Delta State University

SOC 422/522 COD 522

Spring Semester 2005

Study Questions, Week 6

Topics for the Week:

Land; Public and Private Approaches to Conservation

Readings for the Week:

McNeely, Jeffrey A. 1994. Protected areas for the 21st century: working to provide benefits to society. Biodiversity and Conservation 3:390–405.

Wright, R. Gerald and David J. Mattson. 1996. The origin and purpose of national parks and protected areas. In R. Gerald Wright (editor), National Parks and Protected Areas: Their Role in Environmental Protection. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Science.

Merenlender, A.M., L. Huntsinger, G. Guthey and S.K. Fairfax. 2004. Land trusts and conservation easements: Who is conserving what for whom? Conservation Biology 18(1):65-75.

Land Trust Resources (look over the following websites):

(1) Land Trust Alliance, http://www.lta.org/

(2) Delta Land Trust, http://www.deltalandtrust.org/
(3) Mississippi Land Trust, http://www.misslandtrust.org/

(4) Nature Conservancy, http://nature.org/

(5) National Trust for Historic Preservation, http://www.nationaltrust.org/

Questions, McNeely & Wright/Mattson Readings:

(1)  What are some important functions that protected areas perform?  What are some threats to protected areas?

(2)  How did the idea of protected areas originate?  How have they evolved over the years?  How have management priorities changed?

(3)  According to McNeely, what were some of the important protected areas policy issues facing protected areas during the 1990s?

(4)  How do protected areas differ in different localities?  Identify the different types of protected areas and provide a brief summary of the objectives and values of each.  What role do people play in each type of protected area?

(5)  Identify conservation issues that protected areas can help alleviate, and explain the role of protected areas in ameliorating these issues.

(6)  What are some strategies protected areas managers can use to build more support for individual protected areas, and for protected areas as a land use category?

(7)  What are some important lessons we can draw about resource use and management from the experiences with protected areas in the U.S. and overseas?

Questions, Merlander et al. and Land Trust Resources:

(8) What is a land trust or conservancy?  What is the mission of a land trust?  How do land trusts accomplish their mission?

(9)  What are some of the values that land trusts work to protect on private land?

(10)  What tools and techniques do land trusts employ to conserve natural resources on private lands?  What options do land trusts offer landowners interested in conserving their land?

(11)  In what ways do land trusts differ from protected areas?  What do they share in common?

(12)  In what regions of the country are land trusts most common?  Least common?  Why?  Where do land trusts conserve the most land?  Why?

(13)  How do land trusts affect communities?  Identify three benefits of land trusts to communities, and three costs.

(14)  Given an objective of conserving natural resources, under what conditions does it make sense to use private approaches, and under what circumstances would public approaches make more sense?