Public Lands

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was put in charge of managing native wild horses that reside on public lands in the United States. Since the passage of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses & Burros Act, the BLM has twisted the law through a series of relabeling landmass in areas where the horses reside, and then managing them differently based on the label the area was given. This has resulted in nearly half the land given the horses being removed from the program, and the remainder is managed illegally using the mandate of multiple-use in the Federal Land Policy Management Act. The twisting and creation of new regulations have been an unconstitutional act against the original intent of the 1971 Act to protect this species. The result is that the BLM claims there are too many horses when in fact the pastures have been made too small.

While historians broadly agree that the US Homestead Act of 1862 allowed white settlers to take over the ancestral lands of Native nations, research rarely goes beyond the scope of individual case studies to map out how exactly Indigenous dispossession and homesteading intersected. The how, where and when of this relation has more commonly been assumed in the research literature than explored in any substance. This article offers a critical appraisal of recent interpretations and presents new evidence to make sense of the general relationship between homesteading and Native dispossession.

In the United States what constitutes "public lands" has never been stable. Notions of the public and their commons were a fickle matter of political contest and power relations before the beginning of what is currently called America. This article takes two examples of contemporary debates over public lands as paradigmatic case studies for the ways apocalyptic appeals populate and naturalize the “settler commons” across the spectrum of US politics (Fortier). Through the comparison, it finds a convergence in what are often seen as irreconcilable differences between leftist environmentalisms and libertarian land-use logics. Apocalyptic depictions of the coming or in-progress collapse of the commons naturalize a space that both white environmentalists and white nationalists share. It then turns to apocalyptic imaginations of public space beyond the settler commons, concluding in a tentative example of the commons as indeed not static, not settled, but as an invitation to ongoing practice-based relationships of responsibility that require some of us--like me--to learn in public. Public lands, I find, are the spaces in which we are held accountable to very particular publics. In the patois of pithy prose, public lands are a verb.

The article provides a commentary on a lengthy inscription from Hellenistic Larissa (published by Helly & Tziafalias in 2013, cf. BE 2015. 394
and SEG 64.501), dated in the late 3rd cent. BC and more precisely in 219
by the editors. My main concern is to clarify institutional and legal questions
arising from this extremely precious document for public lands management
in Thessaly. It consists of four parts: part I (ll. 1-3), part II (ll. 39-54), part
III (ll. 55-118), and part IV (ll. 119-129). Part I is the surviving portion of
what was a decree of the polis of Larissa spelling out the terms under which
parcels of polis-land described as archaia hippoteia, belonging to the taga of
Agathokleadai, will be leased out. Part II provides the normative framework
for the required sureties. Part III contains a long list of citizens of Larissa who were successful in their bid to manage hippoteia, together with the
location of the plot, the price, the publicity fee, and the guarantors, while
part IV is a brief list of seventeen concessionaires who have paid the fines
for violating the rules on managing these plots of land. Despite the editors’
contention that the transactions can be described as sales of lands, I argue
that the use of the vocabulary of sale should not conceal the simple fact,
that the authorities of Larissa rent out these lands. First, they auctioned the
right of usufruct on hippoteia so that the higher bidder will be awarded one
of these plots; afterwards, the successful bidder had to provide guarantors
(engyoi) for the amount of the bid (timēma) and the payable rent, equal to
ten staters(dekostateiria); then, the polis-authorities had to scrutinize the guarantors and only after they approve them, the bidder could enter in the possession and management of the land. Four features of the normative system
outlined in the inscription point to auction and concession of hippoteia: i)
lack of any reference to a sale tax or duty (epōnion), there is only a publicity
fee (kērykeia); ii) imposition of fine on all those concessionaires who wish to retain the management (see Part IV), despite the violation of the terms agreed beforehand; iii) an amount of money to be paid (once or periodically it is not clear) secured by guarantors; and iv) the distinction between the bid (timēma) and the rent (dekostateiria).

Aim: Predation on livestock is one of the primary concerns for Mexican wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) recovery because it causes economic losses and negative attitudes toward wolves. Our objectives were to develop a spatial risk model of cattle depredation by Mexican wolves in the USA portion of their recovery area to help reduce the potential for future depredations. Location: Arizona and New Mexico, USA. Methods: We used a presence-only maximum entropy modeling approach (Maxent) to develop a risk model based on confirmed depredation incidents on public lands. In addition to landscape and human variables, we developed a model for annual livestock density using linear regression analysis of Animal Unit Month (AUM), and models for abundance of elk (Cervus canadensis), mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginiana) using Maxent, to include them as biotic variables in the risk model. We followed current recommendations for controlling model complexity and other sources of bias. Results: The primary factors associated with increased risk of depredation by Mexican wolf were higher canopy cover variation and higher relative abundance of elk. Additional factors with increased risk but smaller effect were gentle and open terrain, and greater distances from roads and developed areas. Main conclusions: The risk map revealed areas with relatively high potential for cattle depredations that can inform future expansion of Mexican wolf distribution (e.g., by avoiding hotspots) and prioritize areas for de-predation risk mitigation including the implementation of active non-lethal methods in depredation hotspots. We suggest that livestock be better protected in or moved from potential hotspots, especially during periods when they are vulnerable to depredation (e.g. calving season). Our approach to create natural prey and livestock abundance variables can facilitate the process of spatial risk modeling when limitations in availability of abundance data are a challenge, especially in large-scale studies.

This thesis analyzes Signal Fire, a Portland-based arts organization founded in 2008. The organization produces extended, reading-intensive, and practice-oriented backpacking artist residencies in wild places. My own participation as both artist and researcher in a summer 2019 program called “Waiting for Salmon” informs my analysis of specific artworks made by fellow participants in order to situate and contextualize the residency. I focus on Signal Fire’s pedagogical framework, the organization’s ecologically-driven public lands advocacy, and collaboration with tribal communities and Indigenous perspectives. Signal Fire adheres to certain aspects of the American wilderness ideal and preservationist environmentalist ethics while simultaneously engaging with the tensions between settler-colonial and decolonial approaches to the landscape. By observing Signal Fire, this thesis aims to provide an ecocritical and art historical framework for assessing the significance of other site-specific residencies within contemporary art, environmental humanities, and decolonial studies more broadly.

An analysys of P. Santini's first monograph is developed, highlighting the main issues dealt with  in the book, in particular the identification of the mysterious interdict quoted in D. 47, 10, 13, 7, "Conductori autem veteres interdictum dederunt, si forte publice hoc conduxit"

A chronological history of the development of what would become Florida's Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.  The story begins in 1881 when the State of Florida agreed with a private St. Augustine-based company (Florida Coast Line Canal & Transportation Company) to grant the company 3,840 acres of public land for constructing each mile of waterway from y St. Augustine, Fla., to Miami, Fla., eventually extending construction north to Jacksonville, Fla. The State also granted the private company the right to collect tolls for maintenance.  By 1912, the State of Florida had granted this private company over a million acres of public land for an inland waterway 268 miles long.  In 1929, the State of Florida bought the waterway and turned it and necessary right-of-way over to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for enlarging and perpetual maintenance by the federal government by Act of Congress (1927).  It then became a public waterway free of the burden of tolls.

RESUMO:
O artigo aborda falhas da Lei de Terras do Império, de 1850, e de seu Regulamento, de 1854, que concorreram decisivamente para a formação do atual quadro fundiário brasileiro, de ocultação de considerável parte das terras devolutas por registros imobiliários de conteúdo inverídico, porque certificam propriedades privadas sem origem válida. Falhas relacionadas ao reconhecimento jurídico do domínio privado absoluto sobre terras no Brasil, mais exatamente a forma como ele teve início, sem compromisso com a segurança jurídica mínima necessária para uma adequada efetivação do contemporâneo direito abstrato de propriedade sobre a terra. São analisadas principalmente as implicações dos arts. 22 ao 27 do Regulamento da Lei de Terras do Império (Decreto n.º 1.318, de 1854), associadas à demora do Poder Público em fazer cumprir outras determinações da legislação de terras. Por fim, demonstra-se a perpetuação desses problemas, mesmo após a tardia organização de um sistema registral imobiliário obrigatório.
ABSTRACT:
The article deals with failures of the Land Law of the Empire, of 1850, and of its Regulation, of 1854, which contributed decisively to the formation of the current Brazilian land framework, concealing considerable part of untitled public lands by records of real estate registries of untrue content, because certify private properties without valid source. Failures related to the legal recognition of the absolute private domain over lands in Brazil, more exactly the way it began, uncommitted with the necessary minimum legal security for an adequate execution of the contemporary abstract law of ownership over the land. The implications of arts. 22 to 27 of the Regulation of the Land Law of the Empire (Decree no. 1,318, of 1854) are primarily analyzed, in association with the delay of Public Power to enforce other determinations of the land legislation. Finally, it demonstrates the perpetuation of these problems, even after the late organization of a mandatory real estate registration system.

The USDA Forest Service completed its Strategic Plan (2000 Revision) in October 2000. The goals and objectives included in the Plan were developed with input from the public, some of which was obtained through a telephone survey. We report results of the survey. Members of the American public were asked about their values with respect to public lands, objectives for the management of public lands, beliefs about the role the agency should play in fulfilling those objectives, and attitudes about the job the agency has been doing. The public sees the promotion of ecosystem health as an important objective and role for the agency. There is strong support for protecting watersheds. The public supports multiple uses, but not all uses equally. Motorized recreation is not a high priority objective, while preserving the ability to have a "wilderness experience" is important. There is moderate support for providing resources to dependent communities. The provision of less consumptiv...

Public land plays a central role in contemporary urban planning struggles. Using a comparative case study approach focused on the north-eastern US cities of Newark and New York City, we uncover patterns of land acquisition and dispossession that fit five broad and often overlapping periods in planning history: City Beautiful, metropolitan reorganization, deindustrialization, and devaluation, followed by hyper-commodification in New York City and redevelopment amidst disinvestment in Newark. Through this periodization, we find that accumulation and alienation of urban public land has largely taken place through two modes of municipalization (targeted and reactive) and two modes of privatization (community-led and capital-led). Uncovering these complex and contradictory processes strengthens the case for a more intentional approach to public land than either city’s leadership is currently pursuing, but which social movements have persistently demanded – one which prioritizes democratic decision-making in long-term land management, as well as public access, use and purpose.

The Colorado Plateau is one of North America's five major deserts, encompassing 340,000 km 2 of the western United States, and offering many opportunities for restoration relevant to researchers and land managers in drylands around the globe. The Colorado Plateau is comprised of vast tracts of public land managed by local, state, and federal agencies that oversee a wide range of activities (e.g., mineral and energy extraction, livestock grazing, and recreation). About 75% of the Plateau is managed by federal and tribal agencies and tens of millions of people visit the Plateau's public lands each year. However, even in the face of this diverse use, our knowledge of effective ways to restore Plateau ecosystems remains relatively poor. Further, the multiple agencies on the Plateau have mandates that differ greatly in allowable practices, restoration needs, and desired outcomes. The Colorado Plateau is also expected to undergo ecosystem shifts in the face of climate change, further complicating management decisions and potentially limiting some options while creating others. Here, we explore the current state of Colorado Plateau restoration science and underscore key challenges and opportunities for improving our capacity to maintain the myriad of services provided by these desert ecosystems. We highlight past research efforts and future needs related to restoration concepts, including consideration and design of novel ecosystems, mitigation for and adaptation to climate change, use of genetically diverse seed adapted for current and future conditions, and the value of strong multi-agency and stakeholder collaborations in restoring systems on the Colorado Plateau and beyond.

• Identifies and classifies stakeholder perspectives for public land management. • Measures spatial stakeholder preferences for access, conservation, and development. • Implements a model to identify level of spatial stakeholder agreement. • Spatial results were sensitive to method of aggregation and stakeholder weighting. • Need for more research that integrates stakeholder analysis methods with spatial data. a b s t r a c t Public lands provide significant environmental, economic, and social values to society across a range of classifications and tenures. Stakeholders representing multiple interests are presumed to hold different management preferences for these lands. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate how stakeholder perspectives can influence place-based management preferences for public lands. We developed a multi-dimensional public land preference scale and used cluster analysis of responses to classify individuals (n = 1507) into stakeholder groups using data collected from a large public participation GIS (PPGIS) survey in Victoria, Australia. We analyzed the results of the two largest stakeholder groups (identified as " Preservation " and " Recreation ") to assess their spatial preferences for public land conservation, access, and development. We developed a method to assess the level of spatial stakeholder agreement, with the results identifying geographic areas of both agreement and disagreement between stakeholder groups. To determine the effects of unequal stakeholder participation in mapping, we performed sensitivity analysis by weighting the responses of the Recreation stakeholder group to approximate the mapping effort of the Preservation stakeholder group. The place-based management preferences changed significantly for conservation/development and improving/limiting public land access, while preferences for increas-ing/limiting facility development were less sensitive to stakeholder weighting. The spatial mapping of stakeholder preferences appears effective for identifying locations with high potential for conflict as well as areas of agreement, but would benefit from further research in a range of land management applications to provide further guidance on the analysis of stakeholder group responses that result from diverse stakeholder group participation.

Chapter 1 Table of Contents Chapter 2 Figures Chapter 3 Tables Chapter 4 List of Abbreviations Chapter 5 Preface Chapter 6 Acknowledgments Chapter 7 1 Introduction: Rethinking Environmental-Energy Policy Studies Chapter 8 2 The Case of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR): A History Chapter 9 3 Advance to Go: The ANWR Policy Monopoly Unravels Chapter 10 4 "Civility" in Washington? Party Politics in Environmental-Energy Policy Making Chapter 11 5 Forces for Change: Political and Social Currents for ANWR, Western Lands, the Gulf of Mexico, and Cape Cod Wind Farms Chapter 12 6 Patterns of Decisions across the Environment-Energy Divide Chapter 13 Methodological Appendix Chapter 14 Bibliography Chapter 15 Index

Applying conservation in an effi cient manner is desirable in a constrained economic cli-mate. Mapped predictions of species abundance may allow the spatial targeting of focal areas for conservation, increasing the effi ciency of conservation application. We overlayed mapped patterns in predicted relative abundance, from hierarchical spatial count models for 11 species of conservation concern, against digital data layers describing federal-, tribal-, and state-managed lands to identify the relative contribution of governmental agencies in the conservation of rare bird habitat in the Prairie Hardwood Transition (Bird Conservation Region 23). The proportion of predicted popula-tions under direct governmental jurisdiction differed by habitat guild, with 0.5%, 1.3%, and 1.0% of grassland birds occurring on federal-, state-, and tribal-managed lands, respectively, and 2.8%, 17.9%, and 3.1% of forest birds occurring on federal-, state-, and tribal-managed lands, respectively. Irrespective...

In 2008 Tim DeChristopher illegally bid on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) parcels offered for energy exploration leases near National Parks in Utah. DeChristopher and his supporters founded Peaceful Uprising, a climate justice movement, in response to his actions. We analyze mediated news coverage and in situ rhetoric gathered via rhetorical fieldwork to examine the ways that Peaceful Uprising combined placebased rhetoric and place-as rhetoric tactics to protect these parkadjacent lands from oil and gas leases and to protect DeChristopher from being convicted for making false bids on the leases. This analysis offers a unique example of place-based protest that is focused on otherwise ignored BLM lands. Moreover, we focus on a place-Salt Lake City-that is not conventionally perceived as a bastion of activism and protest about climate change. Our analysis expands the place in protest framework to considerations of: 1) the convergence of the place-based and place-as rhetoric tactics, and 2) the potential of place in protest appeals to enact different futurities.

Increasing demand for water-based recreation comes with the need for recreation site managers to consider how to best satisfy different stakeholder groups. However, much of the previous water-based recreation literature has treated resident users and tourist users as one homogeneous group despite differences in frequency of use, proximity to site, and economic importance of visitation to the local economy. Hence, this study segmented residents from tourists and conducted separate importance performance analyses (IPA) to see if these two distinct groups have different preferences for and perceptions of stream-access sites in southeast Appalachia. Data were collected using an intercept survey method across ten different Tennessee Valley Authority stream-access sites in north Georgia and western North Carolina. Independent samples t-tests reveal significant differences between residents and tourists on 10 of the 23 importance attributes and performance attributes. The IPAs reveal different quadrant placements for 9 of the 23 attributes. Specifically, tourists expressed greater dissatisfaction with information accessibility such as online information and river maps, and residents tended to place higher importance on the boating aspects of stream-access sites with higher levels of importance placed on attributes such as ramps, put in and take out sites, and room to maneuver trailers, illustrating the efficacy of segmenting residents and tourists within the context of IPA. Implications include management aims addressing both residents’ and tourists’ preferences for stream-access sites to simultaneously enhance regional tourism for its economic benefits while enriching the experiences of residents.

This article illuminates contemporary land-use and disposition struggles in New York City by tracing the history of land's passage between the private and public realms. The authors contend that government and community-controlled nonprofit organizations should govern the disposition of the city's remaining public land supply, deliberately deploying this scarce resource to promote the well-being of the people and neighborhoods most at risk in a speculation-fueled real-estate environment.

This book’s contributions include a finding that partisan voting in Congress is a necessary but insufficient condition for policy shifts in environmental-energy policymaking when symbolic politics is the norm.

Also, when seeking legislative victories, subsystems benefit by mobilizing the media and public opinion rather than elites when defining environmental-energy policy issues; this finding furthers our understanding of key forces in American democracy.

The Great Basin, a stark and beautiful desert filled with sagebrush deserts and mountain ranges, is the epicenter for public lands conflicts. Arising out of the multiple, often incompatible uses created throughout the twentieth century, these struggles reveal the tension inherent within the multiple use concept, a management philosophy that promises equitable access to the region’s resources and economic gain to those who live there.

Multiple use was originally conceived as a way to legitimize the historical use of public lands for grazing without precluding future uses, such as outdoor recreation, weapons development, and wildlife management. It was applied to the Great Basin to bring the region, once seen as worthless, into the national economic fold. Land managers, ranchers, mining interests, wilderness and wildlife advocates, outdoor recreationists, and even the military adopted this ideology to accommodate, promote, and sanction a multitude of activities on public lands, particularly those overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. Some of these uses are locally driven and others are nationally mandated, but all have exacted a cost from the region’s human and natural environment.

Available at University of Oklahoma Press https://www.oupress.com/9780806149271/the-size-of-the-risk/.

In June of 2020, the author traveled on Highway 50 across Nevada from Carson City to Ely and on to Milford, Utah. He spent about a week making observations of the famed Sulphur Spanish mustangs and their habitat in the Sulphur Herd Management Area (HMA) as well as other wild horse herds and areas. He was joined by fellow conservationist Stephanie Camfield of New Mexico. Twenty-six ecological, 100'by-20' transects were conducted in the Sulphur HMA. Later the nearby Conger HMA was visited and observations of its wild horses and their habitat were made, including four similar transects. Of the total habitat examined in the Sulphur HMA, it is estimated that 19% needs immediate remedial attention because of damaging impacts that are mainly attributable to livestock and vehicles. Observations of this herd and its habitat does not justify the major BLM-ordered reduction of the rare Sulphur HMA Spanish mustangs to a genetically non-viable level that just occurred in August, 2020. Observations and transects indicated that the Conger HMA herd and habitat is in serious need of restoration. Both HMAs are suffering serious ecological damage due to uncontrolled livestock, vehicle and other impacts. Following the BLM/USGS transect methods (Pellant et al., 2005), for Soils and Site Stability and Hydrologic Function attributes, the sum of percentages for Moderate to Extreme and Extreme to Total is 23.4%, or nearly one fourth, while for the Biotic Integrity attribute, the sum of percentages in the Moderate to Extreme and Extreme to Total is 36.7%, or over a third. Based upon these transects and my visual survey of a much greater area, I urge a significant cut back on livestock and reduction in vehicle impacts, including Off-Highway Vehicles (OHVs) in both HMAs. This is needed to assure truly viable populations of wild horses that are allowed to adapt harmoniously to the ecosystems they inhabit and to stabilize their population by virtue of allowing mature social bands to form and other controls recognized in a sound Reserve Design (Downer, 2014b) approach to wild horse conservation. The wild horses need to receive a much fairer share of forage, water, shelter and other required habitat necessities. Additional observations were made in various wild horse HMAs adjacent to US Highway 50 especially in Nevada. An analysis of BLM wild horse Appropriate Management Levels (AML) for population vis-à-vis legal Herd Management Area acreages reveals an extremely unfair treatment of the wild horses within their legal areas. The AMLs permit only a few to several square miles per individual wild horse at mean permitted levels. Livestock are allocated excessive portions of the forage within the HMAs and in surrounding areas. Several other wild horse HMAs in Utah and Nevada are also examined in this regard. All show the same extreme injustice in non-conformance with the core intent of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act (WFHBA). A plea for the restoration of the Sulphur and Conger herds and their habitats along with the true intent of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act (WFHBA) throughout the West is made on its 50 th anniversary and an elucidation of the wild horses' many positive contributions to ecosystems, economies, wildfire prevention, human society, etc., is given.

National parks have been called "America's best idea", but their creation and management never fail to stir controversy. On September 12, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the bill creating Canyonlands National Park (CANY). Instead of a preservation climax, however, the establishment of CANY simply opened a new chapter in the long-term effort to protect a much greater percentage of southeastern Utah's canyon country. Over the next several decades, park enthusiasts and wilderness advocates sought to expand the boundaries of CANY, while agricultural interests and extractive industries lobbied vigorously to limit the influence of the National Park Service. In this paper, we use archival data and methods to reconstruct the story of CANY's creation and review attempts since then to extend protections beyond the original park's borders, seeking to understand the different social, political, and economic forces that aligned to propose-as well as the forces that rallied to contest-these expansion efforts. While our findings indicate that the stakeholders involved and the issues that drive them have changed little over the past sixty years, we also cite several examples of successful collaboration that could serve as guideposts for future conservation efforts, both in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Dal 1991 ad oggi il Niger ha intrapreso un tormentato processo di decentramento politico, amministrativo, fiscale ed economico. Questo studio ne esamina le conseguenze sul demanio e sulla fiscalità immobiliare della città capitale: Niamey. Lo Stato ha conservato la proprietà di tutte le terre del territorio municipale salvo quelle via via lottizzate. Ciò ha consentito di ripianare gli arretrati di stipendio dei dipendenti statali assegnando (2001-2004) a questi ultimi circa 20.000 lotti lungo tutto il fronte urbano. Questa operazione compromette le entrate future del bilancio municipale, che è alimentato soprattutto dalla vendita di lotti. D’altra parte, la Municipalità è stata frazionata in 5 commune urbaine (CU) dotate di bilancio proprio ma con potenzialità
fiscali non proporzionate alla loro superficie territoriale e popolazione. La Municipalità potrebbe non essere in grado di riequilibrare i bilanci delle CU per mancanza di quelle risorse che in passato provenivano dalla vendita di lotti. Né c’è da attendersi che possa provvedervi il bilancio statale. Se così fosse l’erogazione di servizi (scuole, sanità) a scala di CU potrebbe risultare ancor più sperequata di quanto lo sia oggi e aggravare di
conseguenza la povertà urbana.