While ecotourism has been touted as a way to save everything from tigers to sea turtles, it might also prove an economic boon to the financially beleaguered U.S. Forest Service. Heritage Expeditions is part of the user-fee demonstration program that allows federal land management agencies to charge fees for recreation on public lands. A recentContinue reading “Rangers On Tour”
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Make Forest Service Pay Its Own Way
Rocky Mountain NewsJune 7, 1998 By Terry L. Anderson The threat of budget cuts for the Forest Service is some of the best fiscal and environmental news yet out of this congress. Angered by years of declining timber sales, Western conservatives are threatening to wield the budget ax. The net result could be a breathContinue reading “Make Forest Service Pay Its Own Way”
Oily Hair
An Alabama hairdresser is making oily hair his specialty. Phillip McCrory has devised a technique to clean up oil spills with hair trimmings. The technique is now being refined at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The system could eventually mean quicker and less expensive cleanups. McCrory was first inspired while watching coverageContinue reading “Oily Hair”
Entertainment Farming
Family farms and ranches have found that entertainment is a cash crop that can keep them in business, even when more traditional fruit and vegetable crops cannot. Small family farms struggling to keep up with rising costs and compete with large commercial operations have turned to corn mazes, petting zoos, and hayrides. Farmers who beganContinue reading “Entertainment Farming”
Corporate Appleseeds
American companies have discovered that planting and preserving trees can reap a wealth of benefits. It can help the environment, it can boost their corporate image, and ultimately it could help the bottom line. American Electric Power is preserving trees by purchasing a chunk of Bolivian jungle which it plans to donate to an adjoiningContinue reading “Corporate Appleseeds”
Pallets To Butcher-Block
Deep in the South Bronx a small company is making a big impact on forest preservation, waste reduction, and furniture design. And that’s only part of the story. Every year in the United States 1.5 billion wooden pallets are used in the shipment of consumer goods. Those pallets account for nearly half of the annualContinue reading “Pallets To Butcher-Block”
Getting Around the “Takings” Problem
This year, the ESA is once again on the legislative calendar, and deadlock is likely. But there is a possible solution that would get around the “takings” problem, allow economic growth, and still protect land and species-perhaps more effectively than the current law does. Congress should simply require that, for every new acre of landContinue reading “Getting Around the “Takings” Problem”
Common-Law Protection
Unless you are well into middle age or were a precocious student, you probably have little memory of the United States without the Environmental Protection Agency and the host of federal statutes it implements. You may not be aware of the long history of environmental controls through common-law protections. (Common law is the term weContinue reading “Common-Law Protection”
Light Truck Lessons
Over the last two decades, Americans’ driving experience has been transformed by the proliferation of light trucks–vans, minivans, pickup trucks, and sport utility vehicles. Recently, news reports have castigated these trucks–which weigh about 1,000 pounds more than cars–as a menace on the nation’s highways, especially in car-truck collisions. What few realize is that, according toContinue reading “Light Truck Lessons”
Solar Power to the Rescue?
Consider the irony: Many people believe that solar energy, trapped by human-generated greenhouse gases, is responsible for what could be catastrophic future increases in global temperatures. Yet according to recent research, it may be solar energy, harnessed by human-generated photovoltaic technology, which eradicates the problem before it becomes one. In a just-published paper, economistsContinue reading “Solar Power to the Rescue?”