I Hate the Term Landowner

There are few terms I dislike more then β€œlandowner”. This word got a lot of play in New York during the debate over fracking.

β€œLandowner” in it’s most general meaning is a farmer, a person owning a hunting camp or home in a rural area or other person to who owns land. But for many anti-natural gas activists, landowner was used to describe a greedy individual who wanted to profit and domination over their personally owned natural resources. Many in the anti-natural gas community use the term landowner as negatively as one might use β€œslaveholder” today.

I would argue that no farmer who works the land, and no hunter who hunts their land is doing it in domination of their land. You can’t stomp into the woods and shoot a deer, you can’t carelessly throw seed in the air and hope it to grow. Natural resources have to be carefully managed and sustainability harvested for generations to come. You can’t exploit the land without limitation and expect to keep it going on. You have to carefully understand the woods and field, observe what is going on, understand the consequences of your action.

Sitting in the woods with a shotgun watching the wildlife can teach you much. You can’t just jump into the woods, you have to prepare and think about your surroundings. You have to understand the science, the risks and rewards. You have to have a deeper connection to the land, you’re more then just a β€œlandowner” out to exploit the land.

Pennsylvania often calls people who lease their natural resources, β€œfarmers”. And indeed many if not most of them are. Even though not every landowner cultivates a field with a tractor or milks and feeds cows and hogs, most landowners are β€œfarming” their land for wildlife to hunt, wood to chop or harvest, and natural resources to sustain themselves. 

Getting Pretty Tall

Percent of Town Landmass Developed

It varies a lot by town, by many of the Upstate towns are largely open space consisting of farms and forests. This analysis using NLCD 2016, includes only landmass and excludes waterways.

Percent of Town Landmass Developed

Kiakout Kill Tributory

On the left is the bank where supposedly "Medical Waste" is illegally dumped, and would have to be removed or at least properly capped prior to a Pine Bush restoration.

Saturday March 24, 2012 β€” Albany Pine Bush

Which is Closer – New York or Texas?

I've been playing with st_nearest_feature in R/sf to calculate nearest features on a map.

ct <- counties(cb=T, resolution = '20m') %>% st_transform(5070)
st <- states(cb=T, resolution = '20m') %>% filter(NAME %in% c('Texas','New York')) %>% st_transform(5070)

nr <- st_nearest_feature(ct, st)

ct <- cbind(ct, st_drop_geometry(st)[nr,])

Which is Closer - New York or Texas?