Managing Public Lands in 2021 and Beyond

To further our understanding of the economic aspects of public land management, C-FARE joined forces with the Association of Environmental and Resource Economics (AERE) to host a panel titled Managing Public Lands in 2021. C-FARE hosted this free webinar on Monday, March 15th. Our panel of speakers consisted of three scholars in public land management, forestry, and resource management. C-FARE board member Sean Cash, a professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, moderated the discussion.

Panelists Margaret Walls (Resources for The Future), Courtney Schultz (Colorado State University), and Kevin Boyle (Virginia Tech University) discussed their ongoing research in the field of forestry and public land management. 

Margaret Walls began the panel by providing the audience with “Three Public Land Issues for 2021 and Beyond.” The first public land issue that Margaret brought up was the “30 by 30” policy recommendation by the Secretary of The Interior regarding The United States’ need to “conserve at least thirty percent of US lands and waters by 2030.” For comparison, The United States is currently at 14% conservation depending on the measure.

The following public land issue that Ms. Walls highlighted to the audience was “Oil & Gas Leasing Policies.” Ms. Walls stated that the current Secretary of The Interior has “paused new oil and gas leases on public lands pending competition of a comprehensive review.” Given that these programs are being reviewed, Margaret Walls thinks it is essential to assess now what reforming gas and oil policy would involve.

The last public land issue that Ms. Walls displayed to the audience was “Renewable Energy.” Again, Margaret Walls quoted the current policy put forth by the Secretary of The Interior, which “permits the production of at least 25 GW of electricity from wind, solar, and geothermal energy by 2025 on public land.”

Courtney Schultz of Colorado State University presented on “New Directions and Challenges in National Forest Management.” Ms. Schultz began by acknowledging the significant challenges currently facing public land management, including “Grappling with change and promoting collaboration to work across boundaries and leverage capacity.”

Ms. Schultz then went into detail on the U.S Forest Service’s Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program and also the Joint Chief Partnership where, “The U.S. Forest Service and USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service are working together to improve the health of forests where public forests and grasslands connect to privately owned lands.” Courtney Schultz sees these programs as a crucial tool in managing our ecosystem and not doing enough regarding prescribed fire.

In her “Prescribed Fire Research Takeaways” Ms. Schutlz stated, “We have to get fire back on the landscape [through] natural ignition because I can’t plan enough fire to do it.” She left the audience with a final question of “How can we effectively respond to the pace of ecological change?”

Kevin Boyle of Virginia Tech University was the final panelist and presented on “Valuing National Park Service Resources.” The first research he covered in his presentation was regarding a study he worked on at Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter is a National Monument located in Charleston, South Carolina. This study aimed to figure out what cost increase to site access attendees would actually be willing to pay. This research’s findings compared the results of willingness to pay from face-to-face interviews to that of self-filed questionnaires and found a 23-29% higher willingness to pay from those who responded via interview. He found that, on average, visitors would pay $13 more than the current access boat fee. 

The subsequent study he provided the audience was on “Multiple Park Visitation” and how people package their National Park visits. Kevin Boyle sees understanding how visitors choose to go to certain National Parks as necessary for handling issues such as crowding. Mr. Boyle considers the importance of learning how people will substitute their trips if a park they were interested in is full.  Mr. Boyle sees the current system of each park having its own policy regarding crowding issues as being prone to just pushing the problems of one park to a less equipped one.

Q&A with the audience followed the panelists’ presentations.

This program is supported in part by the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association and the US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, and the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Those who register but cannot attend our webinar can always view a recording of it later at the council’s YouTube channel.