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The Legal Debate: Corner Crossing and Public Land Access
No full textIs it legal to cross from one corner of public land to an adjacent corner of public land across checkerboarded landscapes in the American West? This question regarding corner crossing has become one of the most prominent and unresolved issues in public land access. Although federal courts in Iron Bar Holdings v. Cape (2025) confirmed corner crossing, without touching or damaging private land, does not constitute trespass, the legal landscape still remains unsettled. Public land users play a significant role in shaping the direction of this issue, as demonstrated by past public mobilizations against large-scale land sell-offs. Therefore, this paper serves as an accessible guide for those seeking to understand the legal complexities surrounding corner crossing and the checkerboarded land ownership pattern that blankets the West. Specifically, it covers the historical origins of checkerboarded lands, the legal doctrines and statutory frameworks, broader impacts of limited access, and a discussion of potential solutions and pathways forward
In Pursuit of Just Practice
No full texthttps://scholarworks.umt.edu/grad_portfolios/1544/thumbnail.jp
Learning, Becoming, and Practicing: My MSW Portfolio
No full texthttps://scholarworks.umt.edu/grad_portfolios/1541/thumbnail.jp
A RETROSPECTIVE ASSESSMENT OF POST-FIRE PLANTING IN THE US: ALIGNING ACTUAL AND OPTIMAL PLANTING SITES TO ADDRESS THE REFORESTATION GAP
No full textThe natural regeneration processes that maintain semi-arid North American conifer forests are being disrupted. Increasingly, large wildfires burn core areas beyond the typical seed dispersal range of surviving adult trees and even when seeds are present, climate conditions increasingly are unsuitable for conifer recruitment, establishment, and survival. The USDA Forest Service (USFS), mandated to maintain forest cover in response to harvest or disturbance, now faces a planting backlog of over 3.8 million acres. Here, we conduct a retrospective assessment (1986–2023) of USFS post-fire reforestation to evaluate (1) whether historical planting patterns align with the goal to close the national reforestation gap, while also assessing (2) the potential of spatial optimization tools to strengthen that alignment. To do this, we develop a quantitative framework to prioritize reforestation based on where planting is (1) necessary to maintain forest cover (i.e., where seed limitation prevents natural recovery), (2) likely to succeed (i.e., where climate can support establishment), and operationally feasible (i.e., proximity to roads). We then use spatial optimization to compare simulated plantings to historical USFS decisions. Whereas most sites the USFS planted after fires (56%) were in locations predicted to naturally regenerate, our simulations found sites in the same fires with lower seed availability (mean difference: 0.22) and natural regeneration potential (mean difference: 0.17). Our study exposes some of the trade-offs and constraints resource managers must navigate when making planting decisions and demonstrates the utility of a spatially optimized decision support framework for reforestation planning