Framing Question
How have communities traditionally dependent on the resource-extraction industries of timber and mining adapted to the modern era of conservation?
Background
Logging, mining, and other resource extraction-dependent communities across the globe have experienced fluctuations in their standards of living (Harris et al., 1998). Many of these communities, having lost their primary source of income and industry due to tightened restrictions and a general transition in the status quo for resource extraction industries, also have diminished resident population sizes. In some cases, otherwise vibrant and healthy towns and cities have all but disappeared. In other cases, communities have exploded from the establishment of a lucrative resource extraction industry, although recent examples of this are few compared to historical trends (Humphries, et al. 2012).
Communities where the primary industry and economy centers around resource extraction activities such as logging, mining, or subsistence have declined in recent decades (Harris et al., 1998). Within those communities, there is often a resentment towards the drivers of this change – often times external influences such as government regulations and non-profit organizations (Fiallo and Jacobson, 1995). This resentment is particularly high in areas where a lucrative resource-extraction industry was diminished and not replaced by another similarly prominent industry, such as the area of southeastern U.S. known as “coal country” (Bell and York, 2010). Residents of this region overwhelmingly supported now president Donald Trump in large part because the candidate supported a return to the coal-dominated economy, and communities across the country representing an array of interests – mining, timber, cattle – are in line with this nostalgia-fueled movement.
In most of these extractive industries though, things have changed. Technological advances invalidate the need for labor-heavy resource extraction methods such as mining for coal by pick and axe. Modern specialized machinery harvest trees many tens of times faster than traditional sawyers, axemen, or even machinery developed in the mid-1900’s. Substitute goods like natural gas have all but outcompeted the more conventional coal power. Countless research shows that timber harvesting leads to habitat fragmentation and subsequently the declines in plant and animal populations like salmon, which represent significant economic contributions to fishing communities (Loomis, 1988). These and a multitude of other factors have contributed to the declines of coal and timber communities across the country, yet often times the residents blame the slew of 1970’s through present-era environmental legislation for regulating and restricting the industries out-of-business.
For most of their histories, the public lands management agencies of the state and federal governments have implemented a top-down approach to navigating the vast matrix of public and private lands in the United States. The land managers had clear goals: maintain resources for specific uses such as timber and resource extraction (national forests), ecological preservation (national wildlife refuges), or visitor recreation and scenery (national parks). In 1960, Congress passed the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act, which paved the way for agencies to begin implementing management strategies with “multiple-use” objectives (Cain et al. 2014, 563-565). Today, each of the four public lands management agencies – the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish & Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, and the Forest Service – has distinct use-objectives while still emphasizing multiple-use for the most part (Congressional Research Service, 2004).
Even with constant efforts to improve land management and cater to all interests, these agencies still encounter conflicts with the public. One of the most significant examples today of public outcry against a land management agency lies in the manifestation of the Northwest Forest Plan (NFP). The Endangered Species Act of 1973 had halted timber harvesting on northwest forests and, in the absence of a substitute industry to fuel local economies, timber-dependent communities and companies protested en masse at Olympia, Washington’s state capital, in 1989. The tense topic held its relevancy and eventually caught the attention of President Bill Clinton, whose administration ordered the creation of what is today the Northwest Forest Plan – a daring public lands management plan that applied “fundamental principles of ecosystem management, conservation biology, and sustainable economics… on a scale never before witnessed in U.S history” (Dellasala and Williams, 2006). The NFP was applicable to lands managed by the Forest Service and BLM that hosted Northern Spotted Owl territory, an area of land that was roughly 10 million hectares.
In the example of the the NFP and others, the crux of the conflict is this question: what use should be most valued in a public land that is labeled as multiple use? In theory, the answer is that no single use is more important than another, but this is painfully idealistic. The NFP is an attempt to balance ecological and economical interests, and while the plan is a substantial improvement over previous single use-focused management strategies, there is mixed opinion on its efficacy to balance multiple interests (Moseley and Yolanda, 2008) (DellaSala et. al, 2013) In some cases, the plan has not contributed to better management, yet in others, there has been a marked improvement in both the ecological, social, and economic conditions of the forest and its nearby communities.
Situated Context
The Pacific Northwest (PNW) is a colloquial term for the region of the United States that encompasses all of Oregon, Washington, and parts of Idaho and Montana. Thanks to its relatively intact landscape, this region contains habitat for many flagship species of interest – spotted owls, marbled murrelets, and salmon, to name a few. Much of this region is publicly owned, either by the state or federal governments, under varying degrees of management ranging from the preservation-minded National Park Service, to the multiple-use mindset of the Forest Service, and everything in between.
Within the PNW, there is a range of artificial environments ranging from rural communities to large, metropolitan areas and everything in between. Thanks to the region’s ecologically productive forests, the PNW naturally developed an enormous timber and logging industry, along with many small to medium-sized communities that were intimately connected with this industry. It is unsurprising then that when the NFP reduced logging activities in the PNW to a fraction of its original form, these timber-dependent communities also declined. From Burns, OR to Colville, WA, today the historically timber-dependent communities of the PNW have changed in shape, size, and identity, yet these changes are not consistent among all communities. Some have disappeared long ago while others have survived and still others have prospered. This naturally brings up these questions:
Research Questions
- How have timber-communities in the PNW adapted to the post-NFP era?
- Why have some timber-communities in the PNW disappeared while others have survived or even prospered in the post-NFP era?
Methodology
- Historical Analysis: Research the histories of resource extraction-dependent communities in Oregon and Washington
- Understand the drivers in the creation (and destruction, if applicable) of these communities
- Economic Analysis: Understand the progression of the prominent industries/economies of these communities
- Emphasis on those communities still existing today
Citations
- Bell, S E., and York, R. 2010. Community Economic Identity: The Coal Industry and Ideology Construction in West Virginia. Rural Sociology. Vol 75(1):111-143.
- Cain, M L., Bowman, W D., Hacker, S D. 2014. Ecology. Sunderland: Sinauer Associates.
- Congressional Research Service. 2004. Federal Land Management Agencies: Background on Land and Resources Management. CRS Report for Congress.
- Fiallo, E A., Jacobson, S K. 1995. Local Communities and Protected Areas: Attitudes of Rural Residents Towards Conservation and Machalilla National Park, Ecuador. Environmental Conservation. Vol 22(3):241-249. doi:10.1017/S037689290001064X
- Harris, C C., McLaughlin, W J., Brown, G. 1998. Rural Communities in the Interior Columbia Basin: How Resilient Are They? Journal of Forestry. Vol 96(3):11-15(5).
- Humphries S., Holmes, T P., Kainer, K., Koury, C G C., Cruz, E., Rocha R de M. 2012. Are community-based forest enterprises in the tropics financially viable? Case studies from the Brazilian Amazon. Ecological Economics. Vol 77:62-73.
- Loomis, John B. 1988. The Bioeconomic Effects of Timber Harvesting on Recreational and Commercial Salmon and Steelhead Fishing: A Case Study of the Siuslaw National Forest. Marine Resources Economics. Vol 5:43-60.
- Moseley, C. and Yolanda, E R. 2008. Forest Restoration and Forest Communities: Have Local Communities Benefited from Forest Service Contracting of Ecosystem Management? Environmental Management. Vol 42:327-343. DOI 10.1007/s00267-008-9116-4
agario private server says
It’s a bit daunting to think of the enormous amount of knowledge I’ve amassed on the topic of salmon conservation in the past three years as a student at Lewis & Clark. I could tell you about every species of salmon that exists, even the ones that don’t exist anymore! I can tell you […]
metin2 pvp serverler says
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
agario games says
Notify me of follow-up comments by email.
Notify me of new posts by email.
Agario Modded says
ARCHIVES OF POSTS BY MONTH & YEAR
December 2017 (1)
November 2017 (5)
October 2017 (5)
September 2017 (1)
May 2017 (3)
April 2017 (2)
mt2.org says
Agario Modded on Unflattening
agario games on Unflattening
getintopc.com on The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell
APK Mirror on Unflattening
ARCHIVES
May 2015
April 2015
CATEGORIES
Uncategorized
Agario play says
Merhabalar,
Bugün sizlere item silme questini paylaşacağız. Ancak burada bahsettiğimiz item silme questi Yaşlı Kadın’dan veya başka npclere eklenmiş sürükle-bırak sistemi ile çalışan ve istenilmeyen veya yere atılamayan itemleri silmeye çalışan quest değildir.
sohbet says
chat chat chatroms cet turkish chat rooms BALİMSOHBET
agario private server says
rver is now easy and convenient.
To play Agario click on the link
Crackslive says
Well this is an awesome article to read about old school communities. You can’t neglect it’s effect in students’ lives.
agario games says
Il gioco si basa sulla gestione strategica dell’ordine di turno e di carte capaci di alterarlo, per sviare i giocatori ed accappararsi quanti più affetti per soddisfare il costo delle proprie carte. Ogni turno un evento imporrà ai giocatori una difficile scelta o una condizione inevitabile, o persino una distruttiva ondata di devastazione psichica da cui dovranno proteggersi preventivamente, decidendo se rischiare accumulando più affetti o accumulando risorse per proteggersi.
fancy text says
עכשיו זה יותר קל לעשות שמות בצורת. עם “טקסט מפואר”.
ogario says
ogario unblocked server
io unblocked says
io unblocked populer io games
agario play says
agario play !
Play Agario says
Hello to everyone from Bangladesh 🙋 .
agario says
In addition to these characters, Azaria’s voiced numerous smaller parts. He told The A.V. Club in 2011, “I say with pride that I’ve done over a hundred voices or something.” But he also admitted in a 2013 interview, “[A]t some point with The Simpsons, I think we did run into like, everything.
ideas essays says
depending on what is considered an old school? old school of the times “The Catcher in the Rye” when the boys separately at school were separately girls, or the old school of the times of Woodstock, when the concept of buling enters for a long time