The Politics of Scale - by Nathan F Sayre (Paperback)

About the Book

Rangelands make up one quarter of the United States (roughly 770 million acres), and 40 percent of the Earth s more temperate landscapes. Many of us are by now familiar with the environmental issues associated with livestock farming greenhouse gas emissions, land and water degradation but far less is known about the historic role science has played in the management and politics of rangelands since the origins of rangeland ecology in the late nineteenth century. "Rangeland Science" is the first history of this science, which is steeped in US soil. The work explores the larger political and economic forces that, together with scientific study, produced legacies bent on the immediate success of the industrial economy, without the resources needed to promote and implement long-term ecological health. Though both the range scientists and the public agencies employing them espoused an apolitical objectivity, they could not escape the influence of bureaucrats and ranchers who demanded results, this despite the ecological, financial, and knowledge limitations plaguing research efforts. Range science was designed to address environmental crises in the West, and Sayre shows in this history that it has led to insights of great ecological importance, but always as part of a collaborative endeavor whose course and outcome is largely attributable to the pursuit of capital gain."

Book Synopsis

Rangelands are vast, making up one quarter of the United States and forty percent of the Earth's ice-free land. And while contemporary science has revealed a great deal about the environmental impacts associated with intensive livestock production-from greenhouse gas emissions to land and water degradation-far less is known about the historic role science has played in rangeland management and politics. Steeped in US soil, this first history of rangeland science looks to the origins of rangeland ecology in the late nineteenth-century American West, exploring the larger political and economic forces that-together with scientific study-produced legacies focused on immediate economic success rather than long-term ecological well being.

During the late 1880s and early 1890s, a variety of forces-from the Homestead Act of 1862 to the extermination of bison, foreign investment, and lack of government regulation-promoted free-for-all access to and development of the western range, with disastrous environmental consequences. To address the crisis, government agencies turned to scientists, but as Nathan F. Sayre shows, range science grew in a politically fraught landscape. Neither the scientists nor the public agencies could escape the influences of bureaucrats and ranchers who demanded results, and the ideas that became scientific orthodoxy-from fire suppression and predator control to fencing and carrying capacities-contained flaws and blind spots that plague public debates about rangelands to this day. Looking at the global history of rangeland science through the Cold War and beyond, The Politics of Scale identifies the sources of past conflicts and mistakes and helps us to see a more promising path forward, one in which rangeland science is guided less by capital and the state and more by communities working in collaboration with scientists.

Review Quotes

"The Politics of Scale provides a useful and interesting historical perspective on the development of range science as a merging of ecological understanding (some of it faulty), the economics of ranching and pastoralism, and land management policy. Rich in its historical coverage and distinctive in its focus on the evolving conceptions of range science and management, it effectively provides a genealogy of range science. I find myself reflecting frequently upon the ideas presented here. That, to me, is a mark of success."--David G. Havlick, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, author of "No Place Distant: Roads And Motorized Recreation On America's Public Lands" and coeditor of "Restoring Layered Landscapes: History, Ecology, and Culture"

"Very readable and engaging, The Politics of Scale is an important contribution to a number of different literatures, including the political ecology of resource management and assessment, the history and sociology of resource management science (it is one of the very best treatments in this arena), and the history of this discipline and approach. Sayre does a wonderful job showing how this intellectual history matters. His serious engagement with the methods and practices of range scientists exposes a much richer and nuanced understanding of knowledge politics as influenced by the agendas of government agencies and key individuals and the needs of capital. I love this book."--Matthew D. Turner, University of Wisconsin-Madison, coeditor of "Knowing Nature: Conversations at the Intersection of Political Ecology and Science Studies"

About the Author

Nathan F. Sayre is professor and chair of geography at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author, most recently, of Working Wilderness: The Malpai Borderlands Group and the Future of the Western Range. He lives in Berkeley, CA.