Rangelands, Grasslands and Parks- Guided Reading
1. What is the term for:
Natural Grasslands: Rangelands
Managed Grasslands: Pastures
2. How do we sustain rangeland productivity?
By controlling number and distribution of livestock by restoring degraded rangeland.
3. When does overgrazing occur?
Overgrazing occurs when too many animals graze for too long and exceed the carrying capacity of a grassland area.
4. What are ways that people are trying to preserve the grasslands on cattle ranches?
Some causes of the dust bowl included poor farming practices, overgrazing, farming arid lands, and not contributing on the ideas of John Wesley Powell
6. What are some of the reasons to establish National Parks and Reserves?
7. What is the Antiquities Act of 1906?
When the president can declare selected public lands as national monuments
8. Who established the National Wildlife Refuges? When?
President Theodore Roosevelt established the National Wildlife Refuges in 1903.
9. What are wilderness areas?
Wilderness areas are off limit to any kind of development, but are open to public for hiking, nature study, etc.
10. What is the wise-use movement?
A coalition of individuals and industries that oppose environmental protection.
11. Which president has weakened wilderness protection? How?
President George W. Bush weakened the wilderness act by shifting the preservation toward the recreational policies.
12. What is a land trust?
A local or regional organizations that purchase land to protect it.
13. Define the following:
Transboundary Park: An area of protected land overlapping national borders
Peace Park: Transboundary reserves that help ease tensions by acting as buffers between nations
Biosphere Reserves: Land with exceptional biodiversity
14. What is habitat fragmentation?
When a contagious habitat is chopped into small pieces.
15. What is a corridor?
A protected land that allows animals to travel between islands of protected habitat.
16. What are some of the ways that National Parks are threatened?
National parks are threatened by loggers, miners, poachers, and some can even suffer from invasive species.
17. What are some solutions to protecting our National Parks?
18. How much of the Earth’s land is currently protected nature reserves?
12% of earth’s land area is protected
Natural Grasslands: Rangelands
Managed Grasslands: Pastures
2. How do we sustain rangeland productivity?
By controlling number and distribution of livestock by restoring degraded rangeland.
3. When does overgrazing occur?
Overgrazing occurs when too many animals graze for too long and exceed the carrying capacity of a grassland area.
4. What are ways that people are trying to preserve the grasslands on cattle ranches?
- Paying ranchers conservation easements
- Pressuring government to zone the land to prevent development of ecologically sensitive areas.
Some causes of the dust bowl included poor farming practices, overgrazing, farming arid lands, and not contributing on the ideas of John Wesley Powell
6. What are some of the reasons to establish National Parks and Reserves?
- Monumentalism: preserving areas with enormous, beautiful or unusual features, such as the Grand Canyon
- Offer recreational value to tourists, hikers, fishers, hunters and others
- Protect areas with utilitarian benefits
- Use sites that are otherwise economically not valuable and are therefore easy to protect
- Preservation of biodiversity
7. What is the Antiquities Act of 1906?
When the president can declare selected public lands as national monuments
8. Who established the National Wildlife Refuges? When?
President Theodore Roosevelt established the National Wildlife Refuges in 1903.
9. What are wilderness areas?
Wilderness areas are off limit to any kind of development, but are open to public for hiking, nature study, etc.
10. What is the wise-use movement?
A coalition of individuals and industries that oppose environmental protection.
11. Which president has weakened wilderness protection? How?
President George W. Bush weakened the wilderness act by shifting the preservation toward the recreational policies.
12. What is a land trust?
A local or regional organizations that purchase land to protect it.
13. Define the following:
Transboundary Park: An area of protected land overlapping national borders
Peace Park: Transboundary reserves that help ease tensions by acting as buffers between nations
Biosphere Reserves: Land with exceptional biodiversity
14. What is habitat fragmentation?
When a contagious habitat is chopped into small pieces.
15. What is a corridor?
A protected land that allows animals to travel between islands of protected habitat.
16. What are some of the ways that National Parks are threatened?
National parks are threatened by loggers, miners, poachers, and some can even suffer from invasive species.
17. What are some solutions to protecting our National Parks?
- Adding new parks near threatened parks
- Limiting the amount of visitors
- Survey Wildlife in parks
- Increase the number of pay of park rangers
18. How much of the Earth’s land is currently protected nature reserves?
12% of earth’s land area is protected