A SCHOLARLY BOOK REPOSITORY
American Indians and National Forests tells the story of how the U.S. Forest Service and tribal nations dealt with sweeping changes in forest use, ownership, and management over the last century and a half. Indians and U.S. foresters came together over a shared conservation ethic on many cooperative endeavors; yet, they often clashed over how the nation’s forests ought to be valued and cared for on matters ranging from huckleberry picking and vision quests to road building and recreation development.
Marginalized in American society and long denied a seat at the table of public land stewardship, American Indian tribes have at last taken their rightful place and are making themselves heard. Weighing indigenous perspectives on the environment is an emerging trend in public land management in the United States and around the world. The Forest Service has been a strong partner in that movement over the past quarter century.
Nearly 430 million acres of forests in the United States are privately owned, but the viability, and indeed the very existence, of these forests is increasingly threatened by population growth, sprawling urbanization, and patchwork development. Scientists, policymakers, and community leaders have begun to recognize the vital role of private forests in providing society with essential goods and services, from sustainable timber supplies to clean water. Yet despite the tremendous economic and ecological importance of private forests, information about their status and strategies for their protection have been in short supply.
America's Private Forests addresses that shortcoming, presenting extensive data gathered from diverse sources and offering a concise overview of the current status of privately owned forests in the United States. As well as describing the state of private forests, the book sets forth detailed information on a wide range of approaches to conservation along with an action agenda for implementing those strategies likely to be most effective. The book:
- identifies the major threats to private forests in the United States
- considers barriers to conservation
- outlines the available tools and programs for promoting conservation
- presents a "road map" to guide collective efforts for the conservation of private forests and their native biodiversity
Based on extensive research of existing literature as well as interviews and consultation with leading forestry and conservation experts, America's Private Forests is a unique sourcebook that offers a solid basis for discussion of threats to private forests along with an invaluable compendium of potential solutions. It will serve as an invaluable reference for all those working to conserve and steward forest resources, including forest owners and their consultants, conservation organizations, and agency personnel, as well as researchers and students involved with issues of forestry, biodiversity, land use, and conservation.
Sarah B. Pralle takes an in-depth look at why some environmental conflicts expand to attract a lot of attention and participation, while others generate little interest or action. Branching Out, Digging In examines the expansion and containment of political conflict around forest policies in the United States and Canada.
Late in 1993 citizens from around the world mobilized on behalf of saving old-growth forests in Clayoquot Sound. Yet, at the same time only a very few took note of an even larger reserve of public land at risk in northern California. Both cases, the Clayoquot Sound controversy in British Columbia and the Quincy Library Group case in the Sierra Nevada mountains of northern California, centered around conflicts between environmentalists seeking to preserve old-growth forests and timber companies fighting to preserve their logging privileges. Both marked important episodes in the history of forest politics in their respective countries but with dramatically different results. The Clayoquot Sound controversy spawned the largest civil disobedience in Canadian history; international demonstrations in Japan, England, Germany, Austria, and the United States; and the most significant changes in British Columbia's forest policy in decades. On the other hand, the California case, with four times as many acres at stake, became the poster child for the "collaborative conservation" approach, using stakeholder collaboration and negotiation to achieve a compromise that ultimately broke down and ended up in the courts.
Pralle analyzes how the various political actors—local and national environmental organizations, local residents, timber companies, and different levels of government—defined the issues in both words and images, created and reconfigured alliances, and drew in different governmental institutions to attempt to achieve their goals. She develops a dynamic new model of conflict management by advocacy groups that puts a premium on nimble timing, flexibility, targeting, and tactics to gain the advantage and shows that how political actors go about exploiting these opportunities and overcoming constraints is a critical part of the policy process.
Drawing on a 1991 conference sponsored by the Forest History Society and the International Union of Forestry Research Organizations held in Honolulu, these papers address a range of topics related to the changing Pacific forests, including the remnants of colonialism, the emergence of the Third World, people and resources caught in the middle of policy decisions, land management, national forests, and subsistence use of the forest by indigenous peoples. Essays also explore macroeconomic theories of international trade and the interests of the United States and the former Soviet Union in the economic health of the region. Changing Pacific Forests will be of interest to scholars of the economy and environment of the Pacific Basin as well as of land management and the history of land use in general.
Contributors. Charles S. Backman, Thomas R. Cox, John Dargavel, Elizabeth Flint, Lim Hin Fui, G. R. Henning, Kenneth E. Jackson, Hiroaki Kakizawa, Nicholas K. Menzies, Andrew Price, John F. Richards, Jr., M. M. Roche, I. Gustin M. Tantra, Conrad Totman, Richard P. Tucker, Thomas R. Waggener
Over the past decade, a sea change has occurred in the field of forestry. A vastly increased understanding of how ecological systems function has transformed the science from one focused on simplifying systems, producing wood, and managing at the stand-level to one concerned with understanding and managing complexity, providing a wide range of ecological goods and services, and managing across broad landscapes.
Creating a Forestry for the 21st Century is an authoritative and multidisciplinary examination of the current state of forestry and its relation to the emergent field of ecosystem management. Drawing upon the expertise of top professionals in the field, it provides an up-to-date synthesis of principles of ecosystem management and their implications for forest policy. Leading scientists, including Malcolm Hunter, Jr., Bruce G. Marcot, James K. Agee, Thomas R. Crow, Robert J. Naiman, John C. Gordon, R.W. Behan, Steven L. Yaffee, and many others examine topics that are central to the future of forestry:
- new understandings of ecological processes and principles, from stand structure and function to disturbance processes and the movement of organisms across landscapes
- challenges to long-held assumptions: the rationale for clearcutting, the wisdom of short rotations, the exclusion of fire
- traditional tools in light of expanded goals for forest landscapes
- managing at larger spatial scales, including practical information and ideas for managing large landscapes over long time periods
- the economic, organizational, and political issues that are critical to implementing successful ecosystem management and developing institutions to transform knowledge into action
The book includes an overview of the historical developments of silvicultural techniques and describes how these developments are best understood in their contemporary philosophical, social, and ecological contexts. It also explains how the traditional strengths of silviculture are becoming limitations as society demands a varied set of benefits from forests and as we learn more about the importance of diversity on ecosystem functions and processes.
The authors go on to explain how other fields, specifically ecology and complexity science, have developed in attempts to understand the diversity of nature and the variability and heterogeneity of ecosystems. The authors suggest that ideas and approaches from these fields could offer a road map to a new philosophical and practical approach that endorses managing forests as complex adaptive systems.
A Critique of Silviculture bridges a gap between silviculture and ecology that has long hindered the adoption of new ideas. It breaks the mold of disciplinary thinking by directly linking new ideas and findings in ecology and complexity science to the field of silviculture. This is a critically important book that is essential reading for anyone involved with forest ecology, forestry, silviculture, or the management of forested ecosystems.
The structure of most virgin forests in the western United States reflects a past disturbance history that includes forest fire. James K. Agee, an expert in the emergent field of fire ecology, analyzes the ecological role of fire in the creation and maintenance of natural western forests, focusing primarily on forest stand development patterns. His discussion of the natural fire environment and the environmental effects of fire is applicable to a wide range of temperate forests.
This volume brings together world-renowned scientists and conservationists to address the biological and socio-economic value of forest remnants and to examine practical efforts to conserve those remnants. An outgrowth of a year-long study by the policy program at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, Forest Patches in Tropical Landscapes provides a broad overview of theory and practice, and will help foster both interdisciplinary research and more effective approaches to tropical conservation and development.
In this book, leading environmental historians show us what has been happening to these fragile woodlands. Taking us from lumber towns to Indian reservations to grazing lands, Forests under Fire reveals the interaction of Anglos, Hispanics, and Native Americans with the forests of the American Southwest. It examines recent controversies ranging from red squirrel conservation on Mt. Graham to increased tourism in our national forests. These case studies offer insights into human-forest relationships in places such as the Coconino National Forest, the Vallecitos Sustained Yield Unit, and the Gila Wilderness Area while also drawing on issues and concerns about similar biospheres in other parts of the West.
Over the past century, forest management has evolved from a field dominated by the "conservationist" perspective—with humans exploiting natural resources-to one that emphasizes biocentrism, in which forests are seen as dynamic ecosystems. Yet despite this progressive shift, the assault on our forests continues through overgrazing of rangelands, lumbering, eroding mountainsides, fire suppression, and threats to the habitats of endangered species. Forests under Fire takes a closer look at the people calling the shots in our national forests, from advocates of timber harvesting to champions of ecosystem management, and calls for a reassessment of our priorities—before our forests are gone.
Contents
Introduction: Toward a Twenty-First-Century Forest Ecosystem Management Strategy / Christopher J. Huggard
Industry and Indian Self-Determination: Northern Arizona’s Apache Lumbering Empire, 1870-1970 / Arthur R. Gómez
A Social History of McPhee: Colorado’s Largest Lumber Town / Duane A. Smith
The Vallecitos Federal Sustained-Yield Unit: The (All Too) Human Dimension of Forest Management in Northern New Mexico, 1945-1998 / Suzanne S. Forrest
Grazing the Southwest Borderlands: The Peloncillo-Animas District of the Coronado National Forest in Arizona and New Mexico, 1906-1996 / Diana Hadley
America’s First Wilderness Area: Aldo Leopold, the Forest Service, and the Gila of New Mexico, 1924-1980 / Christopher J. Huggard
"Where There’s Smoke": Wildfire Policy and Suppression in the American Southwest / John Herron
Struggle in an Endangered Empire: The Search for Total Ecosystem Management in the Forests of Southern Utah, 1976-1999 / Thomas G. Alexander
Biopolitics: A Case Study of Political Influence on Forest Management Decisions, Coronado National Forest, Arizona, 1980s-1990s / Paul W. Hirt
Epilogue: Seeing the Forest Not for the Trees: The Future of Southwestern Forests in Retrospect / Hal K. Rothman
Through a historical examination of key events and players, prevailing management philosophies, public policy, and institutional factors, Daowei Zhang searches for an economic explanation and assesses the impact of these ownership revolutions with a three-pronged approach. First, he explains why industrial firms were able to profit from owning forestlands, and how the shift to institutional ownership came about. Second, he compares private timberland investments and public equity investments with respect to risk-adjusted returns and other dimensions of interest to investors and forest managers, including alignment of interests, capacity to exploit market inefficiencies, and their forest management and conservation records. Finally, he provides thoughtful commentary on the future of institutional timberland investments and global forest sustainability.
From Backwoods to Boardrooms is essential reading for forest managers, investors, and anyone interested in understanding the workings of the modern forest sector and the future of forest sustainability.
The authors show how the administration used news events such as wildfires to propel legislation through Congress. Focusing blame for wildfires on legal obstacles and environmentalists' use of appeals to challenge fuel-reduction projects, the administration restricted opportunities for environmental analysis, administrative appeals, and litigation. The authors argue that these tools have a history of use by diverse interests and have long protected Americans' right to question government decisions.
This readable study identifies the players, events, and strategies that expedited the policy shift and contextualizes it in the president's career and in legislative and administrative history. Revealing a policy change with major implications for the future of public lands and public process, George W. Bush's Healthy Forests will become required reading in environmental studies and political science.
The highland forests of southwestern Virginia were a sacred land to Native Americans and one they relied upon for sustenance. After European contact, this beautiful country drew successive waves of settlers and visitors, and for a brief yet intense period, industrialists rapaciously exploited its timber resources, particularly in the higher elevations where the woodlands had survived the nearby valleys’ generations of agricultural use. This is the story of how various peoples have regarded this land over the centuries and how, starting in the early twentieth century, the federal government acquired 700,000 acres of it to create what is now the Jefferson National Forest (JNF).
Will Sarvis’s in-depth history explores the area’s significance to such native tribes as the Cherokee and Shawnee, for whom it functioned as a buffer zone in late prehistory, and its attraction for nineteenth-century romantics who, arriving in stagecoaches, became the area’s first tourists. Aggressive commercial logging gave way to the arrival of the U.S. Forest Service, which patched the JNF together through successive purchases of privately owned land and instituted a more regulated harvesting of various timber resources. Public support for Forest Service policy during the Depression and World War II was followed by controversies, including the use of eminent domain. In presenting this history, Sarvis probes the many complexities of land stewardship and, in analysis that is sure to spark debate, discusses how and why the JNF could abandon clear-cutting and return to traditional selective tree management.
An ongoing experiment in democratic land use, the JNF contains many lessons about our relationship with the natural environment. This book delineates those lessons in a clear and compelling narrative that will be of great interest to policy makers, activists, and indeed anyone drawn to American environmental history and Appalachian studies.
Mexico presents a unique case in which much of the nation’s forests were placed as commons in the hands of communities, who, with state support and their own entrepreneurial vigor, created community forest enterprises (CFEs). David Barton Bray, who has spent more than thirty years engaged with and researching Mexican community forestry, shows that this reform has transformed forest management in that country at a scale and level of maturity unmatched anywhere else in the world.
For decades Mexico has been conducting a de facto large-scale experiment in the design of a national social-ecological system (SES) focused on community forests. What happens when you give subsistence communities rights over forests, as well as training, organizational support, equipment, and financial capital? Do the communities destroy the forest in the name of economic development, or do they manage them sustainably, generating current income while maintaining intergenerational value as a resource for their children? Bray shares the scientific and social evidence that can now begin to answer these questions. This is an invaluable resource for students, researchers, and the interested public on the future of global forest resilience and the possibilities for a good Anthropocene.
It has been said that Michigan’s nineteenth century white pine stands were the finest the world has ever seen. Dense, parklike stands, more than 150 feet tall, covered vast areas northward from the Bay City– Muskegon line. The sheer quantity of timber lured many adventurous entrepreneurs and enterprising farmers to Michigan. Lumber became a mainstay of Michigan’s economy as logging interests and railroad entrepreneurs became adept at harvesting, transporting, and processing pine logs. Many considered the pine to be practically limitless.
In October of 1871, the first indication of a troubled future occurred when Michigan settlers experienced fires unlike any they had ever seen. Following two months of serious drought, and fed by hundreds of small fires set by land-clearing operations, much of northern Lower Michigan erupted in flames; dry winds fanned the many small fires into one unbelievable conflagration that swept entirely across the Lower Peninsula, from Lake Michigan to Lake Huron. Many towns were reduced to ashes, among them Holland, Glen Haven, Huron City, Sand Beach, White Rock, and Forestville. Navigation was interrupted on Lake Huron and as far downriver as Detroit because of the heavy smoke. More than 200 people lost their lives.
Michigan’s State Forests recounts how an abandoned, cutover, and often burned wilderness has been converted once again into highly productive and protected public lands. For more than 100 years, these lands have been preserved, managed and developed to form one of Michigan’s great assets, not only for economic development but also as enhancements to our quality of life.
More Tree Talk is an insightful and compelling look at the human dimension of the challenges facing forestry. First published in 1981, Tree Talk was widely hailed as the most even-handed and well-written introduction to forestry issues available. More Tree Talk is an entirely revised edition of that classic volume that brings the book up-to-date with the current situation.
Like the original, More Tree Talk features a running narrative punctuated by individual portraits that personalize the issues. It translates political and academic aspects of forestry into human terms, focusing on those whose lives and livelihoods depend on the outcome of the debates currently raging -- old-time woodsmen, loggers, naturalists, restoration workers, timber company executives.
Ray Raphael explores the new forestry practices, theories, and controversies that have emerged in the past decade as he addresses problems of a declining resource base and increasing regulatory policies. He examines the impact of ecological and economic concerns on rural communities, and considers the possibility of large structural changes in the ways in which timber companies operate. Throughout, he emphasizes that without an understanding of the economic and political factors that interfere with good forest management, all the scientific knowledge -- and all the best intentions of on-site workers -- will come to no avail.
Over the past three hundred years New England's landscape has been transformed. The forests were cleared; the land was farmed intensively through the mid-nineteenth century and then was allowed to reforest naturally as agriculture shifted west. Today, in many ways the region is more natural than at any time since the American Revolution. This fascinating natural history is essential background for anyone interested in New England's ecology, wildlife, or landscape.
In New England Forests through Time these historical and environmental lessons are told through the world-renowned dioramas in Harvard's Fisher Museum. These remarkable models have introduced New England's landscape to countless visitors and have appeared in many ecology, forestry, and natural history texts. This first book based on the dioramas conveys the phenomenal history of the land, the beauty of the models, and new insights into nature.
The Northeast's Changing Forest reviews the history and conditions of the forest in the nine northeastern states. This diverse region stretches from the shores of Lake Erie to Passamaquoddy Bay and from Cape May, New Jersey to northern Maine. The forests range from the dune forest of the New Jersey beaches to subalpine forests in the White Mountains and the Adirondacks. Heavily cleared for agriculture in the nineteenth century, the region's forests have increased in area since 1909 by an amount equal to the entire forest area of Maine, which is 17 million acres.
The region's forests can be thought of as five "forests," each playing a distinct economic role. In the Industrial Forest, the growing and harvesting of industrial wood is the primary use, accompanied by substantial use for hunting, fishing, snowmobiling, and wilderness canoeing. In the Suburban Forest, the general emphasis on "green backdrop" roles belies the importance of casual recreation, firewood cutting, and industrial wood uses. In the Rural Forest of the region's farming and thinly settled rural areas, traditional forest uses continue. In the Recreational Forest, heavily developed areas for skiing, lakeside camps and resorts, and coastal developments set the tone. Finally, in the Wild Forest, preservation of nature is dominant.
After generations when few aside from the landowner and technical communities paid the forests much attention, they have now become focal points for policy conflicts. Proposals for large additions to the Adirondack Park's Forever Wild lands, for creating a Maine Woods National Park, and for eliminating all timber harvesting on the region's National Forests are prominent examples. The legislatures of every state in the region deal annually with issues of forest taxation, forest practices regulation, public ownership, and land uses affecting forests. The Northeast's Changing Forest gives readers an historic, geographic, and ecological background for understanding the condition of the forests of the Northeast and the outlook for their future.
Owning and Managing Forests is both an accessible overview of the privileges, rights, and obligations that accompany forest ownership and a guidebook to help active forest owners and managers use laws to their advantage and avoid the pitfalls of expensive and exhausting litigation. The book is a revised, expanded, and updated edition of Legal Aspects of Owning and Managing Woodlands, published in 1998 by Island Press and named Best Forestry Book of the Year by the National Woodland Owners Association.
This edition provides current information on recent changes in property, environmental, and tax laws, while also discussing new directions in forest management. It offers expanded treatment of topics including private property, searching property records, easements, estate planning, timber sale contracts, working with forestry professionals, and how to pass woodlands intact to future generations. The book also describes the many different facets of trusts, changes in forestland taxation methods, and new licensing and certification options. Included, too, is a section on avoiding disputes and how to use alternative dispute resolution methods to avoid costly, troubling, and time-consuming court battles.
Owning and Managing Forests provides clear and concise descriptions of often confusing concepts and difficult subjects, and addresses issues in a competent yet conversational tone. Anyone involved with owning or managing forestland will find the book an essential guide and reference.
In People, Forests, and Change: Lessons from the Pacific Northwest, editors Deanna H. Olson and Beatrice Van Horne have assembled an expert panel of social and forest scientists to consider the nature of forests in flux and how to best balance the needs of forests and the rural communities closely tied to them. The book considers the temperate moist-coniferous forests of the US Pacific Northwest, but many of the concepts apply broadly to challenges in forest management in other regions and countries. In the US northwest, forest ecosystem management has been underway for two decades, and key lessons are emerging. The text is divided into four parts that set the stage for forests and rural forest economies, describe dynamic forest systems at work, consider new science in forest ecology and management, and ponder the future for these coniferous forests under different scenarios.
People, Forests, and Change brings together ideas grounded in science for policy makers, forest and natural resource managers, students, and conservationists who wish to understand how to manage forests conscientiously to assure their long-term viability and that of human communities who depend on them.
In A Place for Inquiry, A Place for Wonder, historian William Robbins turns his attention to the long-overlooked Andrews Forest and argues for its importance to environmental science and policy. From its founding in 1948, the experimental forest has been the site of wide-ranging research. Beginning with postwar studies on the conversion of old-growth timber to fast-growing young stands, research at the Andrews shifted in the next few decades to long-term ecosystem investigations that focus on climate, streamflow, water quality, vegetation succession, biogeochemical cycling, and effects of forest management. The Andrews has thus been at the center of a dramatic shift in federal timber practices from industrial, intensive forest management policies to strategies emphasizing biodiversity and healthy ecosystems.
Positive Impact Forestry is a primer for private woodland owners and their managers on managing their land and forests to protect both ecological and economic vitality. Moving beyond the concept of "low impact forestry," Thom McEvoy brings together the latest scientific understanding and insights to describe an approach to managing forests that meets the needs of landowners while at the same time maintaining the integrity of forest ecosystems. "Positive impact forestry" emphasizes forestry's potential to achieve sustainable benefits both now and into the future, with long-term investment superseding short-term gain, and the needs of families -- especially future generations -- exceeding those of individuals.
Thom McEvoy offers a thorough discussion of silvicultural basics, synthesizing and explaining the current state of forestry science on topics such as forest soils, tree roots, form and function in trees, and the effects of different harvesting methods on trees, soil organisms, and sites. He also offers invaluable advice on financial, legal, and management issues, ranging from finding the right forestry professionals to managing for products other than timber to passing forest lands and management legacies on to future generations.
Positive Impact Forestry helps readers understand the impacts of deliberate human activities on forests and offers viable strategies that provide benefits without damaging ecosystems. It speaks directly to private forest owners and their advisers and represents an innovative guide for anyone concerned with protecting forest ecosystems, timber production, land management, and the long-term health of forests.
Named the "Best Forestry Book for 2004" by the National Woodlands Owners Association
Silviculture and Ecology of Western U.S. Forests, Second Edition, is a text for students, professional forest managers, and scientists that summarizes both early and contemporary research and principles relevant to the silviculture, ecology, and multi-purpose management of western U. S. forests. Based on its authors’ significant experiences and contributions in the field, as well as nearly 1000 additional references, Silviculture and Ecology remains the only text that focuses on silviculture in western U.S. forests—providing background and basis for current biological, ecological, and managerial practices.
Detailed chapters on fire, tree growth, and management of complex stand structures, as well as shrub ecology and an ecosystem framework, are bolstered in the second edition. A new series of case studies illustrates how silvicultural practices are developed and modified as forests grow and new challenges and opportunities occur. Contemporary silvicultural practices, particularly pertaining to fire use, vegetation management, soil fertility, and fertilization have been updated, and modifications that enhance standard practices are demonstrated throughout the text.
In this comprehensive reference, readers entering the field will come to understand the significance of carefully managing forests by conscious design, and experienced silviculturists will benefit from the edition’s up-to-date information, providing forest users with a greater range of ecosystem services and consumable products alike.
The Soviets are often viewed as insatiable industrialists who saw nature as a force to be tamed and exploited. Song of the Forest counters this assumption, uncovering significant evidence of Soviet conservation efforts in forestry, particularly under Josef Stalin. In his compelling study, Stephen Brain profiles the leading Soviet-era conservationists, agencies, and administrators, and their efforts to formulate forest policy despite powerful ideological differences.
By the time of the revolution of 1905, modern Russian forestry science had developed an influential romantic strand, especially prevalent in the work of Georgii Morozov, whose theory of “stand types” asked forest managers to consider native species and local conditions when devising plans for regenerating forests. After their rise to power, the Bolsheviks turned their backs on this tradition and adopted German methods, then considered the most advanced in the world, for clear-cutting and replanting of marketable tree types in “artificial forests.” Later, when Stalin’s Five Year Plan required vast amounts of timber for industrialization, forest radicals proposed “flying management,” an exaggerated version of German forestry where large tracts of virgin forest would be clear-cut. Opponents who still upheld Morozov’s vision favored a conservative regenerating approach, and ultimately triumphed by establishing the world’s largest forest preserve.
Another radical turn came with the Great Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature, implemented in 1948. Narrow “belts” of new forest planted on the vast Russian steppe would block drying winds, provide cool temperatures, trap moisture, and increase crop production. Unfortunately, planters were ordered to follow the misguided methods of the notorious Trofim Lysenko, and the resulting yields were abysmal. But despite Lysenko, agency infighting, and an indifferent peasant workforce, Stalin’s forestry bureaus eventually succeeded in winning many environmental concessions from industrial interests. In addition, the visionary teachings of Morozov found new life, ensuring that the forest’s song did not fall upon deaf ears.
A work of natural and environmental history.
That Which Roots Us is a work of natural and environmental history that explores the origins of and resolutions to some of the United States’ environmental problems. Marion Dresner discusses the roots of Euro-American environmental exploitative action, starting with the environmental consequences of having treated Pacific Northwest forests as commodities. She shares her experiences visiting sites where animal-centered ice age culture changed to human-centered culture thousands of years ago with the advent of farming. The book explores the origins of the romantic philosophical movement, which arose out of the debilitating conditions of the industrial era. Those romantic attitudes toward nature inspired the twentieth-century preservation movement and America’s progressively modern conservation attitudes.
The book is centered around environmental issues in the Pacific Northwest, contrasting utilitarian views of nature with Native American practices of respect and reciprocity. The elements that make That Which Roots Us a truly unique and important contribution to environmental literature are the author’s personal recollections and interactions with the landscape. Ultimately, Dresner offers hope for a new stewardship of the land and a focus on science literacy and direct experience in the natural world as the most grounded way of knowing the planet.
Kosek traces the histories of forest extraction and labor exploitation in northern New Mexico, where Hispano residents have forged passionate attachments to place. He describes how their sentiments of dispossession emerged through land tenure systems and federal management programs that remade forest landscapes as exclusionary sites of national and racial purity. Fusing fine-grained ethnography with insights gleaned from cultural studies and science studies, Kosek shows how the nationally beloved Smokey the Bear became a symbol of white racist colonialism for many Hispanos in the region, while Los Alamos National Laboratory, at once revered and reviled, remade regional ecologies and economies. Understories offers an innovative vision of environmental politics, one that challenges scholars as well as activists to radically rework their understandings of relations between nature, justice, and identity.
Wars in the Woods examines the conflicts that have developed over the preservation of forests in America, and how government agencies and advocacy groups have influenced the management of forests and their resources for more than a century. Samuel Hays provides an astute analysis of manipulations of conservation law that have touched off a battle between what he terms “ecological forestry” and “commodity forestry.” Hays also reveals the pervading influence of the wood products industry, and the training of U.S. Forest Service to value tree species marketable as wood products, as the primary forces behind forestry policy since the Forest Management Act of 1897.
Wars in the Woods gives a comprehensive account of the many grassroots and scientific organizations that have emerged since then to combat the lumber industry and other special interest groups and work to promote legislation to protect forests, parks, and wildlife habitats. It also offers a review of current forestry practices, citing the recent Federal easing of protections as a challenge to the progress made in the last third of the twentieth century.
Hays describes an increased focus on ecological forestry in areas such as biodiversity, wildlife habitat, structural diversity, soil conservation, watershed management, native forests, and old growth. He provides a valuable framework for the critical assessment of forest management policies and the future study and protection of forest resources.
Wild Forests presents a coherent review of the scientific and policy issues surrounding biological diversity in the context of contemporary public forest management. The authors examine past and current practices of forest management and provide a comprehensive overview of known and suspected threats to diversity.
In addition to discussing general ecological principles, the authors evaluate specific approaches to forest management that have been proposed to ameliorate diversity losses. They present one such policy -- the Dominant Use Zoning Model incorporating an integrated network of "Diversity Maintenance Areas" -- and describe their attempts to persuade the U.S. Forest Service to adopt such a policy in Wisconsin.
Drawing on experience in the field, in negotiations, and in court, the authors analyze the ways in which federal agencies are coping with the mandates of conservation biology and suggest reforms that could better address these important issues. Throughout, they argue that wild or unengineered conditions are those that are most likely to foster a return to the species richness that we once enjoyed.
The controversy over the management of national forests in the Pacific Northwest vividly demonstrates the shortcomings of existing management institutions and natural resource policies. The Wisdom of the Spotted Owl explores the American policymaking process through the case of the spotted owl -- a case that offers a striking illustration of the failure of our society to cope with long-term, science-intensive issues requiring collective choices.
Steven Lewis Yaffee analyzes the political and organizational dynamics from which the controversy emerged and the factors that led to our stunning inability to solve it. He examines the state of resource management agencies and policy processes, providing insight into questions such as:
- What caused the extreme polarization of opinion and lack of communication throughout the 1980s and early 1990s?
- How can the inadequate response of government agencies and the failure of the decisionmaking process be explained?
- What kinds of changes must be made to enable our resource policy institutions to better deal with critical environmental issues of the 1990s and beyond?
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