Visualizing Environmental Science

346 CHAPTER 13 Land Resources

Andrew Lichtenstein/Sygma/© Corbis

have more flexibility to use natural resources. Those who

support the environmental movement view federal lands as

a legacy of U.S. citizens and thus want to preserve resources

on federally owned lands.

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Conservation of Land Resources 341

1. Endangered U.S. ecosystems include the south Florida
   landscape, southern Appalachian spruce–fir forests, and
   longleaf pine forests and savannas.


2. Criteria used to evaluate whether an ecosystem is
   endangered and to what degree it is threatened include its
   history of land loss and degradation, its prospects for future
   loss or degradation, the area the ecosystem occupies, and
   the number of threatened and endangered species living in
   that ecosystem.

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National Parks and Wilderness Areas 336

1. The National Park Service administers 397 sites in the United
   States, including 58 national parks. Some problems the sites
   encounter include overcrowding, pollution, crime, resource
   violations, and imbalanced wildlife populations.


2. Wilderness is a protected area of land in which no human
   development is permitted. The National Wilderness
   Preservation System consists of four U.S. government
   agencies—the NPS, USFS, FWS, and BLM—that oversee
   757 wilderness areas. Some problems these areas face
   include overuse and overcrowding by visitors, pollution,
   erosion, and the introduction of invasive species.


3. Those who support the wise-use movement believe a
   primary purpose of federal lands is to enhance economic
   growth. They think that the government overregulates
   environmental protection and that property owners should

Key Terms

What is happening in this picture?

Julia “Butterfly” Hill lived in this
600–1000-year-old, 180-foot-tall California
redwood for more than 2 years in the late
1990s, to keep a lumber company from
cutting down the tree.

Would Hill’s perspective on wilderness
better fit the wise-use movement or the
environmental movement?

Explain the likely differences in the
perspectives of Hill and the lumber company,
especially given that the tree is on the
company’s land.

Based on issues faced in Tongass
National Forest, why do ecologists and
environmentalists think that the logging of
old-growth trees causes particular damage?

clear-cutting 326
conservation easement 335
deforestation 328
desertification 334

habitat corridor 326

monoculture 325

overgrazing 334

rangeland 333

sustainable forestry 325

wilderness 338