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Bisonomics

[…] contributions to buy a herd for the newly created National Bison Range in Montana. While many bison were preserved as part of public herds in places like Yellowstone, bison restoration on public land has been limited by geography and capacity. In 1914, the federal government owned just 10 percent of the captive bison in […]

Published on: September 1, 2007
Perc

National Park Goes Local

[…] polluting one of Cajas’ 235 lakes. It was promptly shut down. In contrast, enemies of snowmobiles have been working for ten years to control their use in Yellowstone and the battle is still not over. The merits of snowmobile regulations aside, the alacrity with which local authorities can act, compared to national bureaucracies, is […]

Published on: September 1, 2007

The Origins of Beliefs

The Yellowstone River running through Paradise Valley, Montana. Can beliefs about fundamental social institutions such as the market system, change? If so, what can cause such changes? Even if one replies “yes” to the first question discerning an answer to the second has been an elusive goal for social scientists. Recent research by Rafael […]

Published on: June 1, 2007

These Lands are Your Lands

[…] conservation projects on Earth, a grassland reserve replete with as many native species as can be sustained … it eventually could be half again as big as Yellowstone National Park.” The big difference, though, is that the Prairie Project intends to implement their vision with private, rather than government money. Herring quotes Gerrity as […]

Published on: March 1, 2007

The Road to an Epiphany

[…] they’ve got some crazy ideas, they are worth listening to.’’ He was right. I went to a PERC journalists’ conference, right in the middle of the infamous Yellowstone fire, which proved to be a big distraction. Still, I recall Terry Anderson bugling to elk, Aaron Wildavsky making no sartorial concessions to the West, and […]

Published on: March 1, 2007

Letters to the Editor

[…] a job well done, if not extremely well done. She has remained my contact with PERC since I was fortunate enough to attend a PERC meeting near Yellowstone National Park. I have always wanted to return but various other commitments have prevented even thinking about it. But she has graciously handled my correspondence and […]

Published on: December 1, 2006

The 19th Century Comanche

[…] many of the Eastern woodland Indians. In the sixteenth century the Comanche were part of the Shoshonean group of tribes occupying the headwaters of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. They were not warlike (Hoebel 1954, 129) and they had no tribal organization. They lived in isolated family bands that were economically self-sufficient. By the […]

Published on: June 3, 2006

Capturing the Wealth of Nature

[…] as public lands, they were initially managed at the local level, and management even bordered on privatization because specific individuals or groups were virtual owners. For example, Yellowstone National Park (like other national parks) was de facto owned by a railroad (Anderson and Hill 1996). Today, however, federal agencies such as the Forest Service, […]

Published on: September 1, 2005

Marketing the Wealth of Nature

[…] spurred the creation of our greatest national parks. Today we would say that their intentions were less important than the dramatic outcome. In his book, Searching for Yellowstone, environmental historian Paul Schullery aptly sums up the motivations that led to our first national park’s founding. “Human nature was not on holiday. The people who […]

Published on: September 1, 2005

The Next Generation of Environmental Leaders

[…] Kinship fellows heard lectures on topics such as property rights, risk analysis, transferable fishing quotas, and conservation easements, as well as fund-raising and marketing. They went to Yellowstone National Park, where Hank Fischer explained his wolf compensation fund. Each participant worked with a PERC mentor on a specific project applying free market approaches’in Russia […]

Published on: September 1, 2005