A balanced federalism : an examination of public lands policy in the United States with Australia [sic] analogies

Thesis Summary: Public land management in the United States is primarily a function of the United States Federal Government, with roughly ninety-five percent of America's public lands owned by the American people and intensely managed by America's federal government. Within Australia this trend is reversed, with Australia's states administering the vast majority of Australia's non-alienated common lands under noticeably less public, government and judicial scrutiny than occurs in the United States. The focus of this thesis is to explain why the United States developed primarily a national approach to public land management, while Australia's government lands are mainly managed at the state level and to illustrate the aftermath of these differences. Methods: This thesis will concentrate upon critical historical events, including similarities and differences in colonial and post-American Revolution land policies, constitutional provision, modern case law, and notable judicial decisions. Australia's state land policies will be revealed for strictly comparative purposes to demonstrate the importance of America's national land policies to public land conservation. Written and/or phone inquiries were conducted with each of Australia's state/territorial land administrative agencies and the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service. Similar inquiries were conducted with public land administration agencies within the United States, including the National Parks Service, National Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the Arkansas Department of Parks. Historical references were obtained from the Tasmania University Library; Tasmania State Library; Saint Paul [Minnesota], Milwaukee [Wisconsin]. and Boston [Massachusetts] public libraries; as well as the university libraries of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Sydney, and Melbourne. Having traveled extensively throughout Australia as an environmental studies and aboriginal anthropology student at Sydney University in 1985, an extended dedication has been included to demonstrate that Native American and Native Australian civilizations declined because of land polices that encouraged genocide and displaced native people from their ancestral lands. Conclusions: The United States developed a national approach to public land management because of unanimous, early agreement among America's states; early governing land laws that solidified the constitutional, national land powers of the United States Congress; prodevelopment and later pro-conservation land philosophies; and important presidential initiatives in conservation. The aftermath of a national approach resulted in the United States Government securing 'true' national lands, while nationalism and romanticism succeeded in greatly furthering legalized land conservation. These factors may be illustrated by comparing America's national land policies to Australia's largely state administered land policies through differences in public land tenure, historic land policy, land law development, and executive and congressional initative.