Who Controls Public Lands?

224 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 7 tables, notes, bibl., index

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8078-4567-7
Published: March 1996
E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-0-8078-6253-7
Published: November 2000
E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-7838-0
Published: November 2000

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In this historical and comparative study, Christopher McGrory Klyza explores why land-management policies in mining, forestry, and grazing have followed different paths and explains why public-lands policy in general has remained virtually static over time. According to Klyza, understanding the different philosophies that gave rise to each policy regime is crucial to reforming public-lands policy in the future. Klyza begins by delineating how prevailing policy philosophies over the course of the last century have shaped each of the three land-use patterns he discusses. In mining, the model was economic liberalism, which mandated privatization of public lands; in forestry, it was technocratic utilitarianism, which called for government ownership and management of land; and in grazing, it was interest-group liberalism, in which private interests determined government policy. Each of these philosophies held sway in the years during which policy for that particular resource was formed, says Klyza, and continues to animate it even today.

About the Author

Christopher McGrory Klyza is associate professor of political science and director of the program in environmental studies at Middlebury College. He is coeditor of The Future of the Northern Forest.
For more information about Christopher McGrory Klyza, visit the Author Page.

Reviews

"Classic scholarship. . . . Very readable."--Choice

"A fresh analysis that throws considerable light on the underlying forces that make it extremely difficult to reform policies in mining, forestry, and grazing."--Norman Vig, Carleton College