchers who use the open range to promote free enterprise, to wilderness activists who see these lands as wild places. This book shows how these controversies intersect with critical issues of American history.
Author: James R. Skillen
Author: James R. Skillen
Author: Christopher Ketcham
Author: National Research Council
Author: National Research Council
Author: C. Albert White
Author: National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing
Author: John B. Loomis
Author: Randall K. Wilson
Author: 
Author: Adam M. Sowards