Sally Fairfax
ES Co-Director
Associate Dean of Instruction and Student Affairs
Professor, ESPM
260 Mulford Hall
(510) 642-0542
sally@nature.berkeley.edu

Research Interests
My research has always focused on public resources, principally those managed by the United States Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Within that broad topic, my interests include legal aspects of resource administration, agency history and culture as it affects management decisions, and the relationship between federal and state governments. Over the years I have worked with diverse students and colleagues on water law and management, especially federal reserved water rights and ground water, minerals leasing, and public lands policy and history.

I am currently focused on changing institutions of resource management, on the mixture of public and private ownership, institutions, and priorities that is emerging to achieve public goals in land management and conservation. My group is working on three very much intertwined projects. First, we are almost at the end of an inventory and analysis of land acquisition programs. The federal government appears to be going out of the business of acquiring land for conservation purposes. A closer look reveals that for several decades, states, localities, and private groups, and diverse priorities, have played a major role in the land acquisition process. Furthermore, a review of the century evinces a number of half forgotten approaches and policies that may be relevant to currently changing political climates. Second, we are working in several different contexts to understand the interplay of government and private action in preservation of working landscapes, agricultural land and open space. I am particularly interested in the emergence of land trusts in that effort, and in comparing the institutional and conceptual frame that is developing in the US with the path that was taken in the UK at the end of the last century. This is an important element of a group project in am pursuing with three colleagues exploring settings in which groups and individuals claim rural places. We are focusing on a comparison of three areas in California. Finally, I am pursuing, as a component of both of the last two items, the role of artisenal agricultural production as an element of land conservation in a transforming rural economy. I am personally focusing on cheese and dairy, and organic production generally.

Selected Publications

Greig Guthey, Lauren Gwin and Sally K. Fairfax, 2003. "Creative Preservation in California's Dairy Industry." Geographical Review 93: 171-192.

Fairfax, Sally K. and Andrea Issod. 2003. "Trust Principles as a Tool for Grazing Reform: Learning from Four State Cases," Environmental Law 33: 341-398.

Fairfax, Sally K., Lauren Gwin, and Lynn Huntsinger, 2004. "Presidio and Valles Caldera: A Preliminary Assessment of their Meaning for Public Resource Management." Natural Resources Journal 44: 445-474.

Sulak, Adriana, Lynn Huntsinger, Richard Standiford, Adina Merenlender, and Sally K. Fairfax. 2004. "The agricultural conservation easement: A strategy for oak woodland conservation." In: Schnabel, S. and Gonsalves, A. (eds). Sustainability of Agrosilvopastoral Systems: Dehesas, Montados. Chapter 6. Advances in GeoEcology 37:353-364.

Merenlender, Adina, Greig Guthey, Lynn Huntsinger and Sally K. Fairfax. 2004. "Land Trusts and Conservation Easements: Who is Conserving What for Whom?" Conservation Biology 18:3-24.

Sally K. Fairfax 2005. "When an Agency Outlasts Its Time: A Reflection." Journal of Forestry 103(5): 264-267.

King, Mary Ann and Sally K. Fairfax, 2005. "Beyond Bucks and Acres: Water and Conservation Easements." Texas Law Review 83:1941-1984.

Fairfax, Sally K., Lauren Gwin, Mary Ann King, Leigh Raymond, and Laura A. Watt. 2005. Buying Nature: The Limits of Land Acquisition as a Conservation Strategy, 1780-2004, 357 pages. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

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Environmental Sciences
University of California, Berkeley
260 Mulford Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-3100
Phone: 510-643-9479
Fax: 510-643-3132
email: es-help@nature.berkeley.edu

Modification Date: 10/04/2006