Rangelands, Grasslands, and Parks
1. What is the term for:
* Natural Grasslands: rangelands
* Managed Grasslands: pastures
2. How do we sustain rangeland productivity?
- By controlling the number and distribution of livestock and by restoring degraded rangeland.
3. When does overgrazing occur?
- When too many animals graze for too long and exeed carrying capacity of a grassland area.
4. What are ways that people are trying to preserve the grasslands on cattle ranches?
- Paying ranchers conservation easements
- Pressuring government to zone the land to prevent development of ecologically sensitive areas.
5. What were some of the causes of the American Dust Bowl of the 1930's?
- Poor farming practices, overgrazing, farming arid lands
- John Wesley Powell's ideas were ignored, contributing to failures.
6. What are some of the reasons to establish National Parks and Reserves?
- Monumentalism = preserving areas with enormous, beautiful or unusual features, such as the Grand Canyon
- Offer recreational value to sishers, hunters, tourists, hikers, ..
- Protect areas with utilitarian benefits, such as clean drinking water
- Use sites that are otherwise economically not valuable and easy to protect
- Preservation of biodiversity
7. What is the Antiquities Act of 1906?
- The president can declare selected public lands as national monuments.
8. Who established the National Wildlife Refuges? When?
- Begun in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt
9. What are wilderness areas?
- Area is off-limits to development of any kind.
* open to the public for hiking, nature study, etc.
* overseen by the agencies (areas' administer)
* necessary to ensure that humans don't occupy and modify all natural areas
10. What is the wise-use movement?
- A coalition od individuals and industries that oppose environmental protection.
11. Which president has weakened wildeness protection? How?
- President George W. Bush
* Away from preservation and conservation
* Toward recreation and resource extraction
* Federal angencies have shifted policies and enforcement
12. What is a land trust?
- Local or regional organizations that purchase land to protect it
13. Define the following:
* Transboundary Park - an area of protected land overlapping national borders
Ex: Waterton -Glacier National Parks in the US and Canada
* Peace Park - transboundary reserves that help ease tensions by acting as buffers between nations
* Biosphere Reserves - land with exceptional biodiversity
14. What is habitat fragmentation?
- Describes the emergence of discontinuities in an organism's preferred environment, causing population fragmentation
15. What is a corridor?
- protected land that allows animals to travel between islands of protected habitat
*Animals get more resources
*Enables gene flow between populations
16. What are some of the ways that National Parks?
- Many suffer from invasive species
- Many are too small to sustain large-animal species
- Loggers, miners, and wildlife poachers also deplete natural resources
- Local people invade park for wood, cropland, and other natural resources
- Most of national parks are threatened by human activities.
17. What are some solutions to protecting our National Parks?
- BUy private land inside parks
- Survey wildlife in parks
- Limit the number of visitors to crowed park areas
- Seek private donations for park maintenance and repairs
- Add new parkland near threatened parks
- Raise entry fees for visitors and use funds for park management and maintenamce.
18. How much of the Earth's land is currently protected nature reserves?
- Currently 12%
* Natural Grasslands: rangelands
* Managed Grasslands: pastures
2. How do we sustain rangeland productivity?
- By controlling the number and distribution of livestock and by restoring degraded rangeland.
3. When does overgrazing occur?
- When too many animals graze for too long and exeed carrying capacity of a grassland area.
4. What are ways that people are trying to preserve the grasslands on cattle ranches?
- Paying ranchers conservation easements
- Pressuring government to zone the land to prevent development of ecologically sensitive areas.
5. What were some of the causes of the American Dust Bowl of the 1930's?
- Poor farming practices, overgrazing, farming arid lands
- John Wesley Powell's ideas were ignored, contributing to failures.
6. What are some of the reasons to establish National Parks and Reserves?
- Monumentalism = preserving areas with enormous, beautiful or unusual features, such as the Grand Canyon
- Offer recreational value to sishers, hunters, tourists, hikers, ..
- Protect areas with utilitarian benefits, such as clean drinking water
- Use sites that are otherwise economically not valuable and easy to protect
- Preservation of biodiversity
7. What is the Antiquities Act of 1906?
- The president can declare selected public lands as national monuments.
8. Who established the National Wildlife Refuges? When?
- Begun in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt
9. What are wilderness areas?
- Area is off-limits to development of any kind.
* open to the public for hiking, nature study, etc.
* overseen by the agencies (areas' administer)
* necessary to ensure that humans don't occupy and modify all natural areas
10. What is the wise-use movement?
- A coalition od individuals and industries that oppose environmental protection.
11. Which president has weakened wildeness protection? How?
- President George W. Bush
* Away from preservation and conservation
* Toward recreation and resource extraction
* Federal angencies have shifted policies and enforcement
12. What is a land trust?
- Local or regional organizations that purchase land to protect it
13. Define the following:
* Transboundary Park - an area of protected land overlapping national borders
Ex: Waterton -Glacier National Parks in the US and Canada
* Peace Park - transboundary reserves that help ease tensions by acting as buffers between nations
* Biosphere Reserves - land with exceptional biodiversity
14. What is habitat fragmentation?
- Describes the emergence of discontinuities in an organism's preferred environment, causing population fragmentation
15. What is a corridor?
- protected land that allows animals to travel between islands of protected habitat
*Animals get more resources
*Enables gene flow between populations
16. What are some of the ways that National Parks?
- Many suffer from invasive species
- Many are too small to sustain large-animal species
- Loggers, miners, and wildlife poachers also deplete natural resources
- Local people invade park for wood, cropland, and other natural resources
- Most of national parks are threatened by human activities.
17. What are some solutions to protecting our National Parks?
- BUy private land inside parks
- Survey wildlife in parks
- Limit the number of visitors to crowed park areas
- Seek private donations for park maintenance and repairs
- Add new parkland near threatened parks
- Raise entry fees for visitors and use funds for park management and maintenamce.
18. How much of the Earth's land is currently protected nature reserves?
- Currently 12%