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Private Property, Common Use: Changing Land Ownership and Use in a Midwestern Rural County, Including the Impact of a Nature Conservancy Preserve

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dc.contributor.author Paddock, Todd en_US
dc.date.accessioned 2009-07-31T14:40:27Z
dc.date.available 2009-07-31T14:40:27Z
dc.date.issued 2000 en_US
dc.date.submitted 2001-07-02 en_US
dc.date.submitted 2001-07-02 en_US
dc.identifier.uri https://hdl.handle.net/10535/1888
dc.description.abstract "I present an exploratory investigation of changing land ownership and use in a midwestern rural county. Because a considerable portion of the county has a topography too steep for agriculture, much of it consists of forest that is privately owned but left alone except for occasional timber harvests at 50-80-year intervals. As a consequence, much of this steep, forested land has been and still is treated as a commons. Although it is private land it is used by others, in particular for hunting, for mushroom and herbal root digging, and for riding all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). But increasingly, larger nonresidence holdings in the county are being sold in smaller parcels to owners who come from outside the county, who build vacation and retirement homes and who are more restrictive about use of their property. "At the same time, the international conservation group the Nature Conservancy has bought many thousands of acres in the county, to create a preserve for the protection of rare species and their supporting habitats. The Conservancy generally allows others access to their property for hiking and fishing, but does not allow hunting, mushroom gathering, root digging, or ATV-riding. "I explore these changes in the county, drawing on interviews with landowners in describing how different groups of landowners view use of their land by others and whether change in land use is indeed taking place. I conclude that: 1) It does appear that use of private land as commons in Pine County is being restricted by the sale of larger rural holdings to new owners from outside the county. However, because the sample was small and not truly random, the differences must be interpreted with caution. 2) The Nature Conservancys purchase of land to create a preserve also appears to reduce some uses of those lands as commons but it may also protect other common uses. "Because similar changes are taking place in many areas of the U.S. (large numbers of people are moving to rural areas) and because the Nature Conservancy is one of the nations largest private landowners and its holdings are growing, these conclusions have application elsewhere and a larger study seems warranted." en_US
dc.language English en_US
dc.subject IASC en_US
dc.subject common pool resources en_US
dc.subject land tenure and use en_US
dc.subject privatization en_US
dc.subject institutional analysis en_US
dc.subject conservation en_US
dc.subject parks en_US
dc.title Private Property, Common Use: Changing Land Ownership and Use in a Midwestern Rural County, Including the Impact of a Nature Conservancy Preserve en_US
dc.type Conference Paper en_US
dc.coverage.region North America en_US
dc.subject.sector Land Tenure & Use en_US
dc.identifier.citationconference Constituting the Commons: Crafting Sustainable Commons in the New Millennium, the Eighth Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property en_US
dc.identifier.citationconfdates May 31-June 4 en_US
dc.identifier.citationconfloc Bloomington, Indiana, USA en_US
dc.submitter.email hess@indiana.edu en_US


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