This book questions how bureaucracies conceive of, and consequently interact with, nature, and suggests that our managed public landscapes are neither entirely managed nor entirely wild, and offers several warnings about bureaucracies and bureaucratic mentality.
One prominent challenge facing scientists, policymakers, environmental activists, and environmentally concerned citizens, is to recognize that human influence in the natural world is pervasive and has a long history. How we act, or choose not to act, today will continue to determine the future of the natural world. Western-style management of nature, mediated by economic rationality and state bureaucracies, may not be the best strategy to maintain environmental integrity. The question is, what kinds of human influence, conceived of in the widest possible sense, will produce ideal environments for future generations? The related question is, who gets to choose? The author approaches the problem of analyzing the mutual influence of human and natural systems from two perspectives: as an objective scholar investigating bureaucracies and natural systems from the outside, and over the last decade as an inside practitioner working in various roles in federal land management agencies developing policies and regulations involved in the control of natural systems.
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of natural resource management, policy and politics, and professionals working in environmental management roles as well as policymakers involved in public policy and administration.
Author(s): David Jenkins
Series: Routledge Explorations in Environmental Studies
Publisher: Routledge/Earthscan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 261
City: London
Cover
Endorsement
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Epigraph
Table of Contents
Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction: The Wild Garden
Notes
Part I The Bureaucracy of Nature
1 Against Efficiency: Why We Cut Trees (And What Happens When We Do)
A Utilitarian Vision
The Enemy
Sins of the Past
The Efficient and the Good
Carbon, Proforestation, and Decadence
The Rationalized Forest
The Virtues of Inefficiency
What Are Trees?
Global Cooling, Global Warming, Humans, and Forests
The Realm of Politics
The Story of Forests
Notes
2 When the Well Runs Dry: Aquifers, Canals, and the Colorado River System
Groundwater
Colorado River Water
The Central Arizona Project
The Fourth Lesson
Culture-Nature
Public Discourse and Environmental Values
The Worth of Water
Notes
3 Atlantic Salmon, Endangered Species, and the Failure of Environmental Policies
What Is a Wild Salmon?
Disappearing Salmon
Twentieth-Century Salmon Restoration
Continuing Salmon Threats
“Maine Salmon Is Extinct”
The Final Rule
Environmental Values and the Policy Process
Wild Salmon
Notes
4 Count Every Fish: Nonmarket Fishing Economies On the Yukon River
Subsistence Laws and Regulations
Managing Environments for Subsistence
“Surplus” Fish
The Bering Sea: Managing Chinook Bycatch
Markets and Subsistence
Customary Trade: Non-Western Economies
Health Safety of Traditionally Processed Salmon
“You Can’t Just Let Nature Run Wild”
Notes
5 Managing Natural Resources in Alaska: Anthropology Bureaucratized
State Involvement
Customary and Traditional Use
Meaningful Orders of Persons and Things
Division of Subsistence
Criteria of Subsistence Use
Against “Customary and Traditional Use”
Long-Term Subsistence Patterns
Seasonality
Efficiency
Proximity
Accessibility
Preparing, Preserving, and Storing
Knowledge
Sharing
“Seeing Like a State”
The Awkward Play of Knowledge Systems
Notes
Part II The Nature of Bureaucracy
6 Traditional Bureaucratic Knowledge: The Order of Rules
Notes
7 Bureaucratic Management of Wildlife: Wolves in the State of Alaska
Notes
8 Enemy Ancestors
Notes
9 To Save the Spiritual
Notes
10 Traditional Ecological Knowledge
Notes
11 The Dharma of Nature
The Wild Garden
Notes
Index
