Wilderness areas Wild or primitive portions of national

forests, parks, and wildlife refuges where little to no human activity occurs

Wilderness Act created National Wilderness Preservation System

Encompasses a wide variety of ecosystems throughout the country

Land Conservation Options1. Protect functioning of public land ecosystems

through monitoring and enforcement2. Adopt a user pay to extract resources on public

lands3. Institute fair compensation for resources 4. Require responsibility for any user who damages or

alters public lands5. Adopt uneven aged forestry management6. Include ecological services of trees in estimating

value7. Reduce road building into uncut lands and require

restoration plans for areas currently used

Land Conservation Options8. Coordinate with forest service to leave fallen trees

to promote nutrient cycling9. Grow timber in longer rotations10. Reduce or eliminate clear-cutting, sheltered wood

cutting, or seed tree cutting on sloped land11. Rely on more sustainable tree cutting methods12. Reduce fragmentation of remaining large forests13. Require certification of lumber that is cut

according to sustainable practices14. Use sustainable techniques in tropical forests15. Create solutions to urban land use problems

including zoning.

Conservation vocab Preservation or sustainable: to keep or maintain

intact Ex. Land trusts

Remediation: to act or process of correcting a fault or deficiency Ex: cleaning up from Exxon Valdez or Deep Water horizon

oil spills Mitigation: to moderate or alleviate in force and

intensity Ex: Road reflectors to make deer freeze before entering a

road Restoration: to restore to its former good condition

Ex: removing a dam

Mining

Over view of miningSteps Descriptions Environmental Issues

Mining Removing a mineral resource from the ground. Can involve underground, open pit, strip mining, etc.

Mine wastes – acid and toxinsDisplacement of native speciesReclamation of land and recycling

Processing Removing ore from gangue (non-ore material). Involves transportation, processing, smelting, and manufacturing

Pollution (air, water, soil, and noise)

Use Involves distribution to end user

Human health concerns, risks, and hazards

Steps of mining1. Exploration: looking for areas that contain

desired resources2. Site Development: take samples to

determine quality and quantity of material; construct roads and bring in equipment

3. Extraction: Removing the material from the ground

4. Processing: Valuable material is extracted from the ore

Types of mining1. Surface mining: soil and rock over resource is

removed to gain access to material underneath Enlarged until deposit is exhausted or costs become to

high

Types of surface mining1. Strip mining: area stripped is fairly flat; take from a

large areaEx: tar sands

2. Open pit mining: removal of materials from an open air pitEx: diamonds

3. Mountaintop removal mining: all rock and soil above seam is removed and placed in valleysEx: Coal

4. Dredging: collecting soil from bottom of the sea5. Highwall mining: uses continuous mining machine

under remote control to remove materialEx: coal

Types of mining2. Underground mining: large shafts dug

into earth to remove material Less surface damage Can lead to acidification of ground water after

mine is abandoned

3. in situ leaching: small holes drilled into site and water based chemical solvents are used to extract minerals

Processing Removes usable materials from ore Involves heat and/or chemicals

Global Reserves 2 billion tons of minerals are extracted and

used each year in the US US imports 50% of the most needed

minerals US, Germany, and Russia are 8% of the

population but use 75% of most widely used metals

Relevant Laws General Mining Law (1872): grants free access

to individuals and corporations to prospect for minerals in public domain and allows them, upon making a discovery, to stake a claim on that deposit

Mineral Leasing Act (1920): authorizes and governs leasing of public lands form developing deposits of coal, petroleum, natural gas and other hydrocarbons, phosphates, and sodium

Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (1977): Established a program for regulating surface coal mining and reclamation activities

Fishing

Fishing Techniques Bottom trawling Drift Net Long Line Purse Seine

Terms: Target/ commercial

species: the species that are being sought in the fishing

Bycatch: animals caught that are not the target species

Bottom trawling Use a funnel-

shaped net to drag the ocean bottom

Target Species: Cod Flounder Scallops

Drift Net Long Expanses of

nets that hang down in the water

Traps: turtles, sea birds, marine mammals

1992 UN voluntary ban on drift nets longer than 1.5 mi

Ghost fishing

Longline Place very long

lines with thousands of baited hooks

Target species: swordfish, tuna, sharks, halibut, cod

Bycatch: sea turtles, pilot whales, dolphins

Purse Seine Surrounds school

of fish spotted with aircraft with a large net which is drawn tight

Target species: tuna, mackerel, anchovies, herring

Bycatch: dolphins, sea turtles

Overfishing Oceans supply 1% of

all human food and 10% of world’s protein source

China responsible for 1/3 of all fishing

1/3 are used for non-consumption Fish oil Fish meal Animal feed

1/3 of global catches are bycatch discarded

Maximum sustained yield = largest amount of marine organisms that can be harvested without causing a population crash

Overfishing

Techniques to Sustainably Managing Fisheries

1. Regulate locations and numbers of fish farms and monitor their pollution output

2. Encourage the production of herbivorous fish species

3. Require and enforce labeling of fish products that were raised of caught according to sustainable methods

4. Set catch limits far below maximum sustainable yields

5. Eliminate government subsidies for commercial fishing

Techniques to Sustainably Managing Fisheries

6. Prevent importation of fish from foreign countries that do not adhere to sustainable-harvesting methods.

7. Place trading sanctions on foreign countries that do not adhere to sustainable-harvesting methods

8. Assess fees for harvesting fish and shellfish from public waters

9. Increase the number of marine sanctuaries and no-fishing areas

Techniques to Sustainably Managing Fisheries

10. Increase penalties for fishing techniques that do not allow escape of bycatch, including unwanted fish species, marine mammals, sea birds, and sea turtles

11. Ban the throwing back of bycatch12. Monitor and destroy invasive species

transported through ship ballast

How to restore freshwater fish habitat Planting native

vegetation on stream banks

Rehabilitating in-stream habitats

Controlling erosion Controlling

invasive species

Restoring fish passages around human made-impediments

Monitoring, regulating, and enforcing recreational and commercial fishing

Protecting costal estuaries and wetlands

Aquaculture (or mariculture) =

fish farming Growing commercial

species for food Involves:

Stocking Feeding Protection from

predators Harvesting

Aquaculture Industry growing

by 6% annually Provides 5% of

world’s total food production

Most in less-developed countries

Products: Seaweeds

Kelp = 75% Mollusks = 80%

Mussels Oysters

Shrimp = 40% Salmon Trout Catfish

Advantages Cold blooded animals convert more feed

to useable protein Requires less feed than livestock systems For every hectare of ocean oyster farming can

produce 58,000 kg of protein Harvesting oysters = 10kg

Requirements Species must be marketable Inexpensive to raise Trophically efficient Marketable to size at 1 – 2 years Disease resistant

Disadvantages Industrial aquaculture posses a threat to marine

and coastal biological diversity Creates wide-scale destruction and degradation

of natural habitats Leaves nutrients and antibiotics as aquaculture

waste Accidental release of alien or modified species

into native waters Transmission of disease to wild stocks Displacement of local indigenous human

communities

Case Study – Salmon Farming 22% of all retail seafood Farmed salmon have more PCBs than any

other protein source Fattened with fish meal and fish oils high in

PCBs PCB = polychlorinated biphenyls

Banned in US in 1970’s – persistent pollutants Cause cancer and fetal development effects

Farmed salmon contains 52% more fat that wild caught salmon

Relevant Laws Anadromous Fish Conservation Act (1965):

authorizes Sectary of the Interior to enter into agreements to conserve, develop, and enhance anadromous fish resources in the US. Anadromous = fish that migrate from the sea

to fresh water to spawn Example: Salmon

Relevant Laws Magnuson Fishery Conservation and

Management Act (1976): Governs marine fisheries in US federal waters Aside in development of domestic fishing industry

by phasing out foreign fishing Manage fisheries Promote conservation Created eight regional fishery management

councils 1996 amendments focused on rebuilding overfished

fisheries, protecting essential fish habitat, reducing bycatch

Relevant Laws United Nations Treaty on the Law of the

Sea (1982): Defines rights and responsibilities of nations in

their use of the world’s oceans Establishes guidelines for businesses, the

environment, and management of marine resources

Global Economics

Global Economy and the environment The environment contains resources that

can be used in the economy Use of resources contains new

environmental issues Increased economic activity improves

standards of living Until recently development of economies

and local environments were seperate

World Bank Source of financial and technical

assistance to the developing world Owned by 184 member countries Provides low interest loans, interest-free

credit, and grants to developing countries to improve education, health, infrastructure, communications, and environmental issues

In 2001 endorsed a strategy to focus on environmental issues

World bank environmental projects $13.8 billion in areas of biodiversity,

conservation, climate change, and international waters

$740 million to phase out ozone-depleting substances

$1.6 billion into projects that reduce green house gas emisions

“Tragedy of the Commons” Overuse of common/public land leads to:

Uncontrolled human population growth Air pollution Over extraction of ground water and wasting

water due to excessive irrigation Frontier logging of old growth forests and slash

and burn Habitat destruction Poaching overfishing

Limits to “Tragedy of the Commons” Economic decisions are short term while

environmental consequences are long term Land that is privately owned is subject to market

pressure Some commons are easier to control than others Incorporating discount rates into the valuation of

resources would be an incentive for investors to bear a short-term cost for a long-term gain

Breaking commons into smaller, privately owned parcels fragments government policies

Different standards and practices may affect one parcel differently than others

Names to know Rachel Carson: Wrote Silent Spring lead to ban on

DDT Aldo Leopold: book A Sand county Almanac.

Developed environmental ethics John Muir: Founded Sierra Club and helped save

many wilderness areas Theodore Roosevelt: 26 president setting aside land

for national forests, wildlife refuges, developing farmlands, and advocating for protecting wild spaces

Henry David Thoreau: book Walden discussed materialism and need for conservation