Publication Date

2017

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This article focuses on the back country-the Ozark National Scenic Riverways (ONSR) and the community around and with the rivers. It begins historically, tracing the origins and courses of stable-state, subsistence agricultural societies in the rugged hills overlooking the Current and Jacks Fork Rivers. It shows that such societies, though autonomous, are vulnerable to outside aggression. War, raiders, in­dustrial timbermen, and modern technology can shatter the environ­mental balance. Dam builders, government land managers, and tour­ism can erode internal sovereignty, custom, and self-esteem. These forces befell the Ozark highlands around the ONSR.

Out of the breakdown of land and economy, and after governmental intrusion and jurisdiction disputes by the National Forest Service, the National Park Service, and the Army Corps of Engineers, came the 1964 rebirth-a new national river park called the ONSR. It was a bellwether of the new environmental era, and a new beginning for the back country of southern Missouri.

Through the use of contemporary land control tools such as emi­nent domain, conservation easements, comprehensive planning, extra­territorial jurisdiction, and government regulated monopoly, the Na­tional Park Service has healed many of the wounds to the land-but has left numerous scars within the local community. Indeed, the commu­nity around the rivers reflect the deep antifederal tensions characteristic of long-running Sagebrush Rebellion in the western states. This Article, then, will deal with a variety of problematic issues-economic, environ­mental, political, and legal that affect-and divide-the nation as a whole, as well as distinct microcosms such as the Ozark National Scenic Riverways.

Publication Title

Urban Lawyer

Volume

49

Issue

1

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