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TODAY Tuesday 3 February 1998 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
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TODAY Tuesday 3 February 1998 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
TODAY IN THE WORLD: Land Purchase Fever
These are boom days for the environmental strategy that's never wrong: buy land and then encumber it so it can't be developed. Private non-profit land conservation outfits like the Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land are receiving donations at record levels, and they're proceeding to acquire properties accordingly. 1997 ended with a flourish of high-profile, high-money deals ("Proactive, Schmoactive") that included some key ecosystem protection on the Great Plains and in northeastern forests.
Now two other parties have stepped forward. One of them is the federal government, which has compiled a 100-item shopping list for lands to buy with the $700 million fund that was one of the armistice points in last year's budget war. According to a report by Joby Warrick in yesterday's Washington Post, two of the items consume more than half the fund: the acquisition of the land near Yellowstone Park slated for development as the New World Gold Mine and the rescue of the Headwaters forest of old-growth redwoods in California. Certifiably big deals.
The remaining $328 million will be plunked down in all regions of the country. $86 million to buy land around Washington state rivers for a dam-busting program designed to save salmon. $20 million to buy 95,000 acres of wilderness in New Mexico. $15 million to buy the remaining private parcels along the Appalachian Trail. $13 million to purchase bison-protection easements on ranches bordering Yellowstone. $11 million to expand protection of Civil War battlefields. (That last one is brilliant politics. Get the crazy battle buffs involved. Besides, two of the sites to be protected are at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania, important places where the tactics and the casualty rates prefigured the dreadfulness of the First World War. Don't ask how I know.)
In addition, the President is requesting a fiscal 1999 allocation of $290 million for new purchases next year. Not bad, though nothing on the $10 billion he wants for cleaning up nuclear weapons sites.
The second party to step forward is (or will be) the newly-huge Packard Foundation in Silicon Valley. Usually-reliable sources say that the Foundation is going to spend up to $35 million a year on land purchases in California, starting in 1998 with the northern coast and the Central Valley. Granted, $35 million will only get you a half-dozen spreads in Beverly Hills, but it can stretch pretty far in Eureka and Lodi.
TODAY ON THE SITE
For those of you who actually like to go to such places, Susan Alexander, our Noe Valley correspondent from the high country of central San Francisco, can tell you where to find the best Websites on wilderness.
Recent "Today" columns:
2/2: Groundhog Day in the Persian Gulf
1/30: Trees and Hormones
1/29: Things To Come (2)
1/28: Things To Come
1/27: 'Bye, 'Bye Brazil
1/26: Jaywalking and Jaydriving
1/23: Good Biotech, Bad Biotech
1/22: No More Roads
1/21: Swordfish
1/20: Electromagnetic Sleuthing
1/16: Good News Way Down Under
1/15: Twenty-Four Forty or Fight!
1/14: Your Tax Dollars at Work
1/13: Johnny Mobil Appleseed
1/12: Superbowl, Scientific Uncertainty, and the Future of Al Gore
1/9: Goodbye, Delaware
1/8: Leaf Blowers, Old Cars, Class Conflict
1/7: The Great Improvement That Didn't
1/6: Proactive, Shmoactive
1/5: Mediocre Landscapes and Hope for the Planet
1/2: The Greatest Environmental Cause of the Year
12/31/97: The Top Twelve Environment Stories of 1997
To access more "Today" columns, click "Archives" below.