Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska : entrance area and road corridor development concept plan.

"NPS D-244B"--P. [3] of cover.

Records of Mount Rainier National Park /

Shipping list no.: 99-0130-P.

Presidio Trust : hearing before the Subcommittee on Parks, Historic Preservation, and Recreation of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, One Hundred Fourth Congress, first session, on S. 594.

" December 20, 1995"--P. 2.

Co-opting conservation: Migrant resource control and access to national park management in the Philippine uplands

The history of political and economic inequality in forest villages can shape how and why resource use conflicts arise during the evolution of national parks management. In the Philippine uplands, indigenous peoples and migrant settlers co-exist, compete over land and forest resources, and shape how managers preserve forests through national parks. This article examines how migrants have claimed lands and changed production and exchange relations among the indigenous Tagbanua to build on and benefit from otherwise coercive park management on Palawan Island, the Philippines. Migrant control over productive resources has influenced who, within each group, could sustain agriculture in the face of the state's dominant conservation narrative - valorizing migrant paddy rice and criminalizing Tagbanua swiddens. Upon settling, migrant farmers used new political and economic strengths to tap into provincial political networks in order to be hired at a national park. As a result, they were able to steer management to support paddy rice at the expense of swidden cultivation. While state conservation policy shapes how national parks impact upon local resource access and use, older political economic inequalities in forest villages build on such policies to influence how management affects the livelihoods of poor households.

WHEN GLOBAL CONSERVATION MEETS LOCAL LIVELIHOODS: PEOPLE AND PARKS IN CENTRAL AMERICA

SummaryNational park and related forest conservation efforts tend to emanate from core areas of the world and are often imposed on rural people living on forest fringes in the least developed regions of lesser developed countries. We address the social and cultural processes that ensue when center-originatingconservation meets local people with their resource-dependent livelihoods, and how these vary under different circumstances. We examine and compare local people’s environmental andforest-related values and behaviors, using cultural models, after the establishment of national parks in two countries with very different social and environmental histories—Costa Rica and Honduras. We find that external cultural models were widely adopted by local people—hegemonic to the extent of structuring even discourse opposing conservation. Local people often expressed environmental values, but used formulaic language that suggested that these values were not well integrated with other aspects of their life and often not motivating. We pay particular attention to relationships between environmental values and livelihood values, and the varying ways that new, local environmental discourses and values emerge that mediate between these often conflicting value spheres.The recent international increase in national parks is a phenomenon of globalization, and often imposes new conservation practices and environmental values onto local people. While these new national parks have some broad public benefits that can be thought of as global, e.g. their role in preventing biodiversity loss and climate change, it is also true that few concrete benefits accrue to local people and that parks often impose great costs on local people in the form of lost land, diminished access to resources, and diminished autonomy as national governments and internationalorganizations extend into local life in new ways.These changes have serious repercussions for local people, often threatening their livelihoods and well-being in significant ways. Yet our results suggest that local people may be willing to work with park managers to co-inhabit landscapes when park managers are able to accommodate local livelihood needs.Keywords: National parks, Central America, Costa Rica, Honduras, forest conservationResumenLos parques nacionales y otros esfuerzos de conservación forestal tienden a surgir en las principales áreas núcleo del mundo, y por lo general son impuestos a los pobladores de espacios rurales que habitan franjas forestales de los países en vías de desarrollo.Este artículo se enfoca en los procesos sociales y culturales que se originan a partir de la imposición de estas áreas de conservación y sobre cómo se ve afectada la subsistencia de los pobladores que dependen de los recursos naturales de dichas áreas. También se evalúan y comparan los valores y comportamientos relacionados con el ambiente, percibidos por los pobladores con el establecimiento de parques nacionales, en dos países con historias sociales y ambientales muy diferentes como lo son Costa Rica y Honduras; para lo cual se utilizaron modelos culturales. Al respecto, se encontró que varios modelos culturales externos, que fueron ampliamente adoptados por los pobladores locales, han llegado a ser hegemónicos, afectando la conservación. Los habitantes del lugar estaban disconformes con respecto a los nuevos valores ambientales, porque estos, por un lado, no estaban adecuadamente integrados con otros aspectos de su vida, y por la escasa motivación en materia de conservación ambiental.De esta forma, se resalta la relación entre los valores ambientales y los valores de sus forma de vida;entre las nuevas formas de ruptura y los valores emergentes que median entre la esfera de valores conflictivos.El reciente aumento internacional de parques naciones es un fenómeno de globalización, y en consecuencia, impone nuevas prácticas de conservación y valores ambientales a los habitantes de estas localidades. Mientras estos nuevos parques nacionales generan algunas ventaja públicas, que pueden ser pensadas como globales (p.ej. su papel en la prevención de la pérdida de diversidad biológica y el cambio de clima), también ocasionan escasos beneficios para las comunidades, al imponer elevados costos para los pobladores locales como lo son: la pérdida de tierras, la disminución en el acceso a los recursos y la reducción de la autonomía, ya sea ante el gobierno nacional u organizaciones internaciones que extienden sus acciones políticas a la vida local en todas sus nuevas formas. Estos cambios repercuten drásticamente en los habitantes del lugar, lo cual a menudo amenaza, en general, el sustento y el bienestar, de modo significativo.Los resultados sugieren que los habitantes del lugar podrían estar dispuestos a trabajar con los gerentes del parque para co-habitar paisajes cuando éstos sean capaces de priorizar las necesidades de sobrevivencia de las formas de vida de los habitantes.Palabras clave: parques nacionales, América Central, Costa Rica, conservación forestal

Australian waterfalls as tourism attractions

For a largely arid country with generally low relief, Australia has a remarkably large number and variety of waterfalls. Found mainly near the coast, close to where most of the population lives and near the major tourist resort areas, these landscape features have long been popular scenic attractions. As sights to see and places to enjoy a variety of recreational activities, waterfalls continue to play an important role in Australia’s tourism, even in seaside resort areas where the main attractions are sunshine, sandy beaches and surf. The aesthetic appeal of waterfalls and their value as recreational resources are recognized by the inclusion of many in national parks. Even here, demands of visitors and pressures from developers raise serious problems. This paper examines the way in which waterfalls have been developed and promoted as tourist attractions, demonstrating their importance to Australian tourism. It considers threats to the sustainable use of waterfall resources posed by power schemes and, particularly, by the tourist industry itself. Queensland’s Gold Coast is selected as a case study, and comparisons are made with other areas in which waterfalls have played important roles as tourist attractions, especially the Yorkshire coast of northeast England. The discussion draws largely on an examination of tourist literature from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, including holiday brochures and guide books, as well as other published sources, together with field observation in various parts of the world

The impact of natural disasters on residential property markets

Over the past ten years various residential property markets throughout Australia in general and NSW in particular have been subject to substantial natural disasters. These occurrences have included floods, bushfires and hailstorms. In extreme cases the actual rectification costs have been up to AUD$1.5 billion, which occurred with the severe hailstorm in Sydney in April 1999 and cyclone Tracey in Darwin in 1974. Natural disasters such as severe storms and hailstorms have tended to be very indiscriminate in relation to frequency and the actual location of damage, whereas the nature of bushfire and flooding tends to be more defined. Although these extreme natural disasters tend to be infrequent, occurrences of floods and bushfires in residential property areas are more frequent, particularly as urban sprawl encroaches closer to national Parks, State recreation Parks and State forests. Considerable work has been carried out on flood effects on property markets by Bell (1999), Donnelly (1988), McClusky and Rausser (2001), Skrantz and Strickland (1987) in the US, and Chou and Shih (2001) in Taiwan. Fibbens (1994), Lambley and Cordery (1991) and Eves (1999, 2001, 2002) have carried out studies in relation to the effect of flooding on residential property values in the Sydney region, including the tracking of flood prone property values over time. However, no similar rigorous research has been carried out in relation to the impact of bushfires on residential property markets in the Sydney region.

Managing the winds of change

Environmental impacts caused during Australia's comparatively recent settlement by Europeans are evident. Governments (both Commonwealth and States) have been largely responsible for requiring landholders – through leasehold development conditions and taxation concessions – to conduct clearing that is now perceived as damage. Most governments are now demanding resource protection. There is a measure of bewilderment (if not resentment) among landholders because of this change. The more populous States, where most overall damage has been done (i.e. Victoria and New South Wales), provide most support for attempts to stop development in other regions where there has been less damage. Queensland, i.e. the north-eastern quarter of the continent, has been relatively slow to develop. It also holds the largest and most diverse natural environments. Tree clearing is an unavoidable element of land development, whether to access and enhance native grasses for livestock or to allow for urban developments (with exotic tree plantings). The consequences in terms of regulations are particularly complex because of the dynamic nature of vegetation. The regulatory terms used in current legislation – such as 'Endangered' and 'Of concern' – depend on legally-defined, static baselines. Regrowth and fire damage are two obvious causes of change. A less obvious aspect is succession, where ecosystems change naturally over long timeframes. In the recent past, the Queensland Government encouraged extensive tree-clearing e.g. through the State Brigalow Development Scheme (mostly 1962 to 1975) which resulted in the removal of some 97% of the wide-ranging mature forests of Acacia harpophylla. At the same time, this government controls National Parks and other reservations (occupying some 4% of the State's 1.7 million km2 area) and also holds major World Heritage Areas (such as the Great Barrier Reef and the Wet Tropics Rainforest) promulgated under Commonwealth legislation. This is a highly prescriptive approach, where the community is directed on the one hand to develop (largely through lease conditions) and on the other to avoid development (largely by unusable reserves). Another approach to development and conservation is still possible in Queensland. For this to occur, however, a more workable and equitable solution than has been employed to date is needed, especially for the remote lands of this State. This must involve resident landholders, who have the capacity (through local knowledge, infrastructure and daily presence) to undertake most costeffectively sustainable land-use management (with suitable attention to ecosystems requiring special conservation effort), that is, provided they have the necessary direction, encouragement and incentive to do so.

Status of the world's remaining closed forests : an assessment using satellite data and policy options

Historically, it appears that some of the WRCF have survived because i) they lack sufficient quantity of commercially valuable species; ii) they are located in remote or inaccessible areas; or iii) they have been protected as national parks and sanctuaries. Forests will be protected when people who are deciding the fate of forests conclude than the conservation of forests is more beneficial, e.g. generates higher incomes or has cultural or social values, than their clearance. If this is not the case, forests will continue to be cleared and converted. In the future, the WRCF may be protected only by focused attention. The future policy options may include strategies for strong protection measures, the raising of public awareness about the value of forests, and concerted actions for reducing pressure on forest lands by providing alternatives to forest exploitation to meet the growing demands of forest products. Many areas with low population densities offer an opportunity for conservation if appropriate steps are taken now by the national governments and international community. This opportunity must be founded upon the increased public and government awareness that forests have vast importance to the welfare of humans and ecosystems' services such as biodiversity, watershed protection, and carbon balance. Also paramount to this opportunity is the increased scientific understanding of forest dynamics and technical capability to install global observation and assessment systems. High-resolution satellite data such as Landsat 7 and other technologically advanced satellite programs will provide unprecedented monitoring options for governing authorities. Technological innovation can contribute to the way forests are protected. The use of satellite imagery for regular monitoring and Internet for information dissemination provide effective tools for raising worldwide awareness about the significance of forests and intrinsic value of nature.

Robust conservation decision-making

Decision-making for conservation is conducted within the margins of limited funding. Furthermore, to allocate these scarce resources we make assumptions about the relationship between management impact and expenditure. The structure of these relationships, however, is rarely known with certainty. We present a summary of work investigating the impact of model uncertainty on robust decision-making in conservation and how this is affected by available conservation funding. We show that achieving robustness in conservation decisions can require a triage approach, and emphasize the need for managers to consider triage not as surrendering but as rational decision making to ensure species persistence in light of the urgency of the conservation problems, uncertainty, and the poor state of conservation funding. We illustrate this theory by a specific application to allocation of funding to reduce poaching impact on the Sumatran tiger Panthera tigris sumatrae in Kerinci Seblat National Park, Indonesia. To conserve our environment, conservation managers must make decisions in the face of substantial uncertainty. Further, they must deal with the fact that limitations in budgets and temporal constraints have led to a lack of knowledge on the systems we are trying to preserve and on the benefits of the actions we have available (Balmford & Cowling 2006). Given this paucity of decision-informing data there is a considerable need to assess the impact of uncertainty on the benefit of management options (Regan et al. 2005). Although models of management impact can improve decision making (e.g.Tenhumberg et al. 2004), they typically rely on assumptions around which there is substantial uncertainty. Ignoring this 'model uncertainty', can lead to inferior decision-making (Regan et al. 2005), and potentially, the loss of the species we are trying to protect. Current methods used in ecology allow model uncertainty to be incorporated into the model selection process (Burnham & Anderson 2002; Link & Barker 2006), but do not enable decision-makers to assess how this uncertainty would change a decision. This is the basis of information-gap decision theory (info-gap); finding strategies most robust to model uncertainty (Ben-Haim 2006). Info-gap has permitted conservation biology to make the leap from recognizing uncertainty to explicitly incorporating severe uncertainty into decision-making. In this paper we present a summary of McDonald-Madden et al (2008a) who use an info-gap framework to address the impact of uncertainty in the functional representations of biological systems on conservation decision-making. Furthermore, we highlight the importance of two key elements limiting conservation decision-making - funding and knowledge - and how they interact to influence the best management strategy for a threatened species. Copyright © ASCE 2011.

Submission on the Hawke Interim Review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth)

There are currently no regulatory mechanisms, laws or policies that specifically provide rights to Indigenous peoples over their Indigenous knowledge and intellectual property. We strongly recommend that the commonwealth take the lead to ensure that national sui generis laws are developed (perhaps to operate initially in areas of Cth jurisdiction, such as IPAs and national parks). The development of such laws should be in tandem with practical guidelines to assist their implementation. A comprehensive, nationally consistent scheme for access to genetic resources, which offers meaningful protection of traditional knowledge and substantive benefit-sharing with Indigenous communities, has to be developed. There are already a range of reports/resources that urge these same reforms and that we direct the Enquiry to again; these include the Voumard Report (2000) – especially Fourmile’s Appendix 10 – “Indigenous Interests”, and Terri Jankes “Our Culture, Our Future (1998).

Luonto, tiede ja teknologia : Kansanvalistuksen Suomi-kuva 1870-1920

Nature, science and technology. The image of Finland through popular enlightenment texts 1870-1920 This doctoral thesis looks at how Finnish popular enlightenment texts published between 1870 and 1920 took part in the process of forming a genuine Finnish national identity. The same process was occurring in other Nordic countries at the time and the process in Finland was in many ways influenced by them, particularly Sweden. In Finland the political realities under Russian rule especially during the Russification years, and the fact that its history was considered to be short compared to other European countries, made this nation-building process unique. The undertaking was led by members of the national elite, influential in the cultural, academic as well as political arenas, who were keen to support the foundation of a modern Finnish identity. The political realities and national philosophy of history necessitated a search for elements of identity in nature and the Finnish landscape, which were considered to have special national importance: Finland was very much determined as a political entity on the basis of its geography and nature. Nature was also used as means of taking a cultural or political view in terms of, for example, geographical facts such as the nation s borders or the country s geographical connections to Western Europe. In the building of a proper national identity the concept of nature was not, however, static, but was more or less affected by political and economic progress in society. This meant that nature, or the image of the national landscape, was no longer seen only as a visual image of the national identity, but also as a source of science, technology and a prosperous future. The role of technology in this process was very much connected to the ability to harness natural resources to serve national interests. The major change in this respect had occurred by the early 20th century, when indisputable scientific progress altered the relationship between nature and technology. Concerning technology, the thesis is mainly interested in the large and at the time modern technological manifestations, such as railways, factories and industrial areas in Finland. Despite the fact that the symbiosis between national nature and international but successfully localized technology was in Finnish popular enlightenment literature depicted mostly as a national success story, concerns began to arise already in last years of the 19th century. It was argued that the emerging technology would eventually destroy Finland s natural environment, and therefore the basis of its national identity. The question was not how to preserve nature through natural science, but more how to conserve such natural resources and images that were considered to be the basis of national identity and thus of the national history. National parks, isolated from technology, and distant enough so as to have no economic value, were considered the solution to the problem. Methodologically the thesis belongs to the genre of science and technology studies, and offers new viewpoints with regard to both the study of Finnish popular enlightenment literature and the national development process as a whole.

A review of current knowledge of the weedy species Themeda quadrivalvis (grader grass)

This review of grader grass (Themeda quadrivalvis) attempts to collate current knowledge and identify knowledge gaps that may require further research. Grader grass is a tropical annual grass native to India that is now spread throughout many of the tropical regions of the world. In Australia, it has spread rapidly since its introduction in the 1930s and is now naturalised in the tropical areas of Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia and extends south along the east coast to northern New South Wales. It is a vigorous grass with limited palatability, that is capable of invading native and improved pastures, cropping land and protected areas such as state and national parks. Grader grass can form dense monocultures that reduce biodiversity, decrease animal productivity and increase the fire hazard in the seasonally dry tropics. Control options are based on herbicides, grazing management and slashing, while overgrazing appears to favour grader grass. The effect of fire on grader grass is inconclusive and needs to be defined. Little is known about the biology and impacts of grader grass in agricultural and protected ecosystems in Australia. In particular, information is needed on soil seed bank longevity, seed production, germination and growth, which would allow the development of management strategies to control this weedy grass.

An analysis of Nigerian freshwater fishes: those under threat and conservation options

The study assessed qualitatively the threat status of all nigerian freshwater fishes using such criteria as rarity, size at maturity, mode of reproduction, human population density, habitat degradation, pollution and range of each species among others. The biology of 48% (129n) of nigerian freshwater species is not well known. Of the 266 known freshwater fishes, 47 species represented 17% are critically endangered, 15 (5%) are endangered , 8(3%), are vulnerable while 23(8%) are near threatened. The paper suggests increased basic knowledge of threatened species and conservation policy along three lines public awareness, legislation and creation of national parks, aquaria and reserves as measures needed to ensure the conservation of the fishes