Direction and Politics of Soil Conservation Policy in the United States

2015 ◽  
pp. 505-515
Author(s):  
Sandra S. Batie
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soil Conservation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Conservation Policy

scholarly journals High-resolution land value maps reveal underestimation of conservation costs in the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (47) ◽  
pp. 29577-29583
Author(s):  
Christoph Nolte
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
Conservation Policy ◽  
Private Benefits ◽  
Private Lands ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Land Protection ◽  
Conservation Costs ◽  
Fair Market Value

The justification and targeting of conservation policy rests on reliable measures of public and private benefits from competing land uses. Advances in Earth system observation and modeling permit the mapping of public ecosystem services at unprecedented scales and resolutions, prompting new proposals for land protection policies and priorities. Data on private benefits from land use are not available at similar scales and resolutions, resulting in a data mismatch with unknown consequences. Here I show that private benefits from land can be quantified at large scales and high resolutions, and that doing so can have important implications for conservation policy models. I developed high-resolution estimates of fair market value of private lands in the contiguous United States by training tree-based ensemble models on 6 million land sales. The resulting estimates predict conservation cost with up to 8.5 times greater accuracy than earlier proxies. Studies using coarser cost proxies underestimate conservation costs, especially at the expensive tail of the distribution. This has led to underestimations of policy budgets by factors of up to 37.5 in recent work. More accurate cost accounting will help policy makers acknowledge the full magnitude of contemporary conservation challenges and can help improve the targeting of public ecosystem service investments.

scholarly journals Defending scientific integrity in conservation policy processes: lessons from Canada, Australia, and the United States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Carroll ◽  
Brett Hartl ◽  
Gretchen T Goldman ◽  
Daniel J Rohlf ◽  
Adrain Treves ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
At Risk ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
The United States ◽  
Conservation Policy ◽  
Scientific Integrity ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Scientific Societies ◽  
Evidence Based Policy

Government agencies faced with politically controversial decisions often discount or ignore scientific information, whether from agency staff or non-governmental scientists. Recent developments in scientific integrity (the ability to perform, use, communicate and publish science free from censorship or political interference) in Canada, Australia and the United States demonstrate a similar trajectory: a perceived increase in scientific integrity abuses is followed by concerted pressure by the scientific community, leading to efforts to improve scientific integrity protections under a new administration. However, protections are often inconsistently applied, and are at risk of reversal under administrations that are publicly hostile to evidence-based policy. We compare recent challenges to scientific integrity to determine what aspects of scientific input into conservation policy are most at risk of political distortion and what can be done to strengthen safeguards against such abuses. To ensure the integrity of outbound communication from government scientists to public, we suggest that governments strengthen scientific integrity policies, include scientists’ right to speak freely in collective bargaining agreements, guarantee public access to scientific information, and strengthen agency culture supporting scientific integrity. To ensure the transparency and integrity with which information from non-governmental scientists (e.g., submitted comments or formal policy reviews) informs the policy process, we suggest that governments broaden the scope of independent reviews, ensure greater diversity of expert input with transparency regarding conflicts of interest, require substantive response to input from agencies, and engage proactively with scientific societies. For their part, scientists and scientific societies have a civic responsibility to engage with the wider public to affirm that science is a crucial resource for developing evidence-based policy and regulations that are in the public interest.

scholarly journals Defending scientific integrity in conservation policy processes: lessons from Canada, Australia, and the United States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Carroll ◽  
Brett Hartl ◽  
Gretchen T Goldman ◽  
Daniel J Rohlf ◽  
Adrain Treves ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
At Risk ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
The United States ◽  
Conservation Policy ◽  
Scientific Integrity ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Scientific Societies ◽  
Evidence Based Policy

Government agencies faced with politically controversial decisions often discount or ignore scientific information, whether from agency staff or non-governmental scientists. Recent developments in scientific integrity (the ability to perform, use, communicate and publish science free from censorship or political interference) in Canada, Australia and the United States demonstrate a similar trajectory: a perceived increase in scientific integrity abuses is followed by concerted pressure by the scientific community, leading to efforts to improve scientific integrity protections under a new administration. However, protections are often inconsistently applied, and are at risk of reversal under administrations that are publicly hostile to evidence-based policy. We compare recent challenges to scientific integrity to determine what aspects of scientific input into conservation policy are most at risk of political distortion and what can be done to strengthen safeguards against such abuses. To ensure the integrity of outbound communication from government scientists to public, we suggest that governments strengthen scientific integrity policies, include scientists’ right to speak freely in collective bargaining agreements, guarantee public access to scientific information, and strengthen agency culture supporting scientific integrity. To ensure the transparency and integrity with which information from non-governmental scientists (e.g., submitted comments or formal policy reviews) informs the policy process, we suggest that governments broaden the scope of independent reviews, ensure greater diversity of expert input with transparency regarding conflicts of interest, require substantive response to input from agencies, and engage proactively with scientific societies. For their part, scientists and scientific societies have a civic responsibility to engage with the wider public to affirm that science is a crucial resource for developing evidence-based policy and regulations that are in the public interest.

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