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In a country as diverse as Canada, spread over an incomprehensibly large land mass, the connections between citizens may require more imagination. One way that these connections have been traditionally imagined in Canada is through national myths, including the myth of the wilderness. This myth draws the Canadian identity out of an "untouched" wilderness landscape. As much as there are problems with the wilderness myth of Canada, the land provides a valuable connection between all disparate members of Canadian society. And so, the author proposes a much more inclusive re-imagining of this myth, in which people draw national identity from the land in all the variety of its meanings and uses. In this way, Canadians can work to develop attachments to their specific pieces of land, while acknowledging the interconnections of the national landscape. In this article, the author discusses how to build national identity through place-based outdoor education. She argues that educators need to introduce their students to the places in which they live, and encourage them to find the connections between their selves and their places in addition to fostering an understanding of their connections to others and other people's places.

Forestland management depends on assessing changes that occur over time. Long-term photo point monitoring is a low-cost method for documenting these changes. Using forestry as an example, this article highlights the idea that long-term photo point monitoring can be used to improve many types of land management decision making. Guidance on establishing photo points in the field and taking and cataloging images is presented. By implementing long-term photo point monitoring, landowners can document land management successes, and Extension professionals can use the resulting images to relay information on proper planning and management.

This paper presents selected findings from a 5-year design-based research case study of the evolution of an online role play that allows postgraduate students to explore the complexities inherent in land rights negotiations between indigenous peoples and others. In the context of Laurillard's (2002) conversational framework and a design-based research methodology, diverse private and public discussion forum spaces were created for group negotiations on a learning management system (LMS) platform. Our analysis of the conversational framework structure in the evolved role play showed that all four stages--discursive, adaptive, integrative, and reflective--were evidenced, with the adaptive and integrative stages cycling through multiple times. The online role play, whilst implemented as a simple virtual world, facilitated personal, deep and socialised learning experiences focused on consultation, negotiation and decision-making. We also found that student anonymity was not necessary for full engagement in role play, and that students chose to incorporate communication technologies outside the LMS into their learning activities. This research shows that with a strong pedagogical design, and attention paid to an evidence-based iterative improvement cycle, online role plays can provide powerful collaborative learning experiences.

Access to land is a common obstacle for beginning farmers and established farmers seeking to expand their operations. Particularly in urban-influenced areas, leasing farmland is often more financially feasible than fee ownership. Locating available land or the right leasing situation, however, can be difficult. NJ Land Link (http://njlandlink.org) is a new interactive website created to improve access to farmland and farming opportunities in New Jersey. The website allows farmland owners to list characteristics of their properties and terms of availability (e.g., sale, lease). Individuals seeking farmland or farm work opportunities can post their farming goals, resource needs, and farming experience.

For decades, educators have hoped to integrate geospatial tools into K-12 classrooms but struggled with barriers of time, technology, and curriculum alignment. The authors formed a design partnership with ninth-grade science and social studies teachers in an urban high school in order to conduct teacher professional development while also developing geospatially enabled curricula to enact in their classrooms. This article includes a description of the curriculum design principles and processes, as well as an explanation of the professional development strategies as participants worked shoulder to shoulder in designing engaging classroom instruction to enhance students' geospatial thinking and reasoning skills. One of the activities presented is an example of the design and development process, and lessons learned from the pilot test implementation are presented. This article may inform similar work with geospatial technologies in teacher professional development and curriculum development.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to inquire about the applicability of the concept of granularity to the necessity of future research or--as often called in the European Union--forward looking (FL). After theoretical deliberation, it uses a planned world-wide information system as a case study for applying the notion of granularity regarding economic sectors, time steps, geographic regions and correlations for energy, water, land use and several other drivers of global change. Design/methodology/approach: A planet-wide information system might optimally include areas such as human development indicators, water demand and supply and deforestation issues. A short literature analysis on "granularity" shows this concept to have a highly culturally determined and constructivist nature. Findings: The spatial, temporal and sectoral granularity of data presentation strongly impacts conclusions and considerations while looking forward. Hence, granularity issues are of key importance for the question of which megatrends are ultimately discerned as most relevant. Practical implications: These findings may impact the regular report on global megatrends authored by the European Environment Agency, as well as world-wide energy and emission scenarios and technological foresight, such as the "Global Change Data Base" as a next step of research. Social implications: In future research, the step from purely quantitative perceptions towards structural perceptions, pattern recognition and understanding of system transitions might be facilitated. The FL statements of larger companies might be diversified, enlarged in scope and use deeper structural understanding. Originality/value: Earlier databases tend to have been focused on one or several single disciplines; the present approach, however, attempts transdisciplinarity and a multiparadigmatic approach.

The development of a blended learning approach to enhance surveying education is discussed. The need for this learning strategy is first investigated based on a major review of the surveying course, including analysis of its content, benchmarking with key national and international universities, and surveys of key stakeholders. Appropriate blended learning methods and tools that couple learning theory principles and developing technical skills are discussed including using learning management systems, flip teaching, collaborative learning, simulation based e-learning, and peer assessment. Two blended-learning tools developed for surveying units are presented as examples. The first is an online interactive virtual simulation tool for levelling, one of the key tasks in surveying. The second is an e-assessment digital marking, moderation and feedback module. Surveys of students showed that they found the interactive simulation tool contributes to improving their understanding of required tasks. Students also found the e-assessment tool helpful in improving their performance and in helping them to focus on the objectives of each activity. In addition, the use of peer e-assessment to improve student learning and as a diagnostic tool for tutors is demonstrated. The paper concludes with a discussion on developing generic skills through authentic learning in surveying education.

Non-industrial private forest (NIPF) landowners are often not included in discussions of emerging woody biomass markets for energy, yet they will likely be principal suppliers of the resource. Surveys administered to 475 forest landowners before and after an Extension Forestry education program in 10 counties across North Carolina indicated that landowners have low knowledge levels of woody biomass. However, as a result of participating in the training, landowners increased knowledge, had more positive attitudes, and developed aspirations to harvest woody biomass on their land. Extension professionals can use our training model to develop similar woody biomass educational programs.

What is the relationship between Indigenous peoples and violent reactions to contemporary states? This research explores differing, culturally informed notions of attachment to land or place territory. Mechanistic ties and organic ties to land are linked to a key distinction between Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous peoples. Utilizing the Minorities at Risk (MAR) data set, a subset relationship is explored addressing propensity for Indigenous peoples to rebel against state encroachment of their lands. The results of this research must be considered with the serious limitations of MAR in mind. Within the marginalized groups in the Americas, 28 have an attachment to a place territory. Of these 28 groups, 22 are Indigenous and of the 22 groups, 13 have exhibited some form of rebellious behavior between 1945 and 2003. The power of attachment to place territory, specifically the organic attachment most often displayed by Indigenous peoples of the Americas, is a strong tie surviving 500 years of European encroachment. The findings are indicative of an attachment that Indigenous peoples retain to their specific homelands. The findings suggest a plethora of future research questions. (Contains 8 tables, 3 figures, and 41 notes.)

In north central Virginia there is a local tale--The Legend of Jump Mountain, which purports to explain the origins of the Hayes Creek Indian Burial Mound. A highly romantic legend, it immortalizes post colonial intertribal warfare during the early nineteenth century while ignoring the antiquity of the mound and the local descendants of its aboriginal creators. It is not at all uncommon to find such romantic tales in Indian country where the Native people have become invisible and there remain significant tribal artifacts common to the landscape. However, the standing claim to authenticity remains a matter of significant concern. In this essay, the author considers the tale's effectiveness assessing Indian origins, local history and tribal heritages, as well as the implicit stereotypes and the romantic illusion that it may generate in the popular imagination. (Contains 2 figures and 50 notes.)

This essay--a combination of authorial narrative and scholarly critique--examines a grassroots organization's (Friends of Historic Northport) campaign to preserve a site in west Alabama where a pivotal Choctaw-Upper Creek battle took place in 1785. The organization has faced opposition from city planners and business leaders intent on developing the site. I argue herein that these institutional agents have maneuvered within colonial contexts and neocolonial ideologies to mute the voices of indigenist-centered preservation efforts, mostly by occluding a key Native-centered narrative that affirms the battle's location. In the process, Native memories and indigenous "space" have been ignored, and a presentation of these memories has been left out of the "place" of the site. Here, Native memories are made illegitimate by the trumping of oral stories with paid-for physical evidence deemed authoritative as a part of municipal "governing rules." In addition to demystifying the institutional agents' colonial and neocolonial renderings, this essay offers an interventionist charge through prescriptive decolonial tactics to remedy this particular moment of neocolonization. These more local decolonial prescriptives are then extended to general struggles involving Native memory and "space." (Contains 84 notes.)

Not long ago universities, colleges, and schools identified the management of facilities as the Physical Plant Office. Albeit, the services provided by the physical plant office included complex and highly technical functions, they were mainly focused on keeping building systems operating and the campus looking good. As important as these activities are to an institution's continuance, the physical plant name was prejudged. Even so, the title was practical and it mirrored the industry's leading professional development organization, known at one time as the Association of Physical Plant Administrators of Universities and Colleges (APPA). This article presents the results of a two-question survey which was delivered to APPA member institutions via the APPAinfo discussion list to find out whether space management was being performed in facilities operations of institutions of higher education. The survey results revealed that institutions that have organized their service units as facilities services/facilities management also appear to be responsible for more planning functions and often included a professional planner position. It may be that universities and colleges are including land-use planners in facilities service operations in search of new dimensions to effective comprehensive space management--but it begins with making space for a planner. (Contains 5 endnotes.)

In this paper, I explore how histories of colonialism are integral to the Euro-Western idea of wilderness at the heart of much outdoor environmental education. In the context of canoe tripping, I speculate about why the politics of land rarely enters into teaching on the land. Finally, because learning from difficult knowledge often troubles the learner, I consider the pedagogical value of emotional responses to curricula that address colonial implication. (Contains 4 notes.)

The Irvine Minnesota Inventory (IMI) was designed to measure environmental features that may be associated with physical activity and particularly walking. This study assesses how well the IMI predicts physical activity and walking behavior and develops shortened, validated audit tools. A version of the IMI was used in the Twin Cities Walking Study, a research project measuring how density, street pattern, mixed use, pedestrian infrastructure, and a variety of social and economic factors affect walking. Both bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to assess the predictive value of the IMI. We find that while this inventory provides reliable measurement of urban design features, only some of these features present associations with increased or decreased walking. This article presents two versions of shortened scales--a prudent scale, requiring association with two separate measures of a physical activity or walking behavior, and a moderate scale, requiring association with one measure of physical activity or walking. The shortened scales provide built environment audit instruments that have been tested both for inter-rater reliability and for associations with physical activity and walking. The results are also useful in showing which built environment variables are more reliably associated with walking for travel--characteristics of the sidewalk infrastructure, street crossings and traffic speeds, and land use are more strongly associated with walking for travel, while factors that measure aesthetics are typically less strongly associated with walking for travel. (Contains 9 notes and 6 tables.)

While students may acknowledge the impact that land use and development have on our environment, they do not necessarily understand the relationship between human activities and ecosystem responses. Therefore, the nature of the relationships leaves the science teacher to most often present information in a purely narrative form without any hands-on or experimental experience. In this article, the authors introduce a free, simple, and realistic computer simulation program, SimRiver, which allows students to develop a river basin and identify how human activity affects producers, specifically diatoms. This allows students to develop a skill set for understanding nonlinear problems where relationships are not simply cause and effect. (Contains 6 figures.)

The social, economic, and political regulation of Canada's First Nations was codified in the Indian Act. Rooted in colonialism and paternalism, the Indian Act was created by the government of Canada to fulfill three functions: (1) to define who was and was not an Indian; (2) to civilize the Indian; and (3) to manage the Indian people and their lands. The Indian Act is restrictive and continues to govern virtually every aspect of Indian life including band membership, leisure activities, and land use and band leadership. Over time, some of the more restrictive policies governing Indians were dropped and more freedoms were granted. As a result, First Nations people began to enjoy some of the privileges set aside for mainstream Canadians. In addition, First Nations women began to enjoy some of the government-sponsored privileges that were previously reserved for First Nations men. There has been a rapid increase in the number of women elected to the role of chief in Canada's First Nations community throughout the past fifteen years, and this article explores some of the explanations for this recent phenomenon. Using the lens of postcolonial theory, the author explores women chiefs' experiences with the lingering effects of colonialism, colonial notions of womanhood, and how indigenous women have been able to oppose those beliefs. (Contains 77 notes.)

As of December 2010, the US Congress had enacted more than twenty major community-specific Native water-rights settlements, and the state of Arizona had more of these settlements (eight) than any other US state. This unique situation has invited voluminous studies on Arizona's Native water-rights settlements. Although these studies have clarified the political and legal implications of the settlements and offered some practical future recommendations for Native water-rights policy, several ethnohistorical and theoretical questions still remain as to what factors galvanized and formed these settlements and whose ideas they were. In this article, the author examines the history and implications of two water-rights settlements: one for the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian community, and the other for the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation in central Arizona, both near the city of Phoenix. In order to clarify the ethnohistorical aspects of these settlements, the author focuses on interactions and negotiations between the two Native communities and non-Native stakeholders about Native water rights and the impact of water works that affected these communities during the twentieth century. By providing a detailed documentation of Native and non-Native reactions as well as the interactions between these peoples, the author attempts to clarify the evolving and hybrid nature of Native water-rights settlements. He argues that these features, which scholars have not yet discussed in adequate detail, somewhat resemble historic peace treaties between Native peoples and the federal government. (Contains 86 notes.)

From 1998 to 2006, over three-quarters of the more than 1,550 U.S. referenda targeting open space passed. We analyze the success of the conservation movement at holding referenda in areas with greater ecological value and greater likelihood of supporting conservation. To do so, we first analyze the patterns in where referenda are held and in which finance mechanisms they employ. Controlling for these two selection patterns, we then investigate the factors determining the success of the referenda. Our findings suggest that conservation groups are pursuing a successful strategy, targeting communities with above-average probabilities of passing referenda and higher ecological value. Nevertheless, our results suggest that overlooked opportunities exist in minority and middle-class neighborhoods, in suburban fringe areas, and in the Southeast. (Contains 8 tables and 22 footnotes.)

Beginning in 2005, a five-year survey of cultural resources began to unfold in southeastern Utah along a prominent sandstone rock formation known as Comb Ridge. This visually dramatic monocline stretches a considerable distance from the southwestern corner of Blue Mountain (Abajos) in Utah to Kayenta, Arizona, approximately one hundred miles to the south. The sixty-six-square-mile Utah portion of the ridge and the object of study, lying between the San Juan River in the south to Blue Mountain in the north, offers a particularly rich landscape in which humankind has interacted during prehistoric, historic, and contemporary eras. The author's role in this venture was to provide ethnographic and ethnohistoric background for the field crews interested in the various cultures frequenting Comb Ridge and its environs. He turned to John Holiday, an elderly chanter, or medicine man, for much of the Navajo view of what this rock formation means to his people. This emic approach to what Native Americans think of the land and its sacred geography is an important concept to understand. Based on previous discussions with Navajo elders, the author realized that Comb Ridge would prove to be polysemic and multivocal. Although this is undoubtedly true of other sites on land embedded with Navajo thought, there was no missing the importance of this place in Utah Navajos' teachings. The richness in variety became apparent once the study got underway. From it came connections that tied this rock to major ceremonial knowledge and stories as well as Navajo classification and land use. John, as primary consultant, was more than willing to share this information and insight. John focused on snakes, lightning, arrowheads, wind, bears, the San Juan River, and boundaries. These seemingly unconnected things melted into a cohesive perception anchored in power, prayers, and protection. (Contains 87 notes.)

As part of a curriculum development project entitled Crossing Boundaries, these authors designed an inquiry-based activity that introduces students to landscape change and potential impacts on associated biological communities. Using pairs of current and historical satellite images, students explore landscape change in a variety of U.S. and international settings. Rather than engaging in a quantitative study of biodiversity, this exercise frames student thinking about a variety of landscape change agents and their potential effects on associated plant and animal communities. Students use Google Earth, a free software program, to fly from one location to the next on a virtual globe, exploring change over the past couple of decades at a variety of sites. This article presents the dual perspectives of the curriculum developers and an 8th grade science teacher (James Murphy) in field-testing the activity with his middle school classes. Together the authors worked with five classes that included a total of 98 students. Overall, the students' presentations indicated that they had accurately interpreted the images and identified plausible impacts of change on biological communities. Implications of this activity for teaching are discussed. (Contains 3 figures and 1 table.)

The current rapid decline of Earth's biodiversity represents an enormous crisis for humanity. Among the factors producing declines in biodiversity, changes in land use may have the greatest effect in the near term. It is well known that land-use history produces strong, lingering effects on biodiversity. This phenomenon has become known as the "land-use legacy." Studies of land-use legacies are critically important for understanding how land-use practices alter biodiversity over temporal scales. For the past five years, these authors have involved 10th grade biology students at New Philadelphia High School, New Philadelphia, Ohio, in field experiences that quantify land-use legacy effects on forest biodiversity. They call these field "experiences," rather than field "trips," to reflect their emphasis on having students directly involved in the intimate study of nature. The over-arching goals of these experiences are to provide opportunities for students to connect with their local environment, to observe forest ecosystems from a new perspective, to study ecology in its natural context, and to apply the scientific method while investigating an authentic question. The authors feel that this project provides a general model that could be applied by other teachers to involve their students in the study of local ecosystems. (Contains 3 figures.)

Google Earth (GE) is proving to be a valuable tool in the science classroom for understanding the environment and making responsible environmental decisions (Bodzin 2008). GE provides learners with a dynamic mapping experience using a simple interface with a limited range of functions. This interface makes geospatial analysis accessible and feasible for classroom use. Therefore, the authors developed a four week land-use-change curricular unit in which students use geospatial information technology tools including GE and other remotely sensed images to investigate modern-day land-use issues and land-use change over time. (Contains 3 figures and an activity worksheet.)

Academics and policymakers have argued that the ability of low- and moderate-income families to move into desirable suburban areas is constrained by the high cost of housing. Local zoning and other forms of land use regulation are believed to contribute to increased housing prices by reducing supply and increasing the size of new housing. Suburban restrictions on rental housing are particularly likely to reduce mobility for low-income families. In this paper, I employ an instrumental variables approach to examine the effects of zoning on the quantity and price of rental housing in Massachusetts, using historical municipal characteristics to instrument for current regulations. Results suggest that communities with more restrictive zoning issue significantly fewer building permits for multifamily housing but provide only weak evidence of the effects of regulations on rents. The lack of effects on rents may reflect the low level of multifamily development, while analysis is complicated by development of subsidized housing under the state's affordable housing law. (Contains 4 figures, 9 tables and 25 footnotes.)

Diane Glancy's historical fiction, "Pushing the Bear", reconstructs one episode in the Cherokee Trails of Tears (there were actually several relocations to the west, for the Cherokee and the other eastern tribes of the same period). The Removal of eastern peoples from their ancestral lands westward to eventual resettlement in Oklahoma is a complex, agonizing story. As Glancy's novel depicts, dislocation from places of origin has tremendous psychological and cultural consequences. Glancy's novel is valuable for several reasons. First, it keeps the memory of premodern Cherokee culture alive. Second, it vividly reminds readers of an undeniable ugly history in which many of their cultural forefathers (including some biological ancestors) participated, one of which an honest assessment is necessary to help move people beyond the limitations of racial and cultural bigotry. Third, "Pushing the Bear" ultimately celebrates the survival of an adaptive and dignified people. In addition to these prerequisite historical considerations, for literary ecologists, "Pushing the Bear" significantly offers a subsequent directive. The study of Native culture may function as an ironic mirror into which all members of modern society should look to avoid potentially self-destructive practices. Beyond the historical displacement of the Cherokee, expulsion from land functions in an archetypal manner, something to which readers of all cultures can relate--a fear that even modern landowners worry about. (Contains 17 notes.)

This paper traces the kinds of learning engendered through Adivasi trans-local and local subaltern social movement (SSM) action addressing state-corporate developmental collusions, state-caste interests and the resulting dispossession of Adivasis from land, forest and their ways of life given the economic liberalization drive to exploit resources in the rural hinterlands in India since 1991. The paper draws upon insights from the author's association with the Adivasi since 1992 and funded research into "Learning in Adivasi movements." (Contains 6 notes.)

The authors detail an urban economics experiment that is easily run in the classroom. The experiment has a flexible design that allows the instructor to explore how congestion, zoning, public transportation, and taxation levels determine the bid-rent function. Heterogeneous agents in the experiment compete for land use using a simple auction mechanism. Using the data that is collected, a bid-rent function is derived, and the experimental treatment is altered over the course of three sessions to uncover core concepts in urban economics. Moreover, this provides a tangible experience that can be used to help undergraduates relate to urban issues such as the steep rent gradient found around many larger colleges and universities. (Contains 4 figures, 3 tables, and 1 note.)

While traveling along the Platte River on May 18, 1834, William Marshall Anderson stopped to pick up a human skull bleaching in the prairie sunlight. Anderson was from Louisville, Kentucky, and had been sent west by his physician to accompany a fur-trade caravan to the Rocky Mountains in hopes of regaining lost physical strength. He came west not as a typical trader or trapper, but as an attentive observer. What Anderson lacked in physical strength and fortitude, he made up for with a commanding vernacular and lively imagination. Though seemingly separated from the outside world, men like Anderson, and the hundreds of men who went west for the fur trade from the 1820s through the 1840s, traveled during an era that prompted them to rejoice in their natural surroundings. Their writings were more than mere travel accounts outlining directions traveled, trapping or trading activities, and encounters with grizzly bears and Blackfeet Indians. They were astute observers operating amidst a rising romantic consciousness within eastern society. This essay explores how the writings of the western fur trade created a distinct image of the western landscape during the mountain man era.

Bridging the areas of political-economic sociology, the sociology of agriculture and environmental sociology, this study tests two hypotheses derived from a refined theory of foreign investment dependence. The hypotheses state that pesticide and fertilizer use intensity in less-developed countries are both positively associated with foreign investment dependence in the primary sector. The use of such inputs in agriculture production is known to contribute to a variety of human health and environmental problems. Findings for random effects and static score panel regression analyses of 35 less-developed countries confirm the hypotheses, and point to the sociological relevance in assessing the potential social and environmental impacts of both the transnational organization and the relative scale of production in different sectors. (Contains 6 tables and 18 notes.)

Human activity has profoundly altered the deciduous forest of the eastern United States. Modern forest is a patchwork of stands of varying ages, sizes, and shapes reflecting a complex history of land use. Much modern forest is nestled in and around human communities, and faces the threat of imminent clearance for residential and commercial development. Such forest experiences a variety of human impacts, including edge effects, invasion by nonnative plants and animals, overgrazing by white-tailed deer, firewood gathering, and foot traffic. Despite its highly disturbed character, modern suburban forest still preserves some of the biological diversity of the original forest ecosystem. If diversity is to be maintained in developed regions, people who live next to forest fragments must have an appreciation of their structure and dynamics. Unlike forests of less-populated regions, isolation alone cannot be depended on to protect the Eastern forest ecosystem. To intelligently manage neighborhood forests, local residents and decision makers must have an awareness of forest ecology. Thus, education is at the core of forest conservation in the eastern United States. In this article, the authors describe in detail an exercise based on aerial photos to give students an awareness of forest ecology at the rural/urban interface. The exercise can be described as a process of guided research in which impressions based on childhood experience are used as testable hypotheses. The authors also comment on its effectiveness as a teaching tool. (Contains 2 figures.)

The map is a primary tool in geographic research, and the discipline of geography has experienced a significant methodological transformation during the last three decades with the development and now near ubiquity of geographic information systems (GIS) technology. The introduction of this technology into Indian country has spurred a debate over the appropriateness and effectiveness of using GIS for Native mapping purposes. In this article, the author reviews issues concerning the use of GIS in Native communities and presents a case study of one particular tribe's implementation of the technology. GIS are computer systems designed to store, manipulate, and portray spatial data, theoretically making analysis of such data easier, faster, and more powerful. However, many in the geographic community view GIS as a "contradictory technology that can both empower and marginalize people and communities." At the same time that broader debates about the social impacts of GIS, public-participation or community-based GIS, and GIS and society developed in urban geographic research, so did a more focused debate centered around GIS and Indigenous peoples. (Contains 3 figures and 38 notes.)

On August 1st, 2007, Indigenous nations from within the United States, Canada, Australia, and Aotearoa (New Zealand) signed a treaty to found the United League of Indigenous Nations. The Treaty of Indigenous Nations offers a historic opportunity for sovereign Indigenous governments to build intertribal cooperation outside the framework of the colonial settler states. Just as the Pacific Rim states have cooperated to limit Native sovereign rights and build polluting industries, Indigenous nations can cooperate to decolonize ancestral territories and protect their common natural resources for future generations. The treaty process has involved Indigenous political alliances such as the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) in Canada, and the Mataatua Assembly (including forty-four Maori tribes) in Aotearoa. The treaty identifies four main areas of cooperation: increasing trade among Indigenous nations, protecting cultural properties, easing border crossings, and responding to the urgent threat of climate change. The Treaty of Indigenous Nations builds a sense of community by including other tribal nations in the community, even those who live on the other side of imposed colonial borders or on the other side of the ocean. Indigenous peoples have survived the effects of colonialism and environmental destruction only by cooperating with each other. It is no longer just a good idea to build these relationships; climate change makes them much more urgent. This article explores some of the relationships being built, or that have the potential to be built, among Indigenous nations, local governments, national governments, and international agencies. (Contains 3 figures and 69 notes.)

Crop insurance is a relatively recent invention that attempts to level the playing field in our contest with the environment. It well represents the complexity and interaction within the human-land relationship. Ranching is another symbol of this relationship. The word stewardship captures a rancher's connection to the land. It denotes a respect for the land and its utilization in a manner that will reap benefits for the community or group now and in the future. True stewards must have a deep, distinct, and intimate relationship with that thing over which they have stewardship. Ranchers' livelihood depends on this linkage. If they neglect their land by allowing overgrazing, their livestock's sustenance is damaged; if they do not have functional, forage-producing land on which to graze their livestock, then the relationship is broken and ranching ceases. And if ranching ceases to exist, so does the ranching culture.

This article traces the Devils Tower litigation in the context of the "Bear Lodge" alliance's theoretical underpinnings, particularly the interrelationship among culture, geographic place, and religion, as well as the institutional mechanisms that regulate litigation alliances in the U.S. judicial system. It discusses principal factors in litigation alliances--such as trust, resources, expertise, media access, and moral force--and describes both the litigation in three levels of federal courts and the arguments of the Native American and religious groups that formed the alliance. Finally, the article discusses the implications of such alliances, including the potential significance of cultural values in influencing or shaping judicial decisions about sacred sites. Based on the findings, it asks difficult questions about the need to depend on "mainstream" religious traditions to validate government policies that accommodate traditional Indian religious practices. (Contains 54 notes.)

In December 2005, a Canadian federal court justice dismissed a six-hundred-million-dollar claim by the Samson Cree related to alleged mismanagement of its energy royalties. In newspaper interviews, a lawyer for the Samson Cree expressed disbelief that the justice discounted the testimony of our elders and followed essentially the written word of the white man. Interestingly, 120 years before the justice dismissed the Samson Cree case, the Canadian Department of Indian Affairs actively sought Indian testimony, believing that oral accounts were more accurate than its own written records.

Role-playing games in natural resource management are currently being tested as research, training, and intervention tools all over the world. Various studies point out their potential to deal with complex issues and to contribute to training processes. The objective of this contribution is to analyze the limits and potentialities of this tool for capacity building in environmental management of stakeholders with low educational levels by comparing various Brazilian experiences. Five games that were developed and used to train local stakeholders or state technicians about specific aspects of new and difficult to understand legislation are compared. The comparison of these experiences is based on (a) an analysis of the materials (game support) provided by the developers, (b) interviews with authors and game developers, and (c) participation in game sessions whenever possible. (Contains 6 tables and 5 figures.)

The decentralization of natural resource management provides an opportunity for communities to increase their participation in related decision making. Research should propose adapted methodologies enabling the numerous stakeholders of these complex socioecological settings to define their problems and identify agreed-on solutions. This article presents a companion modeling (ComMod) experiment combining role-playing games and multiagent systems conducted in a community in northern Thailand to support collective learning for adaptive land management. Researchers and local stakeholders collectively built a representation of the situation and used it as a platform to explore scenarios. This ComMod process initially addressed a soil erosion problem. The participants identified the expansion of perennial crops as a promising solution but also raised the problem of the unequal ability among villagers to invest in such crops. The researchers flexibly adapted the simulation tools to the emerging matter. The authors assess the learning effects of this experiment and identify two favoring factors: the increasing participation of local stakeholders and a flexible and adaptive modeling process suited to learning, which by nature is an evolving process. But to ensure sustainable impacts for the communities, stronger links with higher institutional levels are needed. (Contains 6 figures, 1 table and 2 notes.)

In this article the authors discuss recent developments in the decolonization of Australian archaeology. From the viewpoint of Indigenous Australians, much archaeological and anthropological research has been nothing more than a tool of colonial exploitation. For the last twenty years, many have argued for greater control over research and for a shaping of archaeological practice to provide greater benefits for communities. Drawing partly on their research with the Barunga-Wugularr communities of the Northern Territory and the Ngadjuri people of Burra, South Australia, this article highlights trends in Australian archaeology, focusing on contemporary concerns with how language can disempower Indigenous Australians, current measures being taken to implement Indigenous control over Indigenous culture, and the implications of conceptualizing research outcomes as shared intellectual property. (Contains 4 figures and 75 notes.)

In British Columbia, Canada, the practice of archaeology has been strongly influenced by issues of First Nations rights and the ways government and industry have chosen to address them. In turn, this situation has affected academic (i.e., research-based) and consulting (i.e., cultural resource management) archaeology, which have had to respond to changes in the provincial Heritage Conservation Act (HCA) and to the implementation of archaeological overview assessments (AOAS) and traditional-use studies (TUSS). In this article, the author explores the situation of British Columbia, where First Nations' contribution to AOAS, TUSS, and the archaeological permitting process have influenced the development of predictive and explanatory models. There, as elsewhere, the increasing role of descendant communities in participating in or directing landscape-oriented studies--in a sense, decolonizing the archaeological process--clearly will influence how archaeologists need to perceive past cultural landscapes in the future. The author presented this article in three sections. First, he examines the nature of archaeological landscapes and their importance in organizing and interpreting evidence of past human behavior. Second, he examines the historical context of archaeology in British Columbia over the past century and discusses how it has contributed to the colonization of First Nations through heritage legislation, archaeological resource management strategies, and the very limited ways in which traditional perspectives of the cultural landscape have been incorporated. In the final section, he outlines four ways First Nations are seeking to decolonize the archaeological landscape, which include educational initiatives and the development of alternative resource management strategies. (Contains 5 figures and 62 notes.)

In 1939, Texas artist Alexandre Hogue completed "The Crucified Land," a striking comparison of water erosion on a Denton, Texas, wheat farm to the martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth. "The Crucified Land" was originally intended as the final canvas of Hogue's "Erosion" series, which the artist began in 1932 as a condemnation of the careless agricultural practices that had produced wind and water erosion in his home state. When Hogue exhibited "The Crucified Land" that year at the Carnegie International, the painting's provocative religious overtones drew the notice of one critic, who referred to it as the latest in a "series of sermons on conservation."

This paper examines the relationship between various quantitative measures of urban centralization and urban housing prices through the use of a 2000 data set from the 452 Census designated urbanized areas in the United States. An empirical study of this type is necessary because: (1) the theoretical influence of creating more centralized urban areas--or what many would consider less "sprawl"--on what people pay for housing is indeterminate, (2) now popular "Smart Growth" policies advocate more centralized urban areas, and (3) some have argued that a cost of this centralization is an increase in the price of homes. After controlling for differences across United States urbanized areas in residents' economic status and demographics, number and type of households, climate, household growth, nonresidential land uses, and the structural characteristics of houses, we find that a more centralized area exhibits a lower median home value and percentage of homes in an upper-end price category. Therefore, we offer no evidence to support the contention that a successful effort to further centralize an urban area raises the price of homes in that urban area.

We employ a mail survey of private developers that uses conjoint choice experiments and Likert-scaled attitudinal questions to examine preferences for policy instruments and incentives intended to encourage brownfield cleanup and redevelopment. Our analysis suggests that developers judge public hearing requirements at brownfield redevelopments unattractive, but that they place a relatively high value on liability relief--from both cleanup costs and claims by third parties. Reimbursement of environmental assessment costs is not particularly attractive. We also find considerable heterogeneity among developers in the value they place on these incentives, depending on their experience with contaminated sites.