Posts in Conservation

Are national parks more popular than ever?
Shawn Regan
Fri, 02/20/2015

Last year, America’s national parks received more visits than ever before, according to new data released by the National Park Service. A record-setting 292.8 million people visited national parks in 2014, breaking the earlier park attendance record set back in 1987.

But a lot has changed since 1987. Population has increased considerably, and so have the number of parks. So how do the new visitation numbers compare once we consider these other factors?

The chart above shows national park visitation as a share of the overall U.S. population. Since 1987, U.S. population has increased by approximately 75 million people. Measured on a per capita basis, national park visitation is about 20 percent less than it was in 1987. As a share of the population, park visitation has gradually declined almost ever since.

This decline is even more pronounced once we consider the growth of the National Park System. Since 1980, more than 70 national park units have been added to the National Park System. Yet these additional parks do not seem to be attracting more overall visits per capita.

As the National Park Service prepares to celebrate its centennial in 2016, there is much emphasis being placed on its ability to attract people to parks – especially millennials. Park visitors can play an important role in funding parks in their next century and helping to address the agency’s $12 billion maintenance backlog. But these data suggest that the National Park Service still has much work to do.

Meanwhile, this week President Obama announced the creation of three new national park units using his executive authority under the Antiquities Act.

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Better Bred than Dead
Michael `t Sas-Rolfes
Mon, 11/03/2014
Sable Antelope, one of South Africa's conservation success stories
 
The issue of wildlife breeding raises many interesting questions and concerns. To what extent is breeding intervention a legitimate wildlife conservation tool? Are wildlife breeders interfering with nature and to what extent is this justified? To what extent can we condone modern techniques of genetic manipulation and even potential de-extinction of species using emergent DNA technologies? All these issues revolve around questions of ‘wildness’ and traditional views of conservation, which are increasingly being challenged by the circumstances of the Anthropocene era, in which human activity dominates over nature.
 
Alexander van der Byl may have been South Africa’s first effective wildlife breeder. In 1837, he enclosed an area of around 6,000 acres on his farm ‘Nacht Wacht’ near Bredasdorp to protect a herd of 27 bontebok. Without Mr. van der Byl’s intervention the bontebok would most likely have followed the fate of the blaubok to extinction – the latter species, a smaller relative of the roan and sable antelopes, was exterminated by hunters in the late Eighteenth Century in its natural range in the South-Western Cape.
 
Two other South African examples of species that were reduced to a single population are the Cape mountain zebra and the southern white rhino. In both instances they were initially confined to a single protected area in which their numbers could increase through natural breeding, but subsequent expansions relied on a more strategic approach to establish new genetically viable founder populations in additional areas of suitable natural habitat. Examples include Przewalski’s horse, Père-David’s deer, the American bison, and the Arabian oryx.
 
Whereas wildlife breeding such as van der Byl’s bontebok initiative and white rhino protection in the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Park may have started as a passive activity, the gradual emergence of new technologies that allowed sedation, translocation and other genetic and veterinary interventions has led to an increasingly sophisticated suite of options.
 
Dr. Mark Stanley Price is the former chair of the IUCN’s Reintroductions Specialist Group and played a key role in returning the Arabian oryx to the wild. A recent thought-provoking article he co-authored with David Mallon in the journal Oryx entitled ‘Fall of the Wild’ argues that most animal populations today are subject to some form of human intervention and that rather than question whether they are ‘wild’ it makes more sense to consider simply whether they are ‘lightly’ or ‘intensively’ managed. According to Yolan Friedmann, CEO of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, many large mammal species in South Africa effectively exist under fairly intensive management, especially those that are rare and endangered.
 
Mallon and Stanley Price point out that the question of wildness is not just of theoretical interest, but has practical implications for international agreements such as CITES and the Convention on Biological Diversity, as well as for meeting objectives under national legislation and monitoring by, for example, the IUCN’s Red List. Citing the example of the Arabian oryx, they note that it has been upgraded from ‘extinct’ in the 1970s to merely ‘vulnerable’ in 2011, but that this has drawn criticism, as most animals now survive in fenced enclosures under active management. They share Friedmann’s observation that most South African wildlife ranching takes place in fenced enclosures and note that regarding these situations as ‘non-wild’ would have massive implications for Red-list assessments – requiring some significant changes to existing records.
 
The spectacular growth of South African game numbers since the 1960s is well documented, including the recovery of threatened species such as white rhino, black wildebeest, roan and sable antelope – largely thanks to the efforts of private breeders. Apart from the issue of enclosure, further concerns to conservationists relate to the use of non-native subspecies (e.g. roan and sable from other parts of Africa) and the introduction of species such as nyala and blesbok to areas outside their historical range.
 
This question is especially relevant in Africa, where projected forecasts of human population and economic growth – coupled with needs of food security – suggest that the pressure on wildlife will only intensify. It is also instructive to look at examples of North African antelope species such as the addax, dama gazelle, and scimitar oryx – the “three amigos”. Researching their historical fate in their home ranges in North Africa, one finds that they were mostly exterminated for food by hungry locals during times of civic unrest. Ex situ commercial breeding for trophy hunting in Texas has provided a hedge against extinction for these species, and provides a possible source for re-introduction.
 
White rhinos are being bred in China and there are proposals to move animals to Australia for breeding and safe-keeping. Does this make more conservation sense than applying further intensive and assisted breeding strategies within South Africa? To what extent can we accept that motivations for breeding are not based solely on pure ‘conservation’ goals, but also the commercial potential of tourism viewing, trophy hunting, and production of commodities such as rhino horn?
 
Opinions on such questions will vary widely between animal welfarists, conservationists and commercial wildlife breeders, but there is no doubt that wildlife breeding will continue to play a vital role in both species conservation and the broader South African land-use economy.
 
Check out the original article on pages 22-26 of the full issue (electronic edition at www.wrsa.co.za) for a pictorial guide to the African wildlife discussed in this article.
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PERC Fellow Reappointed to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
Annie Ireland
Wed, 05/21/2014

http://perc.org/staff/brian-yablonski-0PERC fellow Brian Yablonski has been reappointed by Florida Governor Rick Scott to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, marking the beginning of his third five-year term. Yablonski has served on the Commission since 2004 and is currently Vice Chairman. During his service, Yablonski helped the Commission create a strong record of conservation and sound management of Florida's natural resources while expanding opportunites for Floridians to hunt and fish. He is especially enthusiastic about the Commission's efforts to connect Florida's youth with quality outdoor experiences.

Yablonski has been an adjunct fellow with PERC since 2003 and a PERC board member since 2013. He contributes to PERC Reports, advises on public policy, and makes media appearances to bring a free market environmentalist perspective to wildlife issues. He is also the external affairs director for Gulf Power Company. Congratulations, Brian!

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Bringing Bison Back to the Badlands
Annie Ireland
Tue, 03/04/2014

When you think of Badlands National Park, do you picture buffalo roaming the grassy plains and rock expanses? Todd Graham and Jeremy Gingerich do, especially after their consulting company conducted a buffalo feasibility study, which found that the South Unit’s landscape is capable of handling more than 1,000 buffalo. 

The South Unit falls within the Pine Ridge Reservation, home to the Oglala Sioux Tribe. The tribe and the National Park Service (NPS) have proposed legislation to turn this area into the first ever tribal national park, which could increase economic activity and contribute to bison conservation efforts.

In PERC’s latest Case Study, Graham and Gingerich examine what it would take for the potential tribal national park to be established and managed successfully by the tribe and the NPS. PERC’s Terry Anderson warns of past challenges faced by government-to-government management teams, and notes that the tribe may need to move beyond this type of relationship and seek greater independence to truly manage a large buffalo herd well.

To read the full study, click here.

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Celebrating Aldo Leopold's 127th Birthday
Laura Huggins
Thu, 01/09/2014

LeopoldAldo Leopold is considered an icon of the environmental movement―primarily for his call for a heightened environmental consciousness in the form of a “land ethic.”  Leopold writes, if people would learn to “think like a mountain,” they would better understand the complexity of environmental systems and could better conserve them.  Developing such a consciousness is obviously difficult; hence many environmentalists call for interim command-and-control policies to force the heightened consciousness.  Overtime, Leopold’s land ethic inadvertently became an integral part of the foundation for today’s environmental regulations.

Yet, Leopold was one of the first to raise concerns over the problems inherent in centralized natural resource management.  In “The Round River” Leopold uses a story about his bird dog named Gus to point out problems with the progressive conservation of the time. When Gus couldn’t find pheasants he became excited about meadowlarks.  This “whipped-up zeal for unsatisfactory substitutes masked the dog’s failure to find the real thing,” which temporarily calmed the dog’s inner frustration.  He goes on to explain that he did not know which dog in the field caught the first scent of the meadowlark, but he did know that “every dog performed an enthusiastic backing-point.”

The meadowlark symbolized “the idea that if the private landowner won’t practice conservation, let’s build a bureau to do it for him.” Like the meadowlark, this substitute has some positive points and often smells like success. The problem is, however, “it contains no device for preventing good private land from becoming poor public land.  There is trouble in the assuagement of honest frustration; it helps us forget we have not yet found a pheasant.”  He concludes by cautioning the reader to be leery of the belief that government will fix “whatever ails the land.”

During the depth of the Great Depression, Leopold increasingly emphasized the importance of personal stewardship of the private landowner.  In a major address, “Conservation Economics” found in The Essential Aldo Leopold, he formulated his ideas on private stewardship by critiquing the effectiveness of conservation through public ownership and governmental agencies.  He described conservation “experts” working at cross purposes and suggested that economic incentives might reward good stewardship by private individuals.

Toward the end of his career, ownership norms and economic incentives played a decreasing role in his writings as he spent more time focusing on ethical obligations.  Yet, even as he submitted his land ethic to the public, he wore the hat of the private property owner planting trees around his “shack” in Wisconsin.

Leopold was ahead of his time in coming to the realization that incentives are more effective when they come in the form of the market carrot rather than the regulatory stick.  Writing at a time when New Deal policies were at their zenith, Leopold was skeptical that federal conservation programs would achieve their stated aims.  As he might have predicted, agricultural subsides led to more intensive farming using more water, fertilizer, and pesticides—all with adverse environmental consequences.  Subsidies were hardly the kind of “rewards” that Leopold had in mind.

Aldo Leopold is admired by environmentalists for his “thinking like a mountain,” and by environmental entrepreneurs for his “conservation economics.”  Putting these two together allows us to move beyond environmental regulation to achieve practical solutions through free market environmentalism.  As he wrote so eloquently in “Land Pathology,”

“Conservation means harmony between man and land.  When land does well for its owner; and the owner does well by his land; when both end up better by reason of partnership, we have conservation. When one or the other grows poorer, we do not.”

For more on Aldo Leopold and the roots of conservative environmentalism check out “It’s Aldo, Not Teddy” in Greener Than Thou by Terry Anderson and Laura E. Huggins. 

Originally posted from Conserve Fewell

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Innovation Overcomes Scarcity: Nickel Pig Iron Edition
Reed Watson, Greg Sauer
Tue, 12/10/2013

What does “nickel pig iron” have to do with free market environmentalism? It provides an excellent example of how markets and, in particular, rising commodity prices spur innovation and resource conservation.

This recent article from the Wall Street Journal describes how nickel, a metal used to make stainless steel, became increasingly scarce in recent years. The price peaked in 2007 at $50,000 per metric ton, up from $10,000 just a few years earlier. Responding to the scarcity, Chinese entrepreneurs figured out how to substitute a lower-grade nickel known as “nickel pig iron” in the steel manufacturing process. As a result, the price of nickel plummeted to $14,000 per metric ton, and China became a leading nickel producer.

Nickel pig iron is just one example of how innovation overcomes scarcity. Despite claims to the contrary the world is not running out of resources amid rapid population growth. As a resource become scarcer, the price increase motivates entrepreneurs to use less and find substitutes. This phenomenon, perhaps best demonstrated by the Simon-Ehrlich wager, is worth remembering anytime someone claims China’s demand for natural resources will exhaust supplies.  

But markets only promote resource conservation when prices reflect actual resource scarcity. Government intervention into the marketplace, in the form of taxes and subsidies, distorts market prices and garbles the scarcity message for everything from water to energy.

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Conservatives and Environmental Regulation
Jonathan Adler
Thu, 10/03/2013

There is fairly broad opposition to centralized environmental regulation within the Republican Party today.  Conservative activists in particular focus their ire on the Environmental Protection Agency and federal efforts to maintain or enhance environmental quality.  It was not always so.  The American conservation movement has roots on the right side of the political spectrum and much of today’s environmental architecture was erected under Republican leadership.  President Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act and created the Environmental Protection Agency while President Bush (41) supported and signed the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, the most expansive (and expensive) piece of environmental legislation to date.  Today Republicans in Congress are fairly united in their opposition to using the 1990 Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases.

Judith Layzer’s Open for Business: Conservatives’ Opposition to Environmental Regulation chronicles the rise of anti-regulatory conservatism. I review Layzer’s book in the Summer issue of The New Atlantis. As Layzer notes, the fervor anti-regulatory sentiment on the political right has not been matched by a commitment to developing alternative approaches to environmental protection. Indeed, it seems that many conservatives are content to accept that regulatory stringency and expansiveness is a sound proxy for environmental protectiveness. This is one reason that anti-regulatory conservatism has not been particularly successful politically.

Anti-regulatory rhetoric may be pervasive, but federal environmental regulation has continued to expand, under Democratic and Republican presidents alike. Anti-regulatory conservatives have been able to stem the tide of regulatory initiatives, but only for a time. The failure to develop and advance non-regulatory alternatives to environmental problems has compromised efforts to constrain the EPA’s regulatory authority. There are plenty of Americans who are suspicious of federal regulation, but they nonetheless prefer federal environmental regulation to no environmental protection at all.

The failure of anti-regulatory conservatism is on display in the current fight over federal regulation of greenhouse gases. House Republicans oppose such regulation (and for good reason), but they have not put forward any alternatives (and many refuse to accept that climate change could be a problem). Nonetheless, federal regulation of GHGs marches on. The EPA just proposed another set of rules last month. Blanket opposition to federal GHG regulation failed to prevent (or even appreciably slow) such regulation, and time is running out. As GHG emission controls get imposed, and companies invest in the necessary control technologies, the political support for constraining EPA authority over GHGs will decline. Utilities may not want to give up coal or install costly carbon capture technologies, but once they’ve made these investments they will hardly want to see the regulations removed. If these rules are not stopped soon, it will be too late. This is a reason even those who refuse to accept the likelihood of climate change should consider alternatives to command and control regulation. Shouting “No” is insufficient to ensure success.

Here is how I conclude my review:

Layzer observes that “although most Americans still claim to be sympathetic to environmental goals, resistance to government action in pursuit of those goals is widespread.” To Layzer this is a paradox. To others it may be evidence of a latent public understanding that there is more than one way to advance environmental values. Pursuit of a greener society need not come at the expense of individual liberty or economic growth. By tacitly accepting the conventional assumption that regulatory stringency is a measure of environmental protectiveness, Layzer simplistically assumes that those who would challenge conventional regulatory strategies are opposed to environmental protection in general. The problem for environmental policy is that too many conservatives accept this assumption as well.

Cross-posted at the Volokh Conspiracy.

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Q&A with Michael 't Sas-Rolfes on Why Legal Rhino Horn Trade Will Save Rhinos
Wed, 07/17/2013

rhinos

It’s a conservation debate that’s as fiery and emotive as they get: how does South Africa, which is home to 90% of Africa's rhinos, go about protecting them from a poaching pandemic that’s likely to claim over a thousand victims before the year is done (and could eventually devastate rhino populations)? That debate really intensified this week when the South African government gave its strongest indication yet of the route it plans to take: the country’s environment minister announced that South Africa would back "the establishment of a well-regulated international trade" in rhino horn and seek permission for a one-off sale of stockpiles worth around $1-billion.

With the news setting off heated discussion online, we spoke to one expert who believes well-regulated trade is the right answer. Conservation economist Michael 't Sas-Rolfes, who has written extensively about the market factors driving the poaching crisis and the ‘economics’ of rhino conservation, answers a few of our questions on this controversial topic.

Q: With a background in business and economics, you haven’t really followed the ‘conventional’ path into the area of wildlife conservation. How do you think those skills help you to see the poaching crisis from a different angle?

A: I think they are not only helpful, but essential. The poaching crisis – and indeed many other conservation problems – is driven by human behaviour. To solve such problems we need to come to grips with the incentives driving that behaviour and the systems that create those incentives. So we need to have an understanding of social sciences more than biological sciences: that includes economics, psychology, sociology and politics! Most importantly, we need to understand how markets work.

Michael 't Sas-Rolfes

Q: For those of us who don’t speak ‘economese’, it can be tricky to understand the poaching problem and the rhino-horn market in rigorous economic terms. Is there a simple way to break things down?

A: Simply put, the way things are set up right now, poachers and illegal traders have much stronger incentives – and more money at their disposal – to kill rhinos than individual rhino owners and custodians have to protect them.  This is because Asian demand for rhino horn is real and not expected to decline in the near future, and – most importantly – Asian suppliers are expecting rhino horn to become commercially extinct and therefore increasingly valuable over time.  We are facing some very powerful market forces here.

Q: Do you think more people would see legalization of the rhino horn trade as a viable option if they were able to understand the economic forces that drive the horn market?

A: Most definitely!

Q: The widely accepted timeline seems to be that the poaching crisis was sparked around 2007 thanks to rising demand in Vietnam and the emergence of the infamous cancer-curing myth. But you believe the timeline is actually quite different…

A: Yes, I think that is a somewhat misguided interpretation of what actually happened (as seen through a Western lens of understanding). Rhino horn has been a valued commodity in Asia for thousands of years, for both ornamental and medicinal purposes, mostly in elite circles.  An essential part of the horn’s current value is its scarcity. As a medicine, it is – and has always been – used to treat a wide range of conditions related to inflammation and toxicity in the body. In some circles it is considered the ultimate medicine to treat serious (and not so serious) cases – i.e. it is the Rolls Royce of traditional Chinese medicine. Evidence suggests that demand is rising in both Vietnam and parts of China along with increased affluence (not just for cancer treatment, but for all sorts of medicinal and ornamental uses, but with the underlying prestige factor). The poaching crisis was sparked when we responded to that increasing demand in exactly the wrong way: by restricting the supply. Basic economics tells us that if you reduce the supply in the face of increasing demand, market prices will rise. If prices rise, so do the potential rewards for poachers and illegal traders.

Q: Many anti-poaching campaigns are aiming to ‘reduce’ Asian demand for rhino horn through awareness and education. Can ‘reeducation’ work?

A: I am skeptical that this approach can deliver results fast enough to bring poaching down to sustainable levels in the short and even medium term. We are dealing with a product market based on very deeply held cultural values and beliefs. Those advocating demand reduction are unable to tell us how quickly this can work and – most importantly – how much it will cost to be effective and who is going to pay for it.

Q: Aside from awareness campaigns, you argue that enhanced security (and what you call after-the-fact enforcement) will not be enough to halt rampant poaching. Why?

A: Poachers and other criminals have very short time horizons. If you offer them a huge reward now with a fairly low probability of being caught and punished at some time in the vague future, they will typically ignore that potential cost. And what is the point of prosecuting them a year or two later anyway? By then a whole bunch of new poachers and criminals are already in the game. To stop poaching you need to convince poachers that they are very unlikely to succeed in their initial poaching attempt – that it simply won’t be worth it in the first place. The only way you can do that is by lowering the value of their potential initial take (dehorning rhinos and/or reducing the price of horn) and – most critically – having such effective security on the ground that the rhinos are almost impossible to get to.  

Q: What would you say to those who feel that farming rhinos for their horns would effectively reduce one of Africa’s most iconic wild animals to the status of livestock?

A: I fear we are faced with a stark choice: a lower risk option of white rhino ‘farming’ as a buffer to wild populations of all species – or the continued severe threat to all species and likely reduction (and even extinction) of almost all wild rhino populations.

Q: Even if trade is legalised and farming rhinos becomes a reality, is it possible that some consumers may still seek out horns sourced from “wild” (poached) rhinos rather than their “farmed” counterparts (the same way wild-caught salmon is preferred over the farmed variety)?

A: I consider this less likely with rhinos as we are not talking about artificial and intensive feed-lot farming, but rather ranching – periodically removing the horn from free-ranging rhinos (that is by far the most cost-effective way to produce horn). Conscious meat consumers avoid grain-fed feed-lot beef but are happy to eat grass-fed free range beef, even if the cattle in question are not truly ‘wild’. I would not expect rhinos to be much different. If you offer consumers the choice between genuine certified legal free-range rhino horn and illegal horn of unknown origin that may be a fake, I suspect few consumers would pay a premium for the latter. If anything, most would probably be willing to pay far less.

Q: What about those who argue that South Africa’s government agencies are too corrupt and ineffective to properly monitor and manage legal trade in rhino horn?

A: You could argue the same for controlling the illegal trade. The argument doesn’t make any sense.  With legal trade, the owners and custodians would be getting the money – lots of it – that is now all being taken by criminals. With legal trade the owners and custodians would be able to afford better security and have a much stronger incentive to protect and breed up their rhinos.

Q: Even if South Africa decides to move forward on the road to legalisation, legal trade hinges on approval from CITES – which can only be granted at the next CITES conference in 2016. What are the logistics of that approval process and who would be involved?

A: The logistics are intimidating. South Africa will have to secure the buy-in of key consumer countries, which will need to amend their laws to allow for this. The mechanism is also critical – there are many wrong ways to set up legal trade and only one right one. There is still a lot of work to be done on this and everyone needs to be involved, from government agencies to private agents and NGOs.

Q: Can trade be legalised in time to save Africa’s rhinos? 

A: I regret that we are likely to lose a lot more rhinos in the next few years, whatever happens. With a properly established legal trade we have a better chance of navigating our way out of this mess and securing the future of most rhinos into the longer term. Without legal trade I fear rhino numbers will be severely reduced. I think extinction is unlikely, but the longer-term prognosis for rhinos will not be as good.

This article originally appeared at Earth Touch. Michael 't Sas-Rolfes is a research fellow at PERC.

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The Shameful and Painful Spotted Owl Saga: Shooting Stripes To Save Spots
Wed, 05/08/2013

By Teresa Platt

Spots versus stripes? Which do you prefer?

Our federal government prefers spots and is moving forward with a million-dollar-a-year plan to remove 9,000 striped owls from 2.3% of 14 million Western acres of protected spotted owl habitat. Our government is shooting wood owls with stripes to protect those with spots; to stop the stripes from breeding with the spots.

It had to come to this.

The 1990 listing of the Northern spotted owl under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) gave the bird totem status in management decisions.  

It didn’t work.  Spotted owls declined 40% over 25 years.  Timber sales on federal government-managed lands dropped too.  Oregon harvests fell from 4.9 billion board feet (1988) to less than 5%, 240 million board feet (2009).  Beyond the jobs and business profits from making lumber, the Federal and County  governments used to benefit from these harvests too.  Harvests down: tax receipts down.  Today, with cutbacks in Federal budgets and sequestration, the States are arguing about how much of your tax dollars the Federal government should give them to keep impoverished County governments afloat in timber-rich areas.

Read the full article...

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Coffee and Conversation with Laura Huggins on Stream Access
Thu, 04/25/2013

PERC’s Laura Huggins was fortune enough to talk with Bozeman fly fisherman and journalist extraordinaire Miles Nolte. Miles is the author of The Alaska Chronicles: An Unwashed View of Life, Work, and Fly Fishing, editor at Gray's Sporting Journal, and guide at The Bozeman Angler. He asked Laura a few questions about the upcoming Montana Supreme Court case on stream access to streambeds. Below is an amended version of their conversation.

Q: How did PERC get involved with James Kennedy and the Montana Supreme Court case that is going on right now?

A: PERC has been exploring how secure property rights and free markets can work to enhance environmental quality for more than 30 years. In this case, the issue naturally flowed our way.

Q: In this particular case PERC has become the counterpart to Montana Trout Unlimited because they are filing the friend-of-the-court amicus brief on behalf of PWLA. Do you have any comment about being in direct opposition to Trout Unlimited?

A: PERC agrees with Trout Unlimited on many issues but it is true that we split on stream access. In fact, many Trout Unlimited chapters are divided over this issue.

On a positive note, Trout Unlimited’s involvement in increasing funding to allow agencies to purchase more voluntary easements and access to land from willing sellers looks promising. Another productive step forward that PERC and TU might agree on includes a system of supplemental license fees to help support private landowners who make habitat improvements so long as they are willing to allow access rights to anglers who pay the fees.

Q: There is a perception that PERC’s vision is that all streams and rivers be privatized and therefore inaccessible. If that is not accurate, can you describe PERC’s vision for streams in Montana?

A: PERC is not against stream access. You can read PERC’s position statement here. The great conservationist Aldo Leopold sums up PERC’s position nicely: “Conservation will ultimately boil down to rewarding the private landowner who conserves the public interest." I have witnessed several of the types of landowners Leopold extolled. A property-owner on the Ruby River in Montana (not Mr. Kennedy) comes to mind. This gentleman spent thousands of dollars and hours restoring the river running through his property. He fenced the cows away from the river and sought expert advice on how to improve fish habitat. I was lucky enough to fish this stretch for free—an amazing opportunity despite catching a world-record white fish!

I worry that if private property rights are weakened, then the incentive for landowners to make these types of investments will fade. As my colleague Terry Anderson asks, “Would you build a swimming pool in your backyard if you thought it would be open to the neighborhood?”

Many anglers understand the value and potential of private conservation and want to encourage it. Court decisions that ignore private property rights and expand public access without compensation threaten to do the opposite.

Q: One of the primary arguments for public land is that a loss of access to streambeds as public land would cripple a primary economic driver we have for small businesses in terms of guides, outfitters, hospitality, and tourism. If we shut that down will we lose all of that economic influx?  What is PERC’s stance on that claim?

A: PERC treasures our Treasure State too. PERC’s president recently wrote in the Billings Gazette, “I’m a native, citizen, homeowner, and sportsman of Montana…, which is precisely why I hold the constitutional protection of private property in the highest regard. Without it, our economic and environmental treasures are in jeopardy.”

Given that nearly 70 percent of all land in Montana is privately owned, the responsibility and stewardship of natural resources falls on private landowners. If it is not private property owners, who is going to protect the banks from erosion, pay to plant willows, and spend the time to create stream complexity?

The fact that we pay taxes to support a wide variety of governmental activities doesn’t mean that our taxes cover the cost of those activities. Government may help on portions of major waterways like the Provo River in Utah, but what about all the smaller streams that could be as productive as sections of the Ruby?

Q: Another claim by advocates of public access to streambeds is that if we cut off access then, over time, the majority of the population will be locked out of the recreation possibilities that these streams offer so as generations pass that legacy of appreciating the resource dies off because people are unable to experience them. Do you see this as a possible problem?

A: I grew up fishing in Utah, Idaho, and Montana with my grandfather. Not only did he teach me the ways of the fish but also how to be a good steward of nature and other important life lessons. I hope someday my children will enjoy a similar experience with their grandkids.

What worries me more is the degredation of fisheries and its impact on the legacy of fishing. PERC studies open-access resources all around the world, and the results are not pretty—the collapse of many marine fisheries come to mind. Closer to home, I am concerned about what is happening on the Mitchell Slough. After the BRPA won its access challenge in the Montana Supreme Court, ditch owners had less of an incentive to manage for fish. They closed the headgate in the winter months, leaving the upper portion with little water and the lower portion silted in, which fish don't like.

I also worry about who is making decisions now for future generations. It is easy to look toward government, but I’m skeptical that politicians, who are elected for short terms and therefore often shortsighted, are good agents for future generations. Future interests actually have more of a voice in markets than in politics.

Q: Would it be fair to categorize PERC’s argument as claiming that it would be preferable to lose all access to recreation if, in doing so, it creates a healthier all around ecosystem?

A: Again, PERC is not against stream access. What we are opposed to is weakening the property rights of riparian land owners at the expense of environmental quality and liberty. The U.S. and state constitutions guarantee the rights of property owners, while various common and statutory laws create some public rights to water and wildlife. Accepting legal rights and bargaining at the coffee table or in the marketplace offer a better path to resource stewardship. Strong property rights can actually expand the pie and create more opportunity for us all.

A large wetlands and stream restoration effort surrounding the headwaters of O’Dell Creek, which flows into the Madison River, offers a good case in point. Although the ranches participating in this project are not open to the general public, the conservation work, which has been funded with both public and private dollars, provides several public benefits. The project has increased flow to the Madison—providing more water for fish, irrigation, recreation, and electricity. It has also helped decrease water temperatures, which enhances fish habitat. Finally, it has transformed miles of creek-side land from dry forage to lush floodplain and in so doing created homes for loads of birds and other species.

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