Find Your Chesapeake
July 29, 2015
To provide observations and information on the emerging fields of landscape scale conservation, heritage preservation, and sustainable community development.
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Overshadowed by the controversy over shrinking the size of national monuments that protect large swaths of the United States’ western landscapes, is a parallel effort to change the protected status of the nation’s marine resources. While all eyes have been focused on Department of the Interior, the Department of Commerce has been preparing its own report on the future of marine national monuments and national marine sanctuaries. The report is not yet public, but could impact a broad area of the nation’s off shore real estate.
Re-reading Edward Abbey’s 1968 classic Desert Solitaire, brought some new revelations beyond his lyric descriptions of the desert landscape and sketches of its memorable characters. The book offers some predictions and recommendations for the future of western rivers, National Parks and wilderness. So what were three of his most compelling observations?
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) with 247 million acres of public land in its portfolio and a multiple use mission that includes leasing authority for grazing, mining, oil and gas drilling as well as recreational activities has a challenging job. And nowhere is the work of BLM more difficult than in making leasing decisions adjacent to our National Parks. To help reduce conflicts between BLM practices and the need to protect park resources, the agency had adopted a landscape scale approach to reviewing proposed leasing known as Master Leasing Plans. But today this strategy may be at risk.
In the conservation world the two faces of nature and culture have become more of a dichotomy than a duality. And yet there is growing recognition that only by taking a more holistic approach can the field address the most urgent issues facing our planet – climate change, urbanization, and the transformations wrought by globalization.Selected reports concerning this nature-culture dialogue are now available in the most recent issue of the George Wright Journal titled “Nature – Culture Journeys: Explorations on Shared Terrain”, the journal shares best practices, insights and examples, as well as personal reflections of the intersections between these two fields.
At every level, conservation practioners labor to understand and balance natural and cultural values at a landscape scale. Globally, this challenge plays out in the push and pull of the World Heritage inscription process. The recent (July 2017) inscription by the World Heritage Committee of the English Lake District highlights some of the challenges and opportunities of attempting to integrate cultural and natural values. There is no question this is a celebrated and iconic landscape, but there have been bumps along the way to gaining World Heritage recognition.
Overshadowed by the controversy over shrinking the size of national monuments that protect large swaths of the United States’ western landscapes, is a parallel effort to change the protected status of the nation’s marine resources. While all eyes have been focused on Department of the Interior, the Department of Commerce has been preparing its own report on the future of marine national monuments and national marine sanctuaries. The report is not yet public, but could impact a broad area of the nation’s off shore real estate.
Re-reading Edward Abbey’s 1968 classic Desert Solitaire, brought some new revelations beyond his lyric descriptions of the desert landscape and sketches of its memorable characters. The book offers some predictions and recommendations for the future of western rivers, National Parks and wilderness. So what were three of his most compelling observations?
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) with 247 million acres of public land in its portfolio and a multiple use mission that includes leasing authority for grazing, mining, oil and gas drilling as well as recreational activities has a challenging job. And nowhere is the work of BLM more difficult than in making leasing decisions adjacent to our National Parks. To help reduce conflicts between BLM practices and the need to protect park resources, the agency had adopted a landscape scale approach to reviewing proposed leasing known as Master Leasing Plans. But today this strategy may be at risk.
In the conservation world the two faces of nature and culture have become more of a dichotomy than a duality. And yet there is growing recognition that only by taking a more holistic approach can the field address the most urgent issues facing our planet – climate change, urbanization, and the transformations wrought by globalization.Selected reports concerning this nature-culture dialogue are now available in the most recent issue of the George Wright Journal titled “Nature – Culture Journeys: Explorations on Shared Terrain”, the journal shares best practices, insights and examples, as well as personal reflections of the intersections between these two fields.
At every level, conservation practioners labor to understand and balance natural and cultural values at a landscape scale. Globally, this challenge plays out in the push and pull of the World Heritage inscription process. The recent (July 2017) inscription by the World Heritage Committee of the English Lake District highlights some of the challenges and opportunities of attempting to integrate cultural and natural values. There is no question this is a celebrated and iconic landscape, but there have been bumps along the way to gaining World Heritage recognition.