Implementing the Endangered Species Act on private land in the coastal redwoods: A political-sociological analysis of environmental bureaucracies

While the thesis that a relationship exists between social and natural systems is largely accepted in current academic discourse, understanding of how social structures mediate this relationship---a reality that differentiates our society---environment relationship from those of other species-is much farther on the horizon. Systems of social power play a central role in this mediation process. At least since the 1970s, those systems of power of greatest interest have been economic in nature, particularly global capitalism, while the institution of greatest interest is the state. In some cases the dynamics of or changes in economic systems have been directly implicated in the emergence of ecological crises. Other researchers argue the reverse, suggesting that poverty---rather than wealth---leads to unsustainable behaviors, and therefore the lack of capitalist expansion presents the primary threat to environmental sustainability. Both of these lines of discourse obscure several social-structural characteristics relevant to society-environment interactions, particularly the uneven distribution of control over and consumption of resources, the dual role of states as promoters and rationalizers of economic production, and the necessary relationship between social constructions of "nature" and the biophysical constraints those constructions face.;The significance of each of these factors can be illustrated in the politics of endangered species management and private property rights. In the current work, the author adopts a political-sociological view of the state for analysis of the implementation of the U.S. Endangered Species Act on private lands in the coastal redwoods of northern California. Particularly in local economies such as this, which is dependent on healthy local ecosystems and the long-term supply of natural resources, abuses of property ownership via privileged access can lead to the degradation of local ecosystems to such an extent that the local economy is threatened---a microcosm of a global dilemma. In the process, however, the very social constructions that have legitimized such privileged access are challenged, as they breach biophysical constraints. Previously complacent residents---many of them property owners themselves---become politicized in the process, as the social construction of "private property rights" is revealed not only to be rather less democratic than previously believed, but also that the privileged nature of this social construction has the potential to destroy the very land being "owned." Because state institutions play a central role in underwriting privileged access, in large part by perpetuating those social constructions, their legitimacy becomes threatened in the process. It is concluded that the inevitable meeting of social constructions of nature and biophysical constraints leads to a reappraisal of those constructions, and provides an opportunity for democratization of environmental management. The means by which these transformations take place, however, are largely determined by the ability of states to balance the potentially contradictory roles of promotion and rationalization of economic production.