Environmental News, Articles & Information | Global Warming News | EcoWorld

Editor’s note: Why do the elites meet? If governments exist to solve problems, what happens if the problem is solved? Worse still, what happens if there is no problem? Kent Jeffries, senior fellow at the Washington DC based National Center for Policy Analysis, takes an irreverent look at the recent Global Warming Conference in Berlin. While the opinions of the author are not necessarily those of EcoWorld, they are not necessarily not the opinions of EcoWorld, either. EcoWorld will publish in later editions differing opinions on the issue of global warming, and they are encouraged to be just as polemical as this one. Debate on whether or not the earth really is warming is not closed, at least not here. And whether or not the phenomenon exists, we will plant the trees…

---

Recently, over 1,000 representatives from 130 nations convened in Berlin to discuss the details of an issue deemed to be of the highest international importance. What was the topic that attracted so many of our diplomats, along with thousands of individuals from nongovernmental organizations? Peace in Bosnia, perhaps? Health care in the Third World? No, nothing so trivial as that. The participants at Berlin gathered to discuss the weather..

Technically, Berlin was playing host to the first session of the Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Framework Convention is the document which is intended to lead us out of the wilderness of global warming and into the ecological promised land. The basic premise behind this theological position is that humanity is consuming too much in the way of natural resources, particularly fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons and thus, when burned, they produce carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide (the same gas you expel with every breath) has the ability to block certain wavelengths of infrared radiation. This can “trap” infrared heat near the earth’s surface and – voila! – global warming.

Few dispute the physics of heat-trapping, or “greenhouse” gases in the atmosphere (most of which consists of water vapor). However, even if human activities are contributing to a gradual increase in the less important greenhouse gases, it is unknown precisely what the effect will be: An overheated hell or a veritable Garden of Eden? Or will we even notice the changes, should they occur? Obviously, most of the participants at Berlin from wealthy, industrialized nations are convinced that dire consequences are inevitable if the levels of greenhouse gases continue to escalate.

Of course, the science behind this fearsome future is a bit sketchy. To be sure, certain observations can be seen as broadly consistent with a human-enhanced greenhouse effect. However, current scientific observations do not conform to predictions of doom. In the United States (which has better records and better coverage by weather stations than most parts of the globe, despite only covering about 2 percent of the earth’s surface), temperatures have increased somewhat during the twentieth century. Surface measurements indicate a rise of approximately 0.3 degrees C. (about 0.7 degrees F.). However, essentially all of this warming occurred during two brief episodes, one from the late 1920s into the 1930s and the other during the 1970s (which itself followed a modest cooling trend of some twenty years in duration). Even more perplexing, the first brief warming period occurred before any significant increase in greenhouse gases from human activities. And the U.S. trends are similar to the results from global data sets. These facts confound the fearmongers and reassure the skeptics. Was the century’s slight warming the result of manmade emmissions or simply and example of the natural variability of the climate? To date, we cannot confirm the existence of global warming through analysis of surface temperature records.

In addition, more recently available data derived from highly accurate satellite-based instruments make any claim of global warming even less tenable. Since 1979, when the first satellite data became available, there has been no net warming of the globe. We now know that these satellite temperature readings are incredibly accurate. New studies have confirmed that these instruments are so sensitive to temperature fluctuations that they can detect the minute warming of the earth due to the radiance of the full moon. Yet despite their exquisite sensitivity to temperature changes, these satellites have not detected any increase in global average temperatures. Temperatures have gone up and down, but, taken altogether, there has been no measurable increase in temperature.

In other words, there has been no net warming in the earth’s temperature record in almost twenty years.

Here, it is the global warming adherents who turn skeptical. They point out that the second period of distinct warming in this century ended just prior to the launching of the first satellite. Furthermore, they discount the satellite data because it only covers about 17 years thus far, too brief a period of time in which to detect the true trends, they say. Of course, shourt-term observations are often put forward as proof of global warming; everything from a summer drought to animal migrations has been suggested as evidence of the overheating of the climate.

For every question, it seems, there is an answer; for every answer, another question. In any event, the scientific investigations will continue, as they should. Yet those who call for an international agreement to limit greenhouse gases continue to push a “leap before you look” strategy. It seems that no evidence of a benign or nonexistent warming will be accepted by these folks. Instead, they assert that it is the duty of the developed nations to radically cut fossil fuel use.

Most economists agree that the only way to dramatically reduce consumption of fossil fuels is to levy a heavy tax on their use. But a tax intended to drive down consumption by even 20 percent would be economically ruinous — and many are demanding cuts of 50 percent or more. Energy may be only one of the factors in stimulating economic growth, but it is a crucial one. Developing nations such as India and China strongly resist any effort to restrict their consumption of fossil fuels. These nations understand the historic correlation between fossil fuel use and national wealth creation: the more you burn, the more you earn.

Despite this resistance on the part of the patient, the diplomatic doctors in Berlin insisted that limiting greenhouse gas emissions would be especially beneficial to the developing world. They argued that significant global warming would disrupt world weather patterns and that the less developed nations would suffer enormously from droughts, floods, crop failures, and plagues of insects. Just like today, only worse.

Yet carbon dioxide is absolutely necessary for plant growth. Numerous studies demonstrate significantly increased crop yields due to nothing more than higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Seen from this perspective, the industrial nations already are providing billions of dollars worth of free fertilizer to the Third World via the atmosphere. To stop now might be much more harmful than any resulting warming.

Regardless of these scientific uncertainties, if one truly believes that profligate consumption will destroy the planet, shouldn’t one at least cut down a bit on one’s personal consumption? For example, why not stay home? Stop consuming our precious natural resources (and our even more scarce tax dollars) by travelling to international conferences. Teleconferencing, or “virtual” meetings, could replace these physical gabfests. But don’t hold your carbon dioxide laden breath waiting for these elites to sacrifice personally. The motto of this crowd well could be “Sacrifice is for the little people.”

Berlin was merely the latest manifestation of a process that has involved over a dozen similar, preparatory meetings. These have included what was billed as the largest single conference in world history (perhaps 30,000 in attendance) at Rio de Janiero in June of 1992 — the so-called Earth Summit. The Rio Earth Summit actually produced the Framework Convention itself. This document calls upon signatory nations to constrain their emissions of carbon dioxide (and other gases) to no more than the levels that prevailed in 1990. They are to do this by the year 2000.

Yet only a handful of the pledging nations have any chance of achieving this goal and that is but a fortunate coincidence, not the result of any national commitment. For example, reunited Germany has shut down the inefficient industrial dinosaurs of the former East Germany. This would have been done even in the absence of a climate treaty. Elsewhere, there seems to be scant support for any push to strive any harder. Hence, Berlin has produced almost no concrete commitments on emissions reductions. Not to worry. You may not be able to do anything about the weather, but these globe-hopping diplomats will go almost anywhere to talk about it.

Anywhere, that is, that has a four star hotel and a vibrant nightlife. Most of these international meetings have taken place in cities such as Stockholm, Geneva, and New York. Is it any wonder that the negotiators find the need for more and more of these face-to-face gatherings?

Among those who fear global warming, the Berlin Conference is generally recognized as a failure. Yet, from the perspective of the participants, Berlin could be considered a glorious success. By failing to produce any concrete results, Berlin guarantees another round of jet-setting international negotiations. Sure it’s a tough life, but somebody has to make the sacrifice.

ecoworld.com

Issue #1

May 1995

If you are wondering what this section is about, this is where we hope to deliver the goods. Rather than just talk about reforesting the world, we are doing something about it, and we want all of you to get involved. The trees listed below are trees that we are already growing in our EcoWorld greenhouse and tree nursery. Our goal here at EcoWorld is to become experts in growing all of the giant trees of the earth, and we have to start somewhere, so we are starting with the giant trees that do well in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, which is where we are located.

But it isn’t going to end here. Eventually we want to understand how to grow every giant tree on earth, the “Flagships of the Forest.” We want to know what the big canopy trees are the world over, where they are, how they grow, who grows them, who cuts them, what they are good for, where else they will do well, and how we can grow more of them and help other people to grow them.

We here at EcoWorld intend to create a database on this web site that will be accessable to anyone who wishes to know more about the big canopy creating trees. Eventually we hope to establish EcoWorld greenhouses and nurseries elsewhere in the world, and promote reforestation that creates value for the peoples living in the reforested regions, helps the earth’s climate, and takes pressure off of stands of ancient forests.

If you have information to share on the great canopy trees of the world, or if you want to become part of our world-wide network of EcoWorld greenhouses, contact me at ed@ecoworld.com. Hopefully we can publish your information and report on the contributions that your greenhouse is making either to the natural forests or the urban forests of this small planet.

WEST COAST, NORTH AMERICA
TEMPERATE RAINFOREST

California Coast Redwood
(Sequoia Semperviron)can live to be over 2,000 years of age. It is also the tallest of all known trees, with the largest over 365 feet in height. Moreover it is the official tree of EcoWorld, hence the special treatment here in the first ever “Flagships of the Forest” article. The coast redwood can get up to 30 feet in diameter, and is known for its beautiful red, shaggy hairy bark, on the largest trees almost more like hair than bark. In addition to being long lived, California Coast Redwoods, along with their cousins, the Sierra Redwoods, are among the oldest species on earth. Their origins go back to a prehistoric time when most species they shared the earth with then are long extinct.

California Coast Redwoods are hardy, and will grow to heights of 150 – 200 feet even in mediteranean climates where the rainfall can be as little as 15 – 20 inches. They cannot live in summers where more than 30 days are over 100 degrees, or in winters where over 30 nights drop below freezing. Their ideal environment is the humid temperate rainforests on the southern portion of the pacific northwest, never more than around 30 miles in from the pacific ocean. Redwoods love the mist, and it is almost impossible to overwater them.

In the moist bottomlands along the coastal rivers of northern california, and up mist capturing canyons working inward, a young redwood can grow 10 feet per year and more, reaching 250 – 300 feet within 100 years or less. In many climate zones, even in an urban setting, if well watered and planted in proper soil, a redwood can grow over 100 feet in 25 – 35 years.

Needless to say, EcoWorld is growing Redwoods, lots of them. At our nursery in San Jose, California, we are experimenting not only with Redwoods, but other large canopy producing flagship trees that do well in the mediterranean climate: Big Pine trees that can reach 100 feet or more are our current specialty.

Douglas Fir, (Pseudotsuga Menziesii) is another mediteranean flagship tree that is quick to germinate and does just fine if the rainfall exceeds around 30 inches per year. It is common in the cooler canyons and hillsides of the Santa Cruz Mountains, west of San Jose, Califorina, for stands of Douglas Fir to grow 200 feet or higher.

---

MEDITERANEAN CONIFERS
Monterey Pines (Pinus Radiata) we can produce like weeds, and these drought tolerant, hardy pines can get over 120 feet in height, and often need only 20 years to grow to maturity. A Monterey Pine seed planted in February will be around a 3 inch seedling within a month of planting. That same seedling at an age of one year and one month will be about 18 inches tall, and after 2 years, one month, in a 15 gallon container this tree will be 4 feet tall. And the spring growth spurt doesn’t really get going until April or May. If you are just starting out and want to try to start some big trees from seed that will be a sure success, get some Monterey Pine seeds. You will have to live somewhere where it freezes less than 30 nights per year, have 15 – 45 inches of rain per year, and the days in the summer on average are in the 70 – 90 range. The mature Monterey Pine is a handsome tree, with dark green needles and dark brown bark. They don’t always have that classic inverted pyramid shape, but often instead have irregular branches and broad crowns.

Jeffrey Pines (Pinus Jeffrey) are also extremely easy to germinate. These trees are closely related to that great 200 foot giant, the Ponderosa Pine, but Jeffrey Pines prefer the hotter drier areas where the winter freeze is mild. Like the Ponderosa, the Jeffrey Pine stands tall and straight, with a classic towering pine shape. The bark is plated like the Ponderosa, and is light brown. The needles are long, up to 12 inches, and are light green with a bluish tinge. Jeffrey Pines are also fast growers, and in ideal conditions can get well over 100 feet in height.

Coulter Pines (Pinus Colteri) round out the Pine line. They are not as tall, getting at best up to 80 feet, but they have a huge girth, with big side branches. Their pine cones, over 18 inches long, are the biggest pinecones of any tree in the world. If you would like to grow these trees or would like more information about them, or any of the others in mentioned here, email me at ed@ecoworld.com.

---

MEDITERANEAN BROADLEAFS
Pines and other conifers are not the only trees that build canopy in the mediteranean forest. EcoWorld is in the process of adding some deciduous flagships; trees that excel in mediteranean climate regions of the world.

Fremont Cottonwood (Populus Fremontii) is a huge softwood canopy tree that is almost as broad as it is tall and can get over 80 feet in height. It is found naturally along streamsides in hot valley areas. It is a drought tolerant, hardy tree that is a good choice for ecosystem restoration projects in urban areas. Many urban foresters avoid planting the female Cottonwoods if planting near homes, since they shed large amounts of cotton in the spring which clog screens and air intakes.

Valley Oak (Quercus Lobata), which can reach a height and width of well over 100 feet. A mature Valley Oak is a tree of stunning beauty, with plated, mottled brown bark, a crown girth often exceeding the tree’s height, and side branches giving way to side branches at 90 degree angles making perfectly efficient randomly designed supports to a geodesic dome of leaves. This tree grows rapidly from seed and is an excellent choice for a novice reforester. In proper well drained soil a Valley Oak can grow surprisingly fast.

Western Sycamore(Platanus Racemosa) to round out the three, is an awesome variety of Sycamore, growing up to 100 feet high in under 50 years. It has huge side branches with lots of open space beneath the canopy, and can span a width equal to the height it reaches. It has silvery white bark and in the spring the film of green leaflets gives it a crown of surpassing beauty.

---

OTHER CLIMATE ZONES

EcoWorld is investigating three other climate zones at present. Any information you wish to contribute will further our efforts and could be published in EcoWorld to help others also benefit:

Central American Rainforests

The rainforests and cloudforests of Central America is the first place. We would like to determine what it would cost to establish a nursery for large native flagship trees. If, for example, the dairy farmers in the mountains west of San Jose, Costa Rica, can obtain seedlings of some of these huge trees to use for their windbreaks, it will take logging pressures off of the virgin rainforest that still exists around the higher and more remote peaks. What are the giant canopy trees of the Central American Rainforests and Cloudforests? We hope to compile and present the information here at EcoWorld, so it will be easier for people to get started growing these trees.

Forests of the Pacific Northwest

The pacific northwest of North America, where the giant Sitka Spruces, the Western Red Cedar grow to heights well over 200 feet, and the Douglas Firs top 300 feet. Some of the most awe-inspiring cathedrals of tree canopy on earth. Learning how to grow the flagship trees of this cold temperate rainforest climate zone is a high priority. We hope to present information regarding what giant trees are native to this region and how and where to grow them will be presented in subsequent editions of EcoWorld.

Forests of Chile
The western slopes of the Andes somewhere between Santiago and Tierra Del Fuego are home to one of the most majestic of all trees, the Patagonian Cypress, or the Alerce (pronounced a-ler-say). The tree is also known by the latin name of Fitzroya Cupressoides. These severly endangered trees are slow growers, but live longer than anything else on earth, over 4000 years. They are giants, growing well over 200 feet in maturity, with trunk diameters over 30 feet at the base. The Alerce looks a lot like a Sierra Redwood (Sequoiadendron Giganteum), with nothing but massive trunk until a third to a half way up the tree, where huge knarly branches poke out with foliage at last. The bark of the Alerce is smooth and white, giving the tree an uncommonly striking appearance. EcoWorld has contracted with the representative of a gatherer who is in Chile right now obtaining Alerce seeds. This marvelous species of trees needs new homes, as well as greater protection in their own country. If you want to get some Alerce seeds, or if you have information on where Alerces grow or could grow, or any reports on how the threatened stands of ancient Alerces are doing, please let me know at ed@ecoworld.com.

Defenders of Property Rights

Washington, DC

When people think of civil rights, they generally tend to conjure up images of segregated schools or restaurants and the fight we had (indeed, are still having) in this country to ensure that all people — regardless of their skin color or nationality — can enjoy the same privileges of living under the rule of law in a free society. That right — the right to equality regardless of race, color, or creed — is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Today, however, another civil rights revolution is underway. At issue is another right, this one guaranteed by the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — the right to obtain payment of just compensation whenever one’s private property has been taken by the government for public use.

Just as segregation led to the racially-based civil rights movement in the 1960′s, so it is that incursions on property rights, largely in the name of protecting the environment, has sparked the property rights movement now some 30 years later. Starting in the 1960′s, federal, state, and local governments increasingly began to regulate property rights through environmental protection policies. Today, environmental regulations touch every conceivable aspect of property use and ownership often infringing directly upon private property rights protected by the Constitution. Through its ability to regulate, the government has steadily and increasingly tended to “take” whatever uses and benefits of property it wishes rather than condemning the property outright and paying for what it has taken.

The property rights movement today is comprised of thousands upon thousands of individuals across America who are being singled out by the government to bear the unfair burden of implementing land use and environmental policies the government itself is simply not prepared to pay for. The complaint of the property owner is not so much what the government is trying to achieve through its policies, but the means whereby it is achieving them.

A case in point is the decision last June by the United States Supreme Court in Dolan v. City of Tigard. At issue in Dolan was whether the city could demand from Florence Dolan approximately 10% of her land — which the city planned to use for a bicycle/pedestrian pathway and for a public greenway — in exchange for being granted permission to enlarge her plumbing supply store. No one, including the Dolans, objected to the city’s plans for a bike path or a greenway, but the fair thing — the constitutionally-mandated way of achieving the city’s objectives — was for the city to buy the land necessary to complete the project rather than holding Mrs. Dolan’s planned use of her property hostage as did the city of Tigard.

It is this infringement of rights in private property — not necessarily an objection to the objectives of the governmental purpose — that has provoked people to unite to form the property rights movement.

These people are objecting to an environmental regulatory regime that costs Americans $300 billion a year in compliance costs, and which ranks even the most insignificant snail’s interest as more important than human interest. Or to a wetlands program which delineates one to two hundred million acres of land — 75% of which is privately owned — as “wet” and must be maintained untouched by human hands. They are objecting to a criminal enforcement program which puts innocent people in jail for simply placing dry sand on existing dry sand, all on land which is privately-owned — because it violates the government’s policy of no net-loss of wetlands.

Until recently, the Supreme Court showed little interest in property rights law. Back in 1922, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes declared the bedrock principle of takings law: “The general rule at least is, that while property may be regulated to a certain extent, if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking.” After this ruling, however, the Court did not select any cases that would advance this doctrine. This was apparent in 1978, When Justice William Brennan expressed his dismay over the Court’s inability to “develop any ‘set formula’ for determining when ‘justice and fairness’ require that economic injuries caused by public action be compensated by the government rather than remain disproportionately concentrated on a few persons.”

In 1987, however, the Court began a renewed interest in property rights, ruling on three cases. In First English Evangelical Church v. County of Los Angeles, the Court held the county could be required to compensate a church barred by a flood control ordinance from reconstructing summer camp buildings destroyed during a 1978 flood. In Nollan v. California Coastal Commission, the Justices ruled the public could not require the owner of a home next to a beach to donate a third of his land to the state in order to obtain a permit to rebuild the house without paying just compensation. Hodel v. Irving invalidated a regulation eliminating the right of Indians to devise to their heirs reservation lands.

In 1992, the Supreme Court again ruled for the plaintiff in Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council. The case involved two beachfront lots Mr. Lucas planned to develop that were rendered useless by a beachfront protection statute. The central holding of Lucas is that “[r]egulations that deny the property owner of all ‘economically viable use of his land’ constitute one of the discrete categories of regulatory deprivations that require compensation without the usual case-specific inquiry into the public interest advanced in support of the restraint.” In the aftermath of the case, the state was forced to purchase the property from Mr. Lucas. The state then put the property up for sale to potential developers — the exact purpose from which Mr. Lucas was barred. This shows how the attitude of the government changes when it is forced to bear the cost of its regulations — at least when the Fifth Amendment is applied.

Dolan was decided during this past term of the Court. In his opinion, ChiefJustice William Rehnquist noted: “We see no reason why the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, as much a part of the Bill of Rights as the First Amendment, should be relegated to the status of a poor relation in these comparable circumstances.” The High Court reversed the decision of the lower court, sending it back to be retried — this time putting the burden on the city to prove why it needs to take the Dolan’s property.

The courts, however, are not the only place where the muscle of the property rights movement is being felt. The 103rd Congress has been active on three fronts — unfunded mandates, risk assessment analysis of regulations, and property rights bills

– which environmentalists collectively refer to as the “unholy trinity.” These three reforms have become dreaded amendments to regulatory reauthorizations in the eyes of the environmentalist movement.

In a memo to environmental leaders, a Natural Resources Defense Council lobbyist warned that regulations long overdue for reauthorization could not be passed during this session of Congress without one or more of the trinity amendments being attached. The strategy offered by the lobbyist was to keep most of the reauthorization bills off the table, allowing the environmental movement to focus on just one or two pieces of legislation. Regulations that were not reauthorized are in no danger of expiring because they remain valid until reauthorized.

Property rights was the focus early in the session, when Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit’s National Biological Survey — a plan to map the entire nation by ecosystems — was saddled with property rights amendments when it passed the House. The bill was never introduced in the Senate.

The importance of risk assessment analyses led to the downfall of the bill that would have elevated the EPA to cabinet-level status. When the bill arrived on the House floor for debate, the leadership would not allow consideration of a risk assessment amendment that had already passed by an overwhelming margin in the Senate. Angered over this move, congressmen voted down the rule on the bill, sending it back to committee — effectively stopping the bill.

Lawmakers with political ideologies as divergent as Senators Dirk Kempthorne and Carol Mosely-Braun have come to agreement on the issue of curbing unfunded mandates, with each sponsoring bills to reduce or even eliminate them completely. Unfunded mandates are federal legislation that seeks to achieve its goal by compelling states and localities to pick up the bill for their enforcement. These mandates are the bane of mayors and governors across America, and even the Clinton Administration has been forced to take notice of the problem. Environmentalists are particularly concerned about this since so many environmental regulations passed at the federal level compel the states to pay for their compliance and fiscal outlay — as well as forces them to set up their own programs in some cases.

The property rights issue has gained such prominence that the Senate has established a property rights caucus led by Senators Dole and Howell Heflin, a former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. In the House, Democrat Billy Tauzin is finding himself at odds with his party colleagues in the House leadership as he circulates a discharge petition to bring his “Property Owner’s Bill of Rights” to the floor for debate. Senator Phil Gramm, an oft-mentioned Republican candidate for the White House in 1996, has also introduced property rights legislation, and expressed interest in using it as a campaign issue in this fall’s elections (Gramm is the head of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee).

Outside the Beltway, property rights is becoming a major issue in the states. Over the past legislative session, 37 state legislatures introduced almost 100 bills to protect property rights. Ten of these states have turned these bills into law. At the American Legislative Exchange Council’s 1994 conference, a whole morning was set aside to discuss the issue of property rights. Many states are eagerly awaiting the results of a vote to take place in Arizona in November, where voters will be asked to decide the fate of property rights legislation.

After a petition campaign rife with deceitful allegations that property rights legislation would ruin Arizona’s economy and ecology, environmentalists were able to force a referendum on property rights legislation already passed by the legislature and signed by the governor. Proposition 300, as it is now known, “would require state agencies, before a taking results, to examine their activities, including rules and other regulatory actions that effect the use of property, to determine if an action requires compensation from the state.” In addition to this important election battle out West, Massachusetts and Fl….orida are also putting property rights to a vote in referendums this fall.

From the very beginning of our republic, property rights have been considered sacred. The Founding Fathers envisioned a strong system of property rights as a means of protecting individual liberty. John Adams, in his Defense of the Constitutions of Government, said: “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and there is not force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.” The Founding Fathers believed property rights to be of such overreaching importance that it is the only part of the Constitution providing money to be awarded to citizens for incurred damages: “[N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

Property rights is truly the civil rights issue of the 1990′s and beyond. When the right to own and control property are infringed, the rights of free speech, association, and many others are put at risk. Who would dare speak out against a government that can take their land at any moment, with no restraint. Realizing this, the people have banded together, organized, and are actively fighting for their rights….

Editor’s Note: This article is only one example of how private incentives can lead to an end result that is far more environmentally beneficial than bureaucratically derived solutions. The fate of the African Rhino was all but sealed, at least until the potential of the Rhino as a legitimate game animal was realized. Many may have a problem with the idea of hunting any animal, but the sport killing of individual Rhinos has saved the species. Hunters may be killers, but they are also conservationists, and they have accomplished what was previously thought to be nearly impossible, the rescue of a species on the brink of extinction. Read on…

The zebra cautiously approached the water hole, unaware of the danger perched in the tree above. Though African animals are conditioned by predators to be cautious, in this case the predator was well camouflaged. When the zebra lowered his head to drink, the archer, stiff from hours sitting patiently in the tree stand, drew his bow and launched the razor-sharp arrow. Instantly, the zebra fell to the ground, as the arrow found its mark, severing the zebra’s spinal cord. The meat would become dog food because humans generally find it unpalatable, but the tanned zebra skin would decorate the floor of the hunter’s trophy room.

To the non-hunter this crass “slaughter” of a magnificent African animal for pure human pleasure engenders feelings of disgust and anger. Sport hunting is seen as the epitome of anthropocentric resource use. In this view, the killing of the animal serves no other purpose than to boost the ego of the hunter. Killing for meat might be rationalized, but killing strictly for pleasure cannot. Accordingly, anti-hunting forces believe that laws should stop or at least limit hunting and ban trade in wild animals or their by-products.

Those who hold this position, however, do not appreciate the important role that markets can play in preserving wildlife species and their habitat. The rest of the zebra story reveals the role of the hunter, the entrepreneur, and profits in South African game preservation. Angus Brown, professional hunter and guide, is an enviro-capitalist motivated both by his love of the bush and the living he can make by meeting the demands of hunters. In addition, his entrepreneurship benefits both wildlife and the landowner. Angus contracts with a landowner for exclusive hunting access on approximately 20,000 acres in the Transvaal province of South Africa. According to terms of the agreement, Angus provides meals, living accommodations and guide services for hunters while the landowner provides the habitat. The accommodations include beautiful African huts with walls woven from reeds and roofs thatched from grass. Horns from animals in the area adorn the walls and skins cover the floors. Food in the camp is typical South African fare highlighted with the wild meat killed by the hunters. Natural pans and developed water holes provide water for the animals in this arid land on the edge of the Kalahari Desert. At these water points, archery hunters wait for animals like the zebra to come for their daily drink.

All of these investments are possible only because hunters are willing to pay fees that make the venture profitable to the guide and the landowner. Perhaps more important is the strong link between hunting revenues and resource stewardship. The landowner gets a share of the daily guide fees paid by the customers and nearly two-thirds of the trophy fees paid for each animal.

The price list for the various animals available to hunters reads like a menu at a restaurant: Tsebe–$1500, Waterbuck–$1200, Zebra–$650, Kudu–$600, Warthog–$100, Impala–$80, etc. Angus and the landowner mutually agree on these prices which reflect the scarcity of the species. With warthogs and impala abundant, their prices are low; with tsebe and waterbuck scarce in the region, their prices are high. Such prices condition the demands of the hunter, who must carefully weigh his preferences against the prices. Indeed, Angus can also arrange hunting (elsewhere) for elephant or rhino, the two most scarce of the hunted species, at a price of $12,000 and $28,000, respectively.

The supply-side impacts of these incentives have been dramatic. In recent years the ranch was mainly a cattle operation, but the potential for hunting profits has changed this. Instead of carrying several hundred Brahma cattle, the land now supports approximately 500 impala, 200 kudu, 100 wildebeest, 50 tsebe, 25 waterbuck and numerous other species. Interior fences necessary for cattle management have been removed to give wildlife a freer range, and water trough are being converted to more natural water holes. Angus and the landowner consider ways to improve the habitat and increase the number of species.

Without the profits from hunting, less habitat would be available for the indigenous species of the Kalahari and fewer animals would survive. It is precisely this form of enviro-capitalism that has been successfully implemented in Africa to encourage elephant and rhino preservation.

Closer to home, Tom Bourland also knows that the market can be wildlife’s best friend. He should know. As head biologist on International Paper’s commercial forests in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas, he turned wildlife into an asset for the company. As an environmental entrepreneur, Tom Bourland changed the perspective of the company regarding wildlife by implementing a fee recreation program. His program charged sportsmen for hunting access and leased small tracts of land to individuals on which they can park their motor homes and enjoy the woods. After three years the company’s revenues from this program tripled to $2 million and profits were an impressive 25% of total profits. In Bourland’s words, “Because the status of wildlife affected the bottom line, the landowner bent over backwards to provide habitat for white-tailed deer, wild turkey, fox, squirrel, and bobwhite quail, as well as endangered bald eagles and red-cockaded woodpeckers.” This commercialization of wildlife has meant that more habitat is being preserved and wildlife are thriving where once they were considered a nuisance.

Enviro-capitalism is not a late twentieth-century phenomenon; even in the late nineteenth century, enviro-capitalists were at work. The not-well-known story of efforts to preserve Yellowstone reveals that it was the Northern Pacific Railroad that funded early expeditions to the region and lobbied Congress for legislation establishing Yellowstone as the world’s first national park in 1872. As one railroad official put it in the 1870s, “We do not want to see the Falls of the Yellowstone driving the looms of a cotton factory, or the great geysers boiling pork for some gigantic packing-house . . . .” Because it provided the main form of transportation to the region, the railroad could profit from preservation of this scenic wonder and therefore had an incentive to preserve the region. A similar story lies behind Glacier National Park with the Great Northern Railway, Grand Canyon National Park with the Santa Fe, and most other early western parks.

On a smaller, more private scale is the hundred-year history of the Huron Mountain Club on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The club was established on November 29, 1889 with 7,000 acres and $5,000 capital generated from the sale of member shares and annual dues initially set at $100 and $25, respectively. John Longyear, the club’s first president and a prosperous land dealer, steered the club through its first three years. He was a practical man who recognized that the “serenity of woods and lakes and fish-filled streams” were growing scarce. Therefore, they offered a profit opportunity. It was no coincidence that he owned the only means of transportation to the Huron area, a steamship, and several parcels of land near the Club’s boundaries.

Over the last seventy years, the Huron Mountain Club evolved from a hunting and fishing club to a secluded forest retreat complete with member-owned cabins. In the process, it has also become an important natural preserve for old-growth forests and rare fauna, containing one of a few large tracts (over 5,000 acres) of undisturbed maple-hemlock forests. The club has become an important natural area study for the University of Michigan and other scientific researchers.

Similar stories of enviro-capitalists abound. In 1927 R. E. Clanton purchased the Sea Lion Caves off the Oregon coast, opening it as a tourist attraction and providing a private sanctuary for Stellar sea lions. In 1935, Rosalie Edge raised $3,500 and purchased Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania to prevent hunters from using the mountain top to shoot birds of prey. Recently, housing developer Peter O’Neill has created trout habitat within his River Run Housing Project in the middle of Boise, Idaho.

Frank Crisafulli mobilized the town of Glendive, Montana to collect paddlefish eggs from fishermen who harvest the fish from the Yellowstone River. Their effort to produce “caviar in cattle country” has raised thousands of dollars for community projects and generated much needed revenue to improve spawning habitat for this rare prehistoric fish. Commercial elk hunting on the White Mountain Apache Reservation in Arizona and elephant hunting on native communal lands in Zimbabwe are allowing indigenous populations to profit from wildlife, thus giving them the incentive to save habitat and species. And the list goes on.

In his book The Vital Few, Jonathan Hughes describes the entrepreneurs of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who unleashed America’s industrial power. Names like Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, and Ford lead the list. In some cases these “vital few” invented new products or production techniques, but mostly they amassed capital, contracted with others, and developed marketing strategies that lowered the cost of products, making them more available to the masses and in the process increasing profits. In the 19th century and early twentieth centuries, these entrepreneurs were in the railroad, auto, and steel industries. Today they are more likely to be in building the information highway.

Having amassed their fortunes, today’s entrepreneurs, like those of the past, can provide philanthropic support for a variety of causes. In the case of the environment, they have a choice of funding enviro-capitalism, as described above, or the political environmentalism that dominates today’s agenda. Here, names like Jay D. Hair, who heads the National Wildlife Federation, and political figures such as George Frampton and Bruce Babbitt are held up as environmental entrepreneurs. Instead of business acumen, however, these people understand how to use political maneuvering and lobbying to accomplish their goals. All too often, their game is winner-takes-all, where environmental special interests gain at the expense of others. The tearing of the social fabric inherent in this political game is visible in the bitter debates over endangered species, clean water and air, and public land use.

The enviro-capitalism alternative, on the other hand, offers a win-win alternative. For example, a grant from the Northwest Area Foundation to the Oregon Water Trust allowed these enviro-capitalists to lease water from farmers in an effort to save critical salmon spawning habitat in Oregon. Hank Fischer of the Defenders of Wildlife has raised funds for his organization to compensate ranchers for livestock losses to wolves and to pay them for allowing wolves to raise litters on private property. Groups like the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation purchase lands and easements to save habitat.

The world of enviro-capitalism is growing at the grassroots level where environmentalists are frustrated with bureaucratic actions that take a long time to implement and often generate mediocre results. Well-funded enviro-capitalists can effectively put their money where the species are and get the job done. Like traditional business entrepreneurs, they also must invent new products, attract venture capital, contract with resource owners, and market their products. The philanthropic sector can help by providing funds and by encouraging a legal and political setting where this entrepreneurial spirit can thrive. In this way the market system that has been so successful for industrialization can be unleashed to help solve environment problems.

About the Authors: Terry L. Anderson and Donald R. Leal are Senior Associates of PERC (the Property and Environment Research Center), 2048 Analysis Drive, Suite A, Bozeman, Montana 59718 (406-587-9591; fax: 406-586-7555). E-mail: perc@perc.org

This article was originally published in the Fall 1994 issue of Philanthropy, a publication of The Philanthropy Roundtable (Indianapolis, Indiana).