Private Conservation Archives

Mark Thoma at the Environmental Economics blog points to this NYT article on a major forest conservation deal, and wonders whether the internet's effect on paper prices played a role.

The Supreme Court's Kelo decision provoked outrage in most ideological corners. Environmentalist groups were conspicuously absent from Kelo's critics, however. This was surprising, as the unconstrained use of eminent domain to promote economic development poses significant risks to environmental conservation, or so Ilya Somin and I argue in "The Green Costs of Kelo: Economic Development Takings and Environmental Protection. A draft of the paper is now available on SSRN here. The abstract is below.
UPDATE: Ilya's also blogged on our study at the Volokh Conspiracy here.

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The National Center for Public Policy Research and Capital Research Center held a briefing on the Endangered Species Act on Capitol Hill today.

The National Center issued this press release afterward:

"Improve the ESA by Protecting Private Property Rights" Say Panelists at Capitol Hill Briefing on the Endangered Species Act

Washington, D.C. - At a standing room-only briefing on Capitol Hill today, several leading policy organizations advised that strong property rights protections should be included in any Endangered Species Act reform effort.

The lunch briefing was sponsored by The National Center for Public Policy Research and the Capital Research Center.

Pointing out that over 99 percent of the species listed as endangered or threatened under the ESA have failed to recover, and the devastation the Act has inflicted on private property owners, regional economies and public works projects, panelists at the event stressed that protecting property rights would not only bring relief to American landowners, but would also better protect species.

"While the Endangered Species Act has failed miserably at saving rare plants and animals, it has excelled in making life miserable for many in the human population," said Peyton Knight, director of environmental and regulatory affairs for the National Center, and a panelist.

"ESA-related costs are paid in an inequitable way," added Knight. "Although Congress determined in 1973 that the preservation of endangered species was in the interest of the U.S. as a whole, Congress did not arrange for the nation as a whole to bear the costs of recovery. Instead, these costs are largely borne by the private landowners on whose property rare species are found, regardless of the ability of any particular landowner to bear these costs."

Approximately 90 percent of all endangered or threatened species habitat is found on non-federally owned land.

The ESA's structure works against its success. The law pits species against landowners -- often the very owners of the land on which rare species live. This adversarial relationship works against the interests of both and often is referred to as the "perverse incentive" problem within the Act, because those who harbor endangered species on their property, or merely own land suitable as habitat for such species, can find themselves subject to crippling land use restrictions. To avoid such restrictions and the losses in property values that accompany them, some landowners choose to preemptively sterilize their land to keep rare species away.

"The ESA is bad for people and bad for species. Leading environmentalists, federal and state wildlife officials, and defenders of property rights have all agreed that the ESA is destructive of wildlife and habitat because its perverse incentives -- penalizing good private stewardship -- cause private landowners to be fearful of protecting endangered species," said panelist R.J. Smith, National Center Senior Fellow.

"There has been wide agreement on this for over a decade. Yet few in Congress have demonstrated the courage and statesmanship to cut through this Gordian Knot and reform the ESA so that it will actually protect endangered species by protecting landowners. It's time for a change," added Smith.

The panel, which, in addition to Peyton Knight and R.J. Smith from The National Center for Public Policy Research, included Terrence Scanlon and David Hogberg of the Capital Research Center and Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, agreed that, at a minimum, the "perverse incentives" problem should be addressed. This can be done by fairly compensating property owners who lose the right to use their land due to restrictions under the Endangered Species Act.

"If the government takes a person's land to build a highway, the property owner is compensated," said Knight. "If the government takes the use of a person's land to protect a rare species, however, the property owner is not compensated. This inequity must be addressed."

Last year, the House of Representatives approved an Endangered Species Act reform bill that promises to provide such restitution to landowners. The Senate has yet to put forward any comparable measure.

The National Center for Public Policy Research is a non-partisan, non-profit educational foundation founded in 1982 and based in Washington, D.C.

CNN has a poll going at the moment over whether the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center in Atlanta should remain independently run or should be sold to the National Park Service. Just over half of respondents would rather see the center remain independent. The King family is equally divided. Two of King's children are worried that ownership by the federal government would compromise the center's independent voice and water down Dr. King's message of social justice.

As one model, the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association does a wonderful job of maintaining George Washington's Mount Vernon estate in the private sector.

Commercial production of chestnuts is increasing. This could contribute the revival of the American chestnut. The AP reports here. There's more on the American Chestnut Foundation, the non-profit leading the way for chestnut recovery, here.

In his initial post on the hunting rights purchase in Canada, Chris Bruce over at Environmental Economics commented:

This kind of purchase is exactly what Ronald Coase discussed in in his famous 1960 article in the Journal of Law and Economics. Of course, although the Society is trumpeting their success as the opening of a brave new world in environmental activism, the fact that economists have been discussing this possibility for 45 years leads one to suspect that the problems Coase foresaw - the diffculty of raising funds due to the free rider problem and the substantial administrative costs - have had a significant damping effect on this form of "free market environmentalism."

But in the 45 years to which Chris refers, the federal and state governments subsidized a great deal of habitat preservation through both direct purchases with the Land and Water Conservation Fund, increased wilderness designations, and regulatory frameworks such as the Endangered Species Act. The government efforts most certainly created two incentives that made private, Coasean transactions much more difficult over the period.

First of all, most private citizens were probably less willing to contribute to environmental organizations when they figured their tax dollars and user fees in the form of duck stamps were already providing environmental amenities. With that bundle of goods well-provided, they were more likely to donate to goods not provided by the state, such as the great amount of money contributed to churches and synagogues. Second, environmental groups that did receive funds found it best to spend their money on the political process to influence the extensive dollars already being leveraged for governmental action rather than spending their money on purchasing habitat directly.

The increased reliance on direct purchases seen in the 1990s and 2000s can likely be traced to disgruntlement with government, a desire to see effects occuring more locally where private purchases are more successful, and finally the lag period between Coase's ideas gaining ground, making their way into educational programs, and the students of those programs finally working their ways into positions of power where they are able to implement new methods.

Finally, just because the group is trumpeting their method as a new way in Canada does not mean that it hasn't been occurring regularly in the United States for some time. The Nature Conservancy and local land trusts have been relying on Coasean bargaining for the entirety of their existence. Their success may have been unheralded over that time, but it certainly wasn't nonexistant.

As I am sure Mr. Bruce is aware, Coase certainly understood the administrative costs and free rider problem of the private sector, but he was not certain that those costs and that free rider problem were not equally or even more prevalent in government.

Jon Christensen is blogging up a storm from the White House Conference on Cooperative Conservation in St. Louis at his blog, The Uneasy Chair. I don't have time to summarize all the posts, but among the highlights are an interview with Lynn Scarlett and this post on the Walla Walla Way. I also really liked this post on how on-the-ground conservationists and free-market types are responding to the White House "cooperative conservation" initiatives (excerpted below).

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G. Tracy Mehan discusses conservative and market-oriented approaches to environmental philanthropy here.

Jonathan's post below reminded me of an interview that I did with the man who protected Grandfather Mountain from a federal road plan that would have destroyed much of the mountain to build the Blue Ridge Parkway. Hugh Morton, who recently stepped down as President of Grandfather Mountain, debated the head of the National Park Service Conrad Worth back in 1957 about the proposed road. His quote that the federal road plan would be like ""taking a switch blade to the Mona Lisa" saved the mountain as it made headlines across North Carolina and a different route was eventually laid.

The interview with Morton covers both that fight and explains how his private reserve is managed compared to nearby lands, in particular the Great Smokies National Park. All in all, I came away from the interview and from my visit to Grandfather Mountain with the distinct impression that the private preserve was managed even better than the nearby National Park for both visitors and environmental amenities. But judge for yourself.

Is environmentalism becoming more hospitable to property rights? I think so. In a new draft paper, "Back to the Future of Conservation: Changing Perceptions of Property Rights and Environmental Protection," I try and make the case that the modern environmental movement was initially quite hostile to property rights, but has started to warm to property over time, largely due to practical realities. The abstract is below.

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John Whitehead blogs on his planned visit to Grandfather Mountain, a great example of private conservation in action.

Good fences don't just make for good neighbors, they make for good conservation as shown by this article in today's New York Times . (Free registration required to read.) Imagine how much more difficult Afri-cat's mission of protecting cheetahs in Namibia would be without a fence around its 10,000 acres.

The American Chestnut used to be among the dominant tree species in the eastern United States. No longer. Blight virtually eliminated the American Chestnut. Fortunately, the American Chestnut Foundation is working to breed a blight-resistant variety so the tree can be reintroduced to eastern forests. Ronald Bailey has more on the ACF here.

I've just discovered that Elizabeth Brubaker's Property Rights in the Defence of Nature is now available on-line here. Brubaker, who works for Canada's Environment Probe, makes a compelling case that property rights were, and can be, an effective means of environmental protection. Her book chronicles the history, and erosion, of property-based pollution protection in Canada. The U.S. experience was similar, albeit not identical. Nonetheless, there are many important lessons for property-based approach to environmental protection.

Late night forays to watch sea turtles lay their eggs are drawing increasing crowds. One particular section of the CNN story drew my eye:

For a fee of $5 for adults and $2.50 children, visitors only get a chance to spot the finicky creatures during a three-hour tour that ends at midnight. There are no guarantees.

Marine curator Larry Wood says the odds of spotting a turtle are no better than having success during a night of fishing. But locals and tourists line up on sweltering summer nights for a spot on the tour.

Maybe they should start charging a little more instead of relying so much on queuing. Get a few more dollars for the turtles.

Pat Burns of Nature Noted, the only blog devoted to discussing land trusts, summarizes the current controversy over the activities of large trusts like The Nature Conservancy on Grist Mill. (There's even more coverage on Nature Noted itself.)

For academic takes on land trusts, in theory and practice, it's worth checking out this issue of the Natural Resources Journal, which contains a PERC-sponsored symposium on "Legal and Economic Issues in Land Conservation."

The Senate Finance Committee has been taking a real hard look at the activities of non-profits, including conservation organizations. Yesterday, the Washington Post reported on the committee's just-released report on The Nature Conservancy. The statement of Comittee Chairman Senator Grassley can be found here.

One of the great success stories of free market environmentalism has been the activities of British angling clubs, who have been jealously protecting their right to fish in clean rivers since 1948. The Guardian has a good story on the success of the Anglers' Conservation Association today, something that also points out how much more successful the Anglers have been than the UK government's Environment Agency in conserving the rivers:

"We're very distinct from the Environment Agency [EA]," says Mark Lloyd, director of the ACA. "When fish kills are reported to the agency's hotline, it will invest resources and expertise to investigate the incident and bring a prosecution under criminal law. The fines are usually low, about £15,000, and go straight to the government for lighting streets or running hospitals. Any money raised from fines does not go back to the rivers.

"The ACA may follow the EA on a case, but we seek and win damages through the civil courts where we have to prove 51% probability - not 'reasonable doubt'. These damages are much greater than fines, and the money all goes back to fishing clubs for restoring rivers. We've had some big wins, like £450,000 following a pollution incident on the river Eden in Cumbria in 1999. It was used to set up the Eden Rivers Trust, which has generated millions to restore and manage this beautiful river."

In fact, the ACA is currently suing the Environment Agency for damage to its fish to the tune of about $800,000.

This all works because anglers pay for the right to fish and the law of nuisance compensates them for damage to the value of that property. The laws of economics and enlightened self-interest take care of the rest.

I recently received notice of a paper on integrated river basin management that sounds quite interesting. It discusses the Fraser Basin Council, "a nongovernmental, multi-stakeholder, consensus-based approach to river basin management in the Fraser River basin in Canada." The full paper is available on SSRN. The abstract follows.

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Too often environmental policy discussions assume that the only way to advance environmental values is to create a government program or adopt new regulations. The potential for private initiative to conserve environmental treasures is overlooked. Yet where private action is viable, it is often superior to government efforts. Private preserves are generally better maintained than government parks and, where it's been tried, conservation through commerce has been more successul than the species protectionism embodied in the Endangered Species Act.

A new report, Conservation through Private Initiative: Harnessing Amerian Ingenuity to Preserve Our Nation's Resources, by my good friend (and sometimes Commons Blog contributor) Michael DeAlessi illustrates the above point, and suggests that private efforts have the added advantage of diffusing conflict. Whereas politics often produces a zero-sum game, voluntary initiatives can produce true win-win scenarios.

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The deadline for applying for a paid fellowship with the Kinship Conservation Institute is Tuesday, Feb. 1.
KCI will be inviting 18 conservationists to participate in a month-long, in-residence fellowship in Bozeman, Montana, from May 31 to June 30, 2005. Each fellow is awarded a $4,500 stipend, room and board to participate in KCI 2005.
KCI is a unique training opportunity to spend a month focusing on one environmental problem that your organization needs to resolve and come up with a market-based solution.
We are looking for early- to mid-career conservation leaders who would benefit from a better understanding of how to apply market approaches to environmental problems.
The KCI Web site, www.kinshipconservationinstitute.org offers details about the program such as curriculum, faculty, past fellows, application requirements, etc.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. Also, if you know of anyone else who may be interested in applying, please pass on the Web site link to them.

Folks interested in the rise of land trusts should check out Nature Noted, an environmental blog focused on land trusts and other related conservation issues.

For anyone doing research on how changing technology might impact the way we look at environmental problems, Dan Esty from the Yale School of Forestry and the Yale Law School has a piece in the N.Y.U. Law Review on how information technology will change environmental regulation.

Most of his piece focusses on improving government regulation of environmental issues, but much of the material can be used to illustrate the coming opportunities for increased environmental stewardship through common law protection of property rights.

A dolphin at the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium lost most of her tail due to a mysterious disease. Yet now the dolphin is jumping again thanks to a new artificial tail fin. It took several designs before Bridgestone eventually made a fin that was secure and light enough for the dolphin to use. The Japanese tire maker spent an estiamted $95,000 on the effort. According to one aquarium representative, "We are very grateful. Although she can swim without the artificial fin, the speed is very slow and she certainly cannot jump without it."

A Better Earth has printed a piece of mine about a wonderful fishing/ranching operation in Belgrade, Montana, that is demonstrating how environmental stewardship can be tied to profitability.

The story of the Milesnicks is given in better detail in the book that I co-authored with Clay Landry for Purdue University Press: Ecological Agrarian.

I live in the Sourdough Creek watershed, just south of Bozeman, Montana. This mix of federal, state, and private lands is highly valued -- as a recreation spot for city residents, for its wildlife habitat, and as one of Bozeman’s primary sources of drinking water.

The watershed’s forests and soils are a natural filter for the melting winter snowpack. This work is performed for free. It’s an example of one of the many services nature provides us, at no monetary cost. Can we put a price on ecosystem services like those provided by the Sourdough Creek watershed? Should we?

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Wallace Kaufman’s book Coming Out of the Woods (Perseus 2000) is a realistic account of attempts to preserve some rural land in the US south through the use of covenants. It is completely without the romanticism evident in the column by George Monbiot posted by Iain yesterday. Kaufman wrestles with a lot of down-and-dirty issues in trying preserve his land and is honest and open about his failures as well as his successes. You can order Kaufman's book through Amazon. My review of it, along with other private conservation literature, will eventually be out in a symposium on private conservation in the Natural Resources Journal, whose home page is here. I'll post about that again when it is available.

The federal Superfund program often discourages private cleanups of hazardous waste and chemical contamination. Yesterday, the New York Times reported on an alliance between Trout Unlimited, the Snowbird ski resort, and Tiffany & Company to clean up acidic mine runoff at American Fork Canyon in Utah. The U.S. Forest Service is also involved, largely because some of the contamination is on federal land. It's an interesting story about a largely private effort to address a neglected environmental concern.

Residents of a tiny former gold mining town of La Grange, who have fought for three years to protect their water rights held since the goldrush, are bracing for a hike that could exceed a hundredfold. The fading town of 67 households may be forced to pay water treatment costs for the first time under a judge's recent ruling and lose their water rights altogether. The details can be read in the LA Times. This move poses a threat especially to conservationists. The concept of rights in pepetuity are central to many of the more successful conservation efforts, where individuals and groups band together and purchase land to protect significant eco-systems--but if 'in perpetuity' no longer means 'for ever' those conservation efforts become temporary at best.

The picture in the top left corner of you newly redesigned site Natural Bridge of Virginia. Natural Bridge is one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Since the nation's founding it has also been protected and conserved through private ownership, not government regulation or public control. At one point, it was even owned by Thomas Jefferson. For more on the history and conservation of Natural Bridge, see this case study by noted conservation scholar R.J. Smith.

State Farm Insurance is telling those in the wildland-urban interface to engage in some preemptive protection for wildfires or risk losing their insurance.

State Farm Insurance is telling those in the wildland-urban interface to engage in some preemptive protection for wildfires or risk losing their insurance.

The National Center for Public Policy Research's David Almasi on lawn care:

Want a quick example of how private property rights are the best way to protect the environment? Look out at your front yard.

I just returned from a 10-day vacation. One of the last things I did before I left home was cut the grass. Within an hour of returning home, I was back out cutting the grass -- this time in 90-degree heat. I was also pulling weeds, planting vegetable seedlings in the garden. I then made arrangements for a professional service to come and do some fertilizer treatments. As I worked, three of my neighbors were also mowing. We all want to be proud of our lawns and not be a nuisance to others.

Compare this to what I see on my commute to and from work. On one major road, the grass on the median strip is so high that I almost cannot see the oncoming traffic. While the grass is high in the median, the weeds are even higher and now in full bloom. Along the Washington Beltway, weeds and grasses are over waist-high. Who's in charge of cutting and tending to these areas? The government.

Take this beyond my yard and my commute. Local governments, state governments and the federal government own a huge amount of land -- so much that they cannot adequately take care of it all. Homeowners, ranchers and businesses that own property, however, manage their property for reasons of pride and profit and most often go the extra mile to make sure that their land does not go fallow or cause harm. With government, neglect is often a write-off. It's also inconsistent. In the Washington area, a homeowner can be fined for not mowing, raking leaves or shoveling snow. If the government is lax in it's groundskeeping, well...

Private ownership: pride and attention. Government ownership: the potential for neglect. Any questions?