Download or read book Federal Land Ownership written by Congressional Research Congressional Research Service and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-12-29 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The federal government owns roughly 640 million acres, about 28% of the 2.27 billion acres of land in the United States. Four agencies administer 608.9 million acres of this land: the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and National Park Service (NPS) in the Department of the Interior (DOI), and the Forest Service (FS) in the Department of Agriculture. Most of these lands are in the West and Alaska. In addition, the Department of Defense administers 14.4 million acres in the United States consisting of military bases, training ranges, and more. Numerous other agencies administer the remaining federal acreage. The lands administered by the four land agencies are managed for many purposes, primarily related to preservation, recreation, and development of natural resources. Yet each of these agencies has distinct responsibilities. The BLM manages 247.3 million acres of public land and administers about 700 million acres of federal subsurface mineral estate throughout the nation. The BLM has a multiple-use, sustained-yield mandate that supports a variety of uses and programs, including energy development, recreation, grazing, wild horses and burros, and conservation. The FS manages 192.9 million acres also for multiple uses and sustained yields of various products and services, including timber harvesting, recreation, grazing, watershed protection, and fish and wildlife habitats. Most of the FS lands are designated national forests. Wildfire protection is increasingly important for both agencies. The FWS manages 89.1 million acres of the total, primarily to conserve and protect animals and plants. The National Wildlife Refuge System includes wildlife refuges, waterfowl production areas, and wildlife coordination units. The NPS manages 79.6 million acres in 401 diverse units to conserve lands and resources and make them available for public use. Activities that harvest or remove resources generally are prohibited. Federal land ownership is concentrated in the West. Specifically, 61.2% of Alaska is federally owned, as is 46.9% of the 11 coterminous western states. By contrast, the federal government owns 4.0% of lands in the other states. This western concentration has contributed to a higher degree of controversy over land ownership and use in that part of the country. Throughout America's history, federal land laws have reflected two visions: keeping some lands in federal ownership while disposing of others. From the earliest days, there has been conflict between these two visions. During the 19th century, many laws encouraged settlement of the West through federal land disposal. Mostly in the 20th century, emphasis shifted to retention of federal lands. Congress has provided varying land acquisition and disposal authorities to the agencies, ranging from restricted to broad. As a result of acquisitions and disposals, federal land ownership by the five agencies has declined by 23.5 million acres since 1990, from 646.9 million acres to 623.3 million acres. Much of the decline is attributable to BLM land disposals in Alaska and also reductions in DOD land. Numerous issues affecting federal land management are before Congress. They include the extent of federal ownership, and whether to decrease, maintain, or increase the amount of federal holdings; the condition of currently owned federal infrastructure and lands, and the priority of their maintenance versus new acquisitions; the optimal balance between land use and protection, and whether federal lands should be managed primarily to benefit the nation as a whole or instead to benefit the localities and states; and border control on federal lands along the southwest border.

Download or read book Our Common Ground written by John D. Leshy and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2022-03 with total page 736 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The little-known story of how the U.S. government came to hold nearly one-third of the nation's land primarily for recreation and conservation.

Download or read book Our Federal Lands written by Robert Sterling Yard and published by . This book was released on 1928 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Who is Minding the Federal Estate written by Holly Lippke Fretwell and published by Political Economic Forum. This book was released on 2009 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who Is Minding the Federal Estate? takes the reader on a tour of America's public lands from their history to their current state. Looking from the inside-out and the outside-in, this book helps those interested in conservation and environmental protection gain an understanding of the logic behind public land management. The author invites the reader to be daring and innovative, opening a box of new tools for potential reform that would advance public land stewardship.

Download or read book Making America s Public Lands written by Adam M. Sowards and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-04-15 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book America s Public Lands written by Randall K. Wilson and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-02-25 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Our National Forests written by Greg M. Peters and published by Timber Press. This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete look at America’s National Forests—their triumphs, challenges, controversies, and vital programs—and the dedicated people who keep them alive.

Download or read book The Federal Lands written by Resources for the Future and published by . This book was released on 1966 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Who Is Minding the Federal Estate written by Holly Lippke Fretwell and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2009-03-16 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sewage seeping into creeks, crumbling cabins and disintegrating roads, dilapidated visitor centers, catastrophic wildfires: these are some of the sights awaiting visitors to federal lands today. Federal agencies in charge of the public domain call for more support in the form of taxpayer dollars while constantly seeking to add to their holdings; environmental groups call for increased restrictions on land use and resource development; private citizens call for a return to the good old days of crisply tended, crime-free, and unspoiled national parks. All, it seems, overlook the sad fact that the existing federal estate is in terrible shape, badly maintained and managed, and with no immediate hope for improvement. Will more money, more restrictions, more regulations address the problems that plague America's public domain? No: Rather, real improvement requires reform of the managing institutions. Who Is Minding the Federal Estate? is a book intended for any reader with an interest in improving the condition of our public lands. It begins by examining the origins of the federal estate, which, though originally intended to be a temporary clearinghouse, now comprises a third of the U.S. landmass. The book describes the evolution of laws governing that estate and of the public conception of wilderness_once thought to be abundant and in need of taming, now considered to be inviolable and even sacrosanct. In non-technical prose that draws on economic theory and empirical analysis, it systematically investigates patterns of federal land management_and, more to the point, mismanagement. The book closes by offering a set of alternatives that will improve stewardship of the federal estate both by incorporating more private initiatives and by freeing those lands from the grasp of politicians who come and go in favor of a sustainable, long-term management ethic. These alternatives come unshackled by policies that lead to disasters such as the recent and ongoing epidemic of massive fires sweeping the forests of the West.

Download or read book Grand Canyon For Sale written by Stephen Nash and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grand Canyon For Sale 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 his key example, and using on-the-ground reporting as well as scientific research, Stephen Nash shows how accelerating climate change will dislocate wildlife populations and vegetation across hundreds of thousands of square miles of the national landscape. In addition, 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, which are part of our irreplaceable natural heritage, and also would devastate our national parks, forests, and other public lands. To safeguard wildlife and their habitats, it is essential to consolidate protected areas and prioritize natural systems over mining, grazing, drilling, and logging. Grand Canyon For Sale provides an excellent overview of the physical and biological challenges facing public lands. The book also exposes and shows how to combat the political activity that threatens these places in the U.S. today.

Download or read book The Federal Lands Revisited written by Marion Clawson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-26 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public land management and ownership came under increasing scrutiny in the 1980s, partly because of the increased value of federal lands; prized for their timber, minerals, energy, and amenity outputs. The personal touch and wisdom of one of these prolific and thoughtful writers on land use issues ensure that this book is a valuable addition to a literature to which Dr. Clawson already has made enormous contributions. For its readers, this book provides fresh insights and suggests new approaches to a problem that has been heavily discussed.

Download or read book One Third of the Nation s Land written by United States. Public Land Law Review Commission and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Our Public Lands written by and published by . This book was released on 1951 with total page 630 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Public Land Statistics written by and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 938 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book This Land written by Christopher Ketcham and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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"--

Download or read book Private Rights Public Lands written by Phillip N. Truluck and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text focuses on governmental natural resource and land use policy in the areas of agriculture, energy, forestry, mining, and water. The authors argue that this policy has failed and outlines the need for new ways to encourage the privatization of policy reforms. The contents of the book include the philosophical and constitutional case, the bureaucracy verses the land, the federal estate, and recommendations for policy reform.

Download or read book State Vs Federal Land Management written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Resources. Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Lands and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: