Buy Land: They Ain't Makin' Any More

• Author: G. Tracy Mehan III
• Pages: 61-65

61

Buy Land: They Ain’t

Makin’ Any More

By G. Tracy Mehan III

From Walden to Wall Street : Frontiers of Conser vation Finance,

edited by James N. Levitt . Island Press. 235 pages.

Saving Our Streams: Harnes sing Water Markets, by Br andon

Scarborough and Hert ha L. Lund. The Propert y & Environment

Research Center. 82 pages.

From the March/ April 2008 issue of

The Environmental F orum.

James D. Range, chairman of the eodore

Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and

an experienced conservationist, takes the

long view in his foreword to the rst of the

volumes reviewed here:

e history of conservation in America has

shown that where the public recognizes a good

cause, it can marshal the political will, the

nonprot passion, and t he corporate focus to

fund the work in a relatively straightforward

way. But as times change, our fu nding meth-

ods can, and need, to change. While many

investments in conservation continue to be

well justied and will produce public benets

long into the future, record-setting annual fed-

eral decits and massive accumulated national

debts in recent years have put intense pressure on

conservation budgets at the local, state, and fed-

eral levels [emphasis added].

is man speaks the truth. e federal bud-

get is being consumed by entitlement spend-