January 2014 - Parks & Recreation - 16

Front Page

Research Update: Cultivating a Potential
Ecological, Economic and Social Disaster
The costs and challenges of marijuana on public lands
By Kelly S. Bricker, Matthew T.J. Brownlee and Jeffrey N. Rose

F

ederally managed lands (i.e., the
National Park Service [NPS],
United States Forest Service
[USFS], Bureau of Land Management
[BLM], etc.) serve a variety of purposes, including sustainable use (recreation, timber, etc.) and conservation.
A pressing threat to these lands is illegal and rampant marijuana cultivation
(Marijuana sativa). Although this issue
is not new among the many challenges
facing public lands, in 2012 the United
States Attorney's Office (USAO) stated
that illegal drug production on public lands " pose[s] a safety threat to the
public and an environmental threat to
the land and to wildlife, [and that] the

problem is severe " (USAO 2012). This
declaration is partially attributed to
the substantial increases in marijuana
cultivation on public lands in the last
two decades. For example, marijuana
plants seized annually on public lands
increased from less than one million in
2004 to 2.6 million in 2009. Within a
three-year period, 49,105 metric tons of
marijuana were confiscated on California's public lands alone (Miller 2012).
As a result of these increases, recent
eradication efforts have resulted in more
than $1.45 billion in marijuana seizures
on public lands across seven western
states. During the summer of 2012, approximately 67 percent of all marijuana

Assembling the Stakeholders
The authors are hosting a symposium in March 2015 at the University of Utah in Salt
Lake City, which will assemble stakeholders such as land managers, park and recreation
professionals, restoration ecologists, public health and law enforcement personnel, and
researchers who address marijuana cultivation on public lands.
Currently, managers need an integrated and comprehensive outlet to explain and
share their challenges and successes. Agencies consistently report that a symposium that
brings professionals together to understand the issue and each agency's practices would
substantially increase their ability to address marijuana on public lands. We hope that
through this symposium we can begin to address the complexities of this issue. Symposium topics will:
t Distill best practices and institutional challenges regarding marijuana on public lands;
t Highlight specific drivers that prohibit, assist and influence the prevention, mitigation
and response to marijuana on public lands;
t Compare and contrast challenges across different land-management agencies and positions regarding the issue;
t Produce a communication tool for agencies to relay their challenges aimed at garnering political and financial support to address marijuana on public lands; and
t Renew political commitment for addressing this growing issue.
For more information, contact Kelly Bricker at kelly.bricker@health.utah.edu.

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plants captured in the west occurred on
public lands (USAO 2012). However,
successful seizures represent as little
as 15 percent of estimated production
efforts on public lands (National Drug
Intelligence Center 2012). These data
reveal the enormity of an issue that often under-resourced land-management
agencies must constantly confront.
Consequently, marijuana cultivation
threatens the sustainability of public
lands, causing grave ecological, economic and social impacts.
Ecological Impacts
To increase production capacity, marijuana growers often expose sunlight
and clear arable land by removing endemic flora that land managers aim to
protect. Furthermore, individuals involved in marijuana cultivation often
divert streams to irrigate their crops
and frequently introduce harmful rodenticides and insecticides indiscriminately. As a result, these toxic products contaminate local watersheds by
polluting streams and damaging sensitive riparian habitats (Murphy 2001,
National Drug Intelligence Center
2005). Additionally, cultivators reside
at grow sites for extended periods
of time and irresponsibly dispose of
household litter, human waste, irrigation lines and large stores of federally
banned fertilizers (USAO 2012).
Economic Impacts
Economically, near-park communities often have high reliance on
well-managed public lands (Eagles
January 2014 - Parks & Recreation

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