Wrapping up ecosystem protection

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Wrapping up ecosystem protection
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Estuaries S.F. Bay is a prime example of how
estuarine systems get either silted in or
deliberately filled when associated with
agriculture and human development. This 1960
picture depicting SF Bay in 2020 in the Oakland
Tribune helped stimulate Catherine Kerr and the
founders of Save SF Bay Assoc.
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Endangered Ecosystems
California

• 99 loss of native grassland (from 9 million to
  89,100 ha Kreissman 1991).
• 94.2 loss of native grassland in San Diego
  County (Oberbauer 1990).
• 80 loss of tidal marshes in the San Francisco
  Bay (Lewis 1992).
• 99.9 loss of needlegrass steppe (Barbour et al.
  1991).
• 90 loss of northern coastal bunchgrass (Barbour
  et al. 1991).
• 99.9 loss of Central Valley riparian oak forest
  (Martin 1986).
• 100 loss of coastal strand in San Diego county
  (Oberbauer 1990).
• 70-90 of presettlement southern California
  coastal sage scrub destroyed (Westman 1981
  Atwood 1990 Oberbauer 1990 O'Leary 1990 U.S.
  Fish and Wildlife Service 1992).
• 94 loss of inland wetlands (Barbour et al.
  1991).
• .. (41 examples in all for CA)
• 8,653 increase in non-native annual grassland
  (Barbour et al. 1991).

http//biology.usgs.gov/pubs/ecosys.htm
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What is a National Park?
Public good
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A brief foray into types of goods--public and
private goods
HIGH
Grape vines
Timber Fish
Depletability
The Movie Theater
National Forests
LOW
HIGH
LOW
Excludability
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A brief foray into types of goods--public and
private goods
HIGH
Private goods
Common-pool resources
Depletability
Club goods
Public goods
LOW
HIGH
LOW
Excludability
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A brief foray into types of goods--public and
private goods
HIGH
A car
Irrigation canals
Depletability
Lighthouse
Library
LOW
HIGH
LOW
Excludability
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Why create parks, reserves, and wildlands?

• Monumentalism
• 19th-century landscape painters raised great
  interest in the American Wests sceneryand its
  new national parks.
• Here, Bridalveil Falls in Yosemite by Albert
  Bierstadt

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U.S. national parks

• 1872 Yellowstone National Park becomes the
  worlds first national park
• a public park or pleasuring-ground for the
  benefit and enjoyment of the people
• Today, the U.S. national park system includes 388
  sites and receives 277 million visits each year.
• It is managed by the National Park Service.

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U.S. national wildlife refuges

• 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt begins system
  of national wildlife refuges
• Today, 541 sites are managed by the Fish and
  Wildlife Service
• from preservation to active manipulation of
  habitats and populations
• Hunting, fishing, and other recreation and
  allowed policies vary from refuge to refuge.

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Wilderness areas

• 1964 Congress passes Wilderness Act
• Wilderness areas can be designated within
  existing federal lands.
• They are open to public recreation, but not
  exploitative development.
• Criteria Large, undisturbed, roadless,
  representative

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Wilderness areas

• To assure that an increasing populationdoes not
  occupy and modify all areas leaving no lands
  designated for preservation and protection in
  their natural condition. U.S. Congress

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Last year
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www.wilderness.net
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California
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British Columbia set aside 865,000 acres of
protected land for caribou
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Opposition to land set-asides

• Restriction of activities in wilderness areas has
  generated opposition from private landowners that
  would like access..
• State governments of Western states would like to
  have control over more land within their borders.
• Nevada 80 of land federally owned
• ID, OR, UT 50 federally owned

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• California is under the strain of competition for
  land use between
• Public resources
• Agriculture
• Developed private land

Conflicts are inevitable
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Public Lands

• Is it any wonder that Senate and House Committees
  on Resources are usually chaired by reps. from
  western states?

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Opposition to land set-asides

• Wise use movement loose confederation of
  individuals who live off the land and industries
  that extract resources, who oppose advances of
  environmental advocacy, and
• Want to protect private property rights
• Oppose government regulation
• Want federal lands transferred to state, local,
  private hands
• Want more motorized vehicle recreation on public
  lands, ability to build roads

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Land trusts

• Besides federal and state governments, private
  nonprofit groups called land trusts also set
  aside land for protection from development.
• Local or regional organizations
• 900 in U.S. have helped preserve 1.1 million ha
  (2.7 million acres)

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Saving Open Space The Politics of Local
Preservation in California. Daniel Press

• Political Capacity Model based on
• Available open space
• Development pressure and human density
• Examples
• SF No habitat, lots of people, lots of interest
  in protection
• Modoc lots of habitat, few people, low interest
  in protection
• Intersection of opportunity and political
  capacity moderate human density, declining open
  space.

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EAST BAY Parks
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Declining American Social Capital

• Over the last 25 years
• 58 drop in attending club meetings
• 43 drop in family dinners
• 35 drop in having friends over
• Every 10 minutes of commuting time reduces all
  forms of social capital by 10

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Social Networks build the following four
attributes in people

• Trust
• Tolerance
• Political engagement
• Civic engagement

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States with more organizations have a higher
voting rate
states
Bowling alone. R. Putnam.
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Synthetic Conservation Strategic goals for
protecting biological diversity requires
successfully accomplishing multiple goals.

• Representative ecosystem reserves
• Lots of attention here for the past decade
• Partnerships with private landowners
• The new ESA focus (HCPs)
• Urban containment / urban improvement
• Planning for urban conservation remains a
  challenge
• Social engagement
• Incidental progress, but little proactive
  programmatic progress

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How do we build social capital for conservation?

• Many mechanisms
• Land trusts
• Museums
• Parks
• Volunteer stewardship networks
• Master naturalists programs

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International parks and reserves

• Protected areas have been growing fast in many
  countries.
• The world now has 38,500 protected areas,
  covering 9.6 of the planets land surface.
• But many of these are paper parksprotected on
  paper, but subject to illegal exploitation
  because of lack of funding for enforcement.

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International parks and reserves

• Biosphere reserves that straddle international
  boundaries consist of three zones, combining
  preservation with sustainable development.

Plan for integrating people and protection in
sustainable ways
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SustainableDevelopment Programs

• Linking preserving people and biological
  resources (e.g., Rural Development and
  Conservation projects sponsored by US AID)
• Combination of resources applied to conservation
  of traditional rural cultures and biological
  resources
• Theory is that they lived in combination with
  resources through the past, why not into the
  future?
• Usually suffers from increased population and
  standard of living (pressure to increase cash
  income)
• Not always clear whether success is measured by
  the conservation of culture or biota
• Many successful programs are driving species
  extinct

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Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Reserve Program

• Biosphere Reserves endorsed by financial
  incentives through UNESCO (United Nations
  Educational, Scientific and Cultural
  Organization)
• gt 110 countries participating
• gt 260 reserves established
• US has 44
• Requirement they must be BIG

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World Parks and Preserves
lt remaining
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Privately funded programsDebt for Nature Swaps

• Private conservation foundation buys off national
  debt in exchange for country setting aside
  conservation lands
• Bolivia - Conservation International (CI)
• CI used 100,000 to buy 650,000 of debt that
  Bolivia was defaulting.
• In exchange, Bolivia set aside 3.7 million acres
• That is 37 / acre for tropical forest!
• Problems remain in enforcement of protection
• The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, CI
• 19 swaps, 17 million to retire 99 mil of debt

Source Kubasek and Silverman. 2000.
Environmental Law, 3rd ed.
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Next Week marine resources
Bangladesh
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Appendix

• The following slides are for review

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Conclusions Challenges

• Urban populations continue to grow, making it
  necessary to improve conditions in cities.
• Urban sprawl eats up undeveloped land.
• Balancing timber production with preservation of
  forest ecosystems, and managing for fire, poses
  challenges.
• Agriculture comprises huge amounts of land, and
  often degrades it.
• There is debate over how much land should be
  protected.
• There is debate over how best to design reserves.

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Conclusions Solutions

• Effective city planning and better public
  transportation can make cities more livable and
  can mitigate the impacts of urban sprawl.
• The Forest Service has begun moving toward a
  better balance of management for timber,
  ecosystems, and fire.
• Agricultural practices can be further improved to
  lessen the impacts upon soil and biodiversity.
• Public debate over land protection policy is
  healthy.
• Through science, conservation biologists are
  progressing in determining how best to design
  reserves.

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QUESTION Review

• The U.S. Forest Service?
• a. Burns forests to restore ecosystems.
• b. Helps put out fires that threaten homes.
• c. Builds roads used to log forests.
• d. Manages the national forest system.
• e. Does all of the above.

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QUESTION Review

• Which is NOT a reason national parks were
  created?
• a. For outdoor recreation
• b. To protect beautiful and unusual natural
  features
• c. To provide timber products
• d. To preserve biodiversity

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QUESTION Review

• A supporter of the wise use movement would?
• a. Want to see a beautiful mountain range in Utah
  made into a wilderness area.
• b. Want to open Yellowstone National Park to
  unrestricted snowmobile use.
• c. Oppose a mining project to exploit a newly
  discovered silver deposit in Nevada.
• d. Want federal officials to crack down on
  private landholders in Wyoming violating the
  Endangered Species Act.

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QUESTION Review

• Which is NOT something modern city planners might
  do to make a city more livable?
• a. Develop a new light rail line
• b. Encourage neighborhood shops and restaurants
• c. Eliminate bicycle lanes on city streets
• d. Revise zoning codes to limit sprawl
• e. Create a new city park in place of an
  abandoned warehouse

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QUESTION Interpreting Graphs and Data

• In developed nations?
• a. People are moving mostly from cities to rural
  areas.
• b. Urbanization is progressing more quickly than
  in developing nations.
• c. The rural population is bigger than the urban
  population.
• d. Rural populations are declining.

Figure 16.4
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QUESTION Interpreting Graphs and Data

• In the U.S. national forests?a. Trees are
  growing faster than they are being removed.
• b. Trees are being removed faster than they are
  growing.
• c. More trees are being removed than on timber
  industry land.

Figure 16.12
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QUESTION Viewpoints

• Is sprawl a problem?
• a. Yes it degrades quality of life, and we
  should take all actions necessary to slow or stop
  it.
• b. It causes problems, but is difficult to deal
  with because it results from the choices
  individual people make about where and how to
  live.
• c. No it reflects peoples choices and therefore
  is not a problem.