Federal Lands Policy

(Hardback)

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Description

One of the oldest policy debates in U.S. history concerns the allocation, use, and management of public lands, which currently comprise one-quarter of the United States. In this volume, Phillip O. Foss has assembled a selection of original research papers and interpretative essays from recognized authorities with a variety of philosophical orientations in order to present a well-rounded picture of today's views of public lands policy. Contributors describe and analyze the three major trends in lands management: preservation, conservation, and the environmental movement. Issues which have posed continuing problems throughout the history of public lands management are also examined, including the decision to retain or dispose, the establishment of grazing fees, the management of lands with interspersed ownership, the decision to employ centralized or decentralized management tactics, and the allocation of multiple or single use for the land.

Reviews

A stimulating collection of 12 interpretive essays and research papers on the oldest continuing policy issue in US history--how to deal with public lands. Five underlying chronic public lands issues are covered; when these issues of political and public controversy are laid out, they serve to inform the purpose of the volume, but not its organizing framework. An introductory essay by editor Foss alerts the reader to the provocative aspects inherent in the essays that deal with retention versus disposal of public lands; the controversy between land values determined by grazing fees or market value; cooperative management of interspersed ownership by federal, state, and private interests; centralized versus decentralized decision-making power; and the supremacy of multiple (primary) versus single users. The intended and overt impacts of recent governmental policy inform the several debates reviewed, and provide the reader with a set of marker critiques within the stream of ongoing national land-oriented policy debates. A limited but valuable index is included, as well as a bibliography. Recommended for all libraries.-Choice
"A stimulating collection of 12 interpretive essays and research papers on the oldest continuing policy issue in US history--how to deal with public lands. Five underlying chronic public lands issues are covered; when these issues of political and public controversy are laid out, they serve to inform the purpose of the volume, but not its organizing framework. An introductory essay by editor Foss alerts the reader to the provocative aspects inherent in the essays that deal with retention versus disposal of public lands; the controversy between land values determined by grazing fees or market value; cooperative management of interspersed ownership by federal, state, and private interests; centralized versus decentralized decision-making power; and the supremacy of multiple (primary) versus single users. The intended and overt impacts of recent governmental policy inform the several debates reviewed, and provide the reader with a set of marker critiques within the stream of ongoing national land-oriented policy debates. A limited but valuable index is included, as well as a bibliography. Recommended for all libraries."-Choice

Author Bio

PHILLIP O. FOSS is Professor of Political Science at Colorado State University.