Patrick Impero Wilson

Preservation versus motorized recreation: Institutions, history, and public lands management

Abstract The management of the public lands in the United States has been shaped by the long-running conflict between environmental and utilitarian values. Recently, changing social expectations have increased demand for motorized recreational use and access. Critics contend such use of the public lands is a threat to their ecological health. Yet even as motorized use draws increased scrutiny and challenge, some commentators conclude that the battle is already over—and recreational users have won. This article focuses attention on the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service and contends they are predisposed as institutions to favor demands for motorized recreational use and access. It concludes that what is needed is an explanation that seeks to place motorized recreational use in a historical and institutional context that offers a more complete understanding of why such users might be winning the battle.

Deficit reduction as causal story: strategic politics and welfare state retrenchment

Abstract In 1993, the Government of Alberta, facing continued budget deficits and increasing public debt, announced a multibillion dollar reduction in social welfare expenditures that included large cuts to health care and education, and the elimination of thousands of public sector jobs. This article examines the Alberta government’s attempts to overcome the often daunting challenge of effecting sizable reductions in social welfare expenditures. It explores how the government employed a number of political strategies in an effort to limit potential opposition to its retrenchment policies. The article argues the government was able to achieve its goals because it controlled the debate on the cause and potential consequences of deficit spending and government debt. This allowed the government to define problems and issues in terms that most suited its goal of restructuring the provincial welfare state. The conclusion notes that the Alberta experience offers an opportunity to add to the limited but growing literature on subnational social policy retrenchment.

Barriers to collaborative forest management and implications for building the resilience of forest-dependent communities in the Ashanti region of Ghana

Community resilience, the capacity of a community to adapt to change in ways that result in positive impacts on its well-being, is increasingly used as a framework for understanding and enhancing the sustainability of forest-dependent communities as social-ecological systems. However, studies linking community resilience to the implementation of forest management programs are limited. This study uses community resilience literature and analyzes data collected from interviews to study barriers of forest-dependent communities of collaborative forest management (CFM) in two forest-dependent communities in the Ashanti region of Ghana. Analysis revealed the barriers in community response to CFM programs in these two communities comprise institutional shortfalls in the design and implementation of the CFM program that have constrained the incentives, capacity and opportunities for communities to successfully adapt to the program. The paper offers recommendations on how the CFM program can contribute to building the resilience of communities in managing their forests. The first is to build institutional capacity of communities to play an active role in forest governance, and the second is the prioritization of well-being and livelihood enhancement as forest management goals.

Deregulating Endangered Species Protection

Species conservation has become an increasingly vexing challenge for U.S. policymakers. As Congress debates, once again, amending the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to incorporate a number of reforms, there are numerous actors seeking to protect or challenge various elements of the act. The premise of this article is that ESA reform can be understood more fully in the context of the larger trend of regulatory reform. The article examines recent efforts to incorporate into the ESA a greater emphasis on economic considerations and to reconfigure its participatory elements. It speculates on the need for more refined explanations of the politics of species conservation.

The Politics of Concrete: Institutions, Infrastructure, and Water Policy

The control of most of Earths freshwater resources with millions of tons of concrete underpins the modern world. This concrete is the physical manifestation of historical political choices about the use and value of ecosystem benefits, the context for current management challenges, and the point of departure for decisions on the future of water resources. Water resource systems, despite the emphasis on the engineered marvels that grab our attention, are perhaps best understood as a set of interconnected political calculations. This article examines the purpose of infrastructure in social–ecological systems and the importance of history and institutional permanence. It explores the political effects of water system infrastructure, the potential redistributive consequences of climate change, and why policy regimes and institutional arrangements will prove resistant to change.

Beyond zero-sum: game theory and national forest management

Abstract Following two decades of bitter struggle, the current debate over management of the U.S. national forests is characterized by animosity, controversy, and seemingly intractable gridlock. This view has led some to characterize the current management process a situation of pure conflict or a zero-sum game. In this article, we develop a game-theoretic model based on an argument that national forest policymaking is a game between the U.S. National Forest Service and Environmentalists and that this game is not zero-sum. The model is used to account for outcomes associated with contemporary management policy and to examine some recent changes to the games rules and how this may affect outcomes. The analysis shows that some changes will have little to no effect on outcomes, while others have a significant potential to do so.

Forward to the Past: Wolves in the Northern Rockies and the Future of ESA Politics

As the 30th birthday of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) passes and the act moves toward middle age, it is possible to discern a new generation of ESA-related issues. One of these is the management of the small number of species that have recovered or will recover to the point where they can be delisted. The delisting of some species raises two important questions that are the focus of this article. First, how will the delisting of species affect the relationship between state governments and the federal government? Second, how will state efforts to manage delisted species seek a balance between utilitarian and ecological values? This article examines the planned delisting of the gray wolf in the northern Rocky Mountains and three state management plans (Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming). It argues that the compromises entailed in these management plans suggest a sense of the future direction of the politics of species conservation.

Commentary: The Clark Fork Settlement: Collaboration, Consensus, and Hydropower Project Relicensing

In 1993, in an attempt to avoid the traditional lengthy, costly, and often controversial process of relicensing hydropower projects, Avista Corporation initiated a novel collaborative approach that brought together a number of disparate actors to craft a consensus relicensing application. The companys interest in a cooperative settlement was driven by continuing changes in the economic, political, and regulatory environment of relicensing. Over the last three decades various regulatory actors have placed a greater emphasis on environmental protection, increased competition in the electricity industry, and opened the relicensing process to new participants. There were three primary issues in the settlement discussions: the level of funding Avista would commit to environmental mitigation, species protection and habitat restoration, and the future operation of hydropower projects. The negotiated settlement provides the company with a degree of cost and regulatory certainty, while environmental organizations and government wildlife agencies gain an accelerated time-frame for mitigation and protection activities and a secure funding commitment. The Clark Fork settlement is evidence that negotiated compromises to relicensing applications may in certain circumstances become an effective means to balance economic and environmental values.

Deregulation and natural gas trade relationships: lessons from the Alberta-California experience

In 1978 the US government moved to deregulate the American natural gas industry. The market changes that resulted from this initial step took time to ripple their way out to regional and subnational gas trading relationships. This ripple effect required subnational governments (state and provincial regulators) to rethink their gas regulatory policies. This article examines the restructuring of the Alberta-California gas trade. It explores how changes in US policy forced California and Alberta regulators to recast their policies. It concludes with several lessons that can be drawn from this case about the complex challenge of restructuring international gas trading relationships.

Riparian area protection and outdoor recreation: lessons from the Northwest Forest Plan.

Abstract The Northwest Forest Plan required the US Forest Service (USFS) to shift its management focus to ecological values rather than the utilitarian ones that had dominated forest policy in the region. This article examines the effects of this shift on the USFSs historic mission to provide recreational access to the regions forests. Focusing on six national forests, it draws on a series of interviews with USFS personnel to answer two questions that explore the persistence of policies across time and the importance of the implementation stage in shaping outcomes. How did the USFS balance a deeply entrenched, institutionalized history of recreational use against new ecological priorities and habitat protection expectations? What were the effects at the local level on recreational use and access in riparian and other ecologically sensitive areas? The findings indicate that despite greater attention to ecological protection, recreation continues to be a priority.