The movement of largely affluent urban or suburban populations to rural areas for specific lifestyle amenities is transforming the social and ecological compositions of rural landscapes. This transformation is evident in the biophysical changes to receiving landscapes, but also the increasing fragmentation of land use goals, skills and motivations among these new amenity migrants. In the context of cross-property management, which requires landholders to cooperate and agree on management goals, the fragmentation of land uses and management values presents significant obstacles for protecting economic and natural resources. This paper focuses on invasive plants as one cross-property management issue that is complicated by amenity migration. In particular, we investigate the claim that amenity migrants’ individual or ‘property-centric’ approach to land management worsens cross-property management issues through a disinterest in cross-property management problems, or by exercising m
Wildlife: The Local Stakeholders Often Given No Voice Or Forgotten
In this op-ed Anne Millbrooke says that Wilderness provides plenty of things becoming ever rarer and which money can t replace simply in the modern world
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A mother elk and her calf, among thousands of adult wapiti that migrate into Yellowstone National Park from every direction in late spring and then give birth to young. Elk are vulnerable to disturbance, not only form development impacting habitat but studies show how recreation pressure on trails can displace elk from places where they want to be. That s why Wilderness areas, where typically there is less of a hubbub of human activity, are important places where elk can have habitat security. Photo courtesy Jacob W. Frank/NPS