All land uses are different. Ours are unique. We are restoring it to native vegetation alone in order to address specific scientific and policy questions. As it turns out, with all the money being spent or deferred to 'protect the environment,' virtually NONE of it is "pristine." Worse, the landscapes we took over from its prior owners was anthropogenic in nature, depending heavily upon regular human disturbance for its character and productivity. In effect, "Nature" is an urban myth. I am out to prove that the agencies are an inherently sub-optimal management architecture for something as complex an varied as land management.
How did we ever survive the 1800's when there were no regulations to hinder us?
It is instructive to read about the damage done by about 1880, particularly to topsoil. Its significance was one of the original justifications for Federal land management agencies such as the Forest Service, Soils Conservation Service, or the BLM. Until that time, fewer total people depended upon the land and there was still more soil to waste. Things changed when the frontiers were closed.
Few recognize that much of 'the rape of the land' used as said justification was ALSO due to Federal land management. The only real difference was the goals of policy. The first was to take it from the Indians and Mexicans and settle it whilst the second was to protect those who had made the big bucks doing so by shackling their smaller competition. The latter still holds today with the same big players investing overseas while killing their domestic competition.
It's all still Federal land use control, unconstitutional since before its inception.
I'm sure the fields somehow were able to survive the infestations.
To some degree, government efforts to mitigate or repair the damage were successful. Yet the soil has never recovered completely and in some cases is getting worse. Chemical amendment has masked the impact to a significant degree. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not Mr. Organic; it's just that I recognize what good soil is and so does everybody else in the business. Believe me, any farmer, even those who are totally into amended agriculture, would prefer to have a biologically active and vital soil.
Now, as to how did things survive, much of it did not. Of the some 600 extinctions we have on record so far, two thirds were exclusively due to exotic introduced species.
Plants are like the foundation of a house. The bugs and animals depend upon the plants, birds on bugs, etc. Mess up that system and you'd best know what you plan to do. Frankly, we don't really know very much about how endemic or thoroughly habituated systems worked by which to optimize our interaction and now that our twenty years of work has produced an almost purely native landscape we can now dedicate ourselves toward learning more about how to work with it. Who knows? We may find out that it's not worth "saving," but perhaps there are critical elements that do warrant careful management. We are that ignorant. In any case, and without question, "protection" (as in precluding human intrusion) on a continent that was virtually 100% managed in some way for thousands of years, is, for the most part, a horribly destructive thing to do.
If you wish to learn more about the politics and economics of environmental management, please allow me to direct you to some of my other writings. For an encapsulated history, please see these articles. For a proposal on what to do about it, please take a look at this book.
“I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet each new situation with reorganization, and a wondrous way it is to produce the illusion of progress while creating inefficiency and demoralization - Petronius.
Petronius died in ad 66. Bureaucracy didn't.
To hope that mere ‘crats can manage anything not specifically authorized in the Constitution is to shamble down the road that Russia, Cuba, and Europe took. Only individuals/owners take the best care of land.
The “Great UnNatural” Acts (Wilderness, Endangered Species, Clean Water & Clean Air Acts) were used by what can be described as GangGreen” to justify government ownership/management of land to a degree that the Founders would have considered to be a hanging offense.
One may be certain that ever since man arrived on the North American land mass, his travels and the later travels of his livestock, carried seeds. As any gardener of farmer can attest, weed seeds sprout more often desired seeds, grow faster under worse conditions, etc. Look on weeds as the Murphy's Law of agriculture.
It is safe to say the these hay regulations are merely ‘crats ‘making hay’ with their regulatory powers.
PS Carrie-Okie is probably the most informed investigator in this area.
PPS Without question, he is the most intelligent investigator in this field (pun intended).