In Rural Residency, Rural Resentment, and Attitudes Towards Public Land Management in the United States, authors B. Kal Munis and Zoe Nemerever (both Political Science, Auburn) explore attitudes regarding federal public land management along the urban-rural divide. The authors find that while both rural and non-rural Americans are broadly supportive of federal public lands, a subset of “resentful ruralities” are markedly unsupportive of public lands due to their opposition to the federal government.

‍By Erika Allen Wolters (Oregon State University) and ‍Kevin Pirch (Eastern Washington University).‍‍ ‍

As the United States expanded its territory into the American West, the federal government’s distributive land policies helped promote settlement by incentivizing new residents with the promise of land, resources, and profit. While these policies, like the Homestead Act, helped entice settlers (and simultaneously displace Indigenous peoples), large-scale infrastructure projects such as the expansion of railways aided western settlement. However, the federal government retained a significant amount as public land, allocating it based on the Public Land Survey System (PLSS). The PLSS neatly mapped the region into 640-acre sections, resulting in a checkerboard pattern of public and private land ownership. This intermix of land ownership led to expected quarrels over natural resource use, ownership, and private property rights. Additionally, it also left about 9.52 million acres of the 640 million acres of public land total in the United States inaccessible for public use (TCRP). ‍

In Collaborative Management on the Eastern Slopes: The Waldron Ranch Grazing Cooperative and Conservation Easement Motivations, Forrest Hisey (Geography, Geomatics, and Environment, University of Toronto Mississauga) and Jonah Olsen (Geography and Planning, University of Toronto) investigate the use of conservation easements (CEs) in Canada as a tool for private land conservation. The authors explore the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for such easements, including deeply rooted cultural identities among landowners and traditional economic benefits.

In The Geography of Property Rights: Land Concentration, Irrigation Access and Rural Poverty Under Climate Change in Chile, Eduardo Villavicencio-Pinto (Law, University of Kent, England) examines the relationship between land concentration and rural poverty in Chile. The article argues that land concentration increases the likelihood of poverty primarily in communities with limited water access.  

In Know Your Rights! A Field Experiment on Legal Knowledge, Property Rights, and Investment in Kenya, Adam Aberra and Matthieu Chemin (both Economics, McGill University, Montreal) illustrate the impact of legal trainings regarding property rights on landowners in Kenya and emphasize that this low-cost intervention increases security in property rights and promotes economic development.

In The Dark Side of the Balloon: Restrictions on Foreign Investment in US Farmland, Sarah Everhart (Delaware Law) argues that legislators should shift their focus from preventing foreign ownership of US farmland to supporting domestic farmers’ access to farmland.

In Provincial Diffusion, National Acceptance: The Transfer of Conservation Easement Policy in Canada, author Forrest Hisey (Geography, Geomatics, and Environment, University of Toronto) surveys the development of conservation easement (CE) legislation development in Canada to understand the state of CE policy as well as policy diffusion methods leading to this development.

In Trading Acres, Jessica A. Shoemaker (Law, University of Nebraska-Lincoln) and James Fallows Tierney (Law, Illinois Institute of Technology) address the growing trend of financialization of farmland.  

In Broadband Internet Speed Upgrades and the Farmland Market: A Shift-Share Instrumental Variable Approach, authors Xiaorui Qu, Qinan Lu, Minghao Li, and Wendong Zhang (all College of Economics and Management, China) conduct an empirical analysis of the impact of investment in broadband internet on the value of America’s farmland.

In Financial Incentives and Landowner Interest in Reforesting Open Lands in the Southeastern United States, authors Chloe Schnieder and Nina Randazzo (Environmental Defense Fund), Ram Kumar Adhikari (Forestry, Mississippi State University), and Neelam Chandra Poudyal (Natural Resources, University of Tennessee) examine the factors influencing landowners’ willingness to participate in reforestation programs.

In Towards a right to the rural?, Levi Van Sant (Integrative Studies, George Mason University) and Madeleine Fairbairn (Environmental Studies, University of California – Santa Cruz) explore the conceptual framework of ‘a right to the rural’ to clarify struggles to access rural spaces.

In Beyond the Agro-export Boom: The Challenges of Land Concentration and Fragmentation in Chile, Eduardo Villavincencio-Pinto (Kent Law School, UK) examines the neoliberal rural property regime in modern Chile and its implications for how the country can meet the challenges of climate change. The author conducted a study of rural Chilean property ownership, evaluating two main trends: land concentration and land fragmentation. Employing a historical, cartographic, and socio-legal approach, Villavincencio-Pinto shows how both trends have had negative effects on the rural landscape in Chile and challenges the sustainability of this foundational system.