The transition from muck farm to nature-based resort has been a rocky road for Florida’s St. Johns River Water Management District. Despite the rough patches, the resort is in full swing today offering visitors a glimpse of a Florida marsh and its wildlife, while returning profits to the agency. The road to nature tourism beganContinue reading “Muck Farm To Eco-Resort”
Author Archives: admin
Federal Land Exchanges: Let’s End the Barter
It's time to let federal agencies buy and sell land, says Tim Fitzgerald in a new PERC Policy Series paper. Federal Land Exchanges: Let's End the Barter offers a practical way to reform the costly and time-wasting federal land exchange process.
Political Environmentalism
Terry L. Anderson, Editor Political Environmentalism documents a range of examples of how politics and environmentalism mix to produce strange bedfellows and equally strange results. The books details how environmental special interests have provided the high moral ground for economic special interests who stand to gain from legislation that hampers competition. Terry Anderson and hisContinue reading “Political Environmentalism”
Is Bigger Better?
“If we are to protect America’s most valued lands, federal land management policies must be reformed and private conservation efforts encouraged,” says PERC researcher Holly Lippke Fretwell.
Environmental Examiner
This newsletter for students is designed to help them think clearly as they form their opinions about environmental issues.
Corn Can Do
Plastics made from plants is an idea that scientists have touted for years, but no one was able to bring it to the marketplace. That has changed with an announcement from Cargill Incorporated and Dow Chemical Company. In a joint venture, the firms plan to build a $300 million facility in Blair, Neb., to manufactureContinue reading “Corn Can Do”
Harvesting Toxic Waste
Bananas are growing in a mine drainage tunnel in Leadville, Colo. Along with carrots, spinach, beets, and broccoli, these crops may provide the solution to cleaning up one of the nation’s most polluted Superfund sites. Entrepreneur Frank Burcik, president of Water Treatment and Decontamination International, created the underground greenhouse to remove toxic heavy metals fromContinue reading “Harvesting Toxic Waste”
Old Growth Rising
Breaching the Edwards Dam on Maine’s Kennebec River last July to help fish had an unexpected benefit for furniture-makers, wood craftsmen, architects, musical instrument-makers, and even pen-makers. Old growth timbers have been salvaged from the dam’s foundation for use in a host of wood products. Most of the trees were taken from the Maine woodsContinue reading “Old Growth Rising”
Greening Nepal
Once-denuded slopes in the foothills of the Himalayas are showing signs of green again. In Nepal, local community groups are managing the forests, deriving income from the timber, and also protecting watersheds and a variety of rare birds, mammals, and flowering plants. In 1957, the government nationalized the forests, but it had neither the willContinue reading “Greening Nepal”
Poverty, Wealth, and Waste
In 1986, a waste-to-energy plant opened in Delhi, India, financed by the Danish International Development Agency at a cost of over $10 million. The plant was expected to generate 3.8 megawatts of electricity from garbage, and its success was to be copied in other Indian cities. However, the plant was a failure. Two yearsContinue reading “Poverty, Wealth, and Waste”