What do you think?
Rate this book
This Sovereign Land: A New Vision For Governing The West
In the eight states of the interior West (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming), 260 million acres -- more than 48 percent of the land base -- are owned by the federal government and managed by its Washington, D.C.-based agencies. Like many other peoples throughout history who have bristled under the controlling hand of a remote government, westerners have long nursed a deep resentment toward our nation's capital. Rumblings of revolution have stirred for decades, bolstered in recent years by increasing evidence of the impossibility of a distant, centralized government successfully managing the West's widespread and far-flung lands.In This Sovereign Land , Daniel Kemmis offers a radical new proposal for giving the West control over its land. Unlike those who wish to privatize the public lands and let market forces decide their fate, Kemmis, a leading western Democrat and committed environmentalist, argues for keeping the public lands public, but for shifting jurisdiction over them from nation to region. In place of the current centralized management, he offers a regional approach that takes into account natural topographical and ecological features, and brings together local residents with a vested interest in ensuring the sustainability of their communities. In effect, Kemmis carries to their logical conclusion the recommendations about how the West should be governed made by John Wesley Powell more than a century ago.Throughout, Kemmis argues that the West no longer needs to be protected against itself by a paternalistic system and makes a compelling case that the time has come for the region to claim sovereignty over its own landscape. This Sovereign Land provides a provocative opening to a much-needed discussion about how democracy and ecological sustainability can go hand in hand, and will be essential reading for anyone interested in the West and western issues, as well as for all those concerned with place-based conservation, public lands management, bioregionalism, or related topics.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 2001
23 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 27, 2013
For many people here in the East, they fail to understand the frustrations of Westerners who live off of the land, love the land, and conserve the land, only to be told they must live up to somebody else's standards; somebody else who has never been out West, or when they were, they were gobsmacked by the wildness and beauty of it all. Maybe those crusty old Westerners weren't so hard on the land after all.
November 18, 2024
Democracy And Western Public Lands
Daniel Kemmis, the author of this thoughtful book, is the director of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the University of Montana and formerly served as the mayor of Missoula Montana. He describes himself early in the book as a democrat with a capital "D". However he makes proposals for local control of management decisions on Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management Lands in the Western States that are ordinarily associated with Republican or
conservative positions.
The focus of the book is the "interior west" consisting of the states of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho,
Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming. These states are characterized by rugged terrain, a lack of water, sparse population, an abundance of timber and extractive resources and a high percentage of Federally owned land. Kemmis argues that it is no longer good policy for these lands to be managed under the current confusing Federal statutory regime. He argues for collaboration among westerners and involved users to determine the best ways for the West to manage its lands.
Much the best part of this book, for me, was the historical perspective Kemmis brings to his study. He writes perceptively and well about Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Rossevelt's important but conflicting visions about the American West. Jefferson, an expansionist in spite of himself, was fascinated with nature but viewed the West as a buffer for National security and as a component of his vision of an America consisting of small yeomen. Roosevelt too was an expansionist but saw the need of tight Federal control of the West and its resources to protect them for future generations. Current policy is an uneasy mix of Jeffersonian and Rooseveltian ideas.
There is also a good, if brief, discussion of the Lincoln-Douglas debates and how the different visions of these two men played out over time on issues of local versus national control. I found it creative.
Kemmis argues that the West has attained a great deal of sophistication (maturation) since Theodore Roosevelt's days and should be allowed a greater voice in the management of its (the United States') resources. He maintains that the Federal government is increasingly distant from the concerns of the West, and that the current Federal management regime is inconsistent with basic Jeffersonian democracy -- the people managing the resources of concern to them and thus taking a greater control of their own lives. He argues that Federal statutes and administrative officials are almost uniformly well-intentioned but that the West is too caught in the politics of Washington D.C., resulting in dissatisfaction by those in the region regardless of their other political commitments.
In advocating for "collaborationism", Kemmis is aware of the policy (and law) requiring public participation in land use decisions. He argues that people are reluctant to collaborate when they know that decisionmakers in Washington D.C. will have the ultimate say over the management of their lands.
This is a constructive book with many interesting things to say. As I noted, its strength is that it is historically well-informed. The weakness of the book is that it is short, overly anectdotal, and not entirely convincing in its claim that the Federal government is an intruder in the management of these lands. They are Federally owned, after all, to be used for the benefit of the American people. Less philosophically, I don't think Kemmis is convincing in showing the local control would result in more satisfactory and communally acceptable decision making. It would simply put the issues back on a local level where they are now in large part anyway.
Even though the conclusions are debatable, Kemmis's book is a valuable study of public lands management in the American West and how lands management ties in with our Nation's democratic (small "d") vision.
Daniel Kemmis, the author of this thoughtful book, is the director of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the University of Montana and formerly served as the mayor of Missoula Montana. He describes himself early in the book as a democrat with a capital "D". However he makes proposals for local control of management decisions on Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management Lands in the Western States that are ordinarily associated with Republican or
conservative positions.
The focus of the book is the "interior west" consisting of the states of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho,
Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming. These states are characterized by rugged terrain, a lack of water, sparse population, an abundance of timber and extractive resources and a high percentage of Federally owned land. Kemmis argues that it is no longer good policy for these lands to be managed under the current confusing Federal statutory regime. He argues for collaboration among westerners and involved users to determine the best ways for the West to manage its lands.
Much the best part of this book, for me, was the historical perspective Kemmis brings to his study. He writes perceptively and well about Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Rossevelt's important but conflicting visions about the American West. Jefferson, an expansionist in spite of himself, was fascinated with nature but viewed the West as a buffer for National security and as a component of his vision of an America consisting of small yeomen. Roosevelt too was an expansionist but saw the need of tight Federal control of the West and its resources to protect them for future generations. Current policy is an uneasy mix of Jeffersonian and Rooseveltian ideas.
There is also a good, if brief, discussion of the Lincoln-Douglas debates and how the different visions of these two men played out over time on issues of local versus national control. I found it creative.
Kemmis argues that the West has attained a great deal of sophistication (maturation) since Theodore Roosevelt's days and should be allowed a greater voice in the management of its (the United States') resources. He maintains that the Federal government is increasingly distant from the concerns of the West, and that the current Federal management regime is inconsistent with basic Jeffersonian democracy -- the people managing the resources of concern to them and thus taking a greater control of their own lives. He argues that Federal statutes and administrative officials are almost uniformly well-intentioned but that the West is too caught in the politics of Washington D.C., resulting in dissatisfaction by those in the region regardless of their other political commitments.
In advocating for "collaborationism", Kemmis is aware of the policy (and law) requiring public participation in land use decisions. He argues that people are reluctant to collaborate when they know that decisionmakers in Washington D.C. will have the ultimate say over the management of their lands.
This is a constructive book with many interesting things to say. As I noted, its strength is that it is historically well-informed. The weakness of the book is that it is short, overly anectdotal, and not entirely convincing in its claim that the Federal government is an intruder in the management of these lands. They are Federally owned, after all, to be used for the benefit of the American people. Less philosophically, I don't think Kemmis is convincing in showing the local control would result in more satisfactory and communally acceptable decision making. It would simply put the issues back on a local level where they are now in large part anyway.
Even though the conclusions are debatable, Kemmis's book is a valuable study of public lands management in the American West and how lands management ties in with our Nation's democratic (small "d") vision.
October 2, 2015
People say that books come along when you need them and that is true with this book. I loved the discussion of democratic versus republican principles and how a change in both ideologies is required for a more enlightened view and management of public lands. Also, his discussion of the cultural reality of the Intermountain West was fantastic. My home town is typically portrayed as being full of hateful cowboys when we are in fact so much more than those few of the representatives who have embarrassed is on the national stage. The West is full of educated people who understand the value of ecosystems and who want a seat at the table when it comes to their management.
Any student of public lands should pick up this book.
Any student of public lands should pick up this book.
July 22, 2008
Best book by an American author on government, society, citizenship and geography. And, its about the west to boot.
Read
August 30, 2008Author Teresa Jordan recommended this as part of the Rocky Mountain Land Library's "A Reading List For the President Elect: A Western Primer for the Next Administration".
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews