Land, stewardship, and legitimacy : endangered species policy in Canada and the United States /

In Land, Stewardship, and Legitimacy, Olive (political science and geography, Univ. of Toronto Mississauga) attempts to compare endangered species policy in the US and Canada. The nine-chapter work reviews the development of endangered species laws and several case studies focusing on landowner attitudes towards endangered species in the two countries. Derived from a PhD thesis, the book is a mixture of reviews and data, neither of which provides compelling evidence or a useful framework to evaluate approaches or outcomes. Landowner attitude comparisons between the two countries are based on extremely small sample sizes (100 in the US, 31 in Canada) and do not allow for comparing and contrasting attitudes in two countries. More problematic is that concepts of trustee ownership of wildlife in the US and Locke's conception of rights and social responsibilities of private property are incorrectly articulated. At least one cited work in the reference list does not even exist. The book leaves readers with unfulfilled promises; these topics receive better treatment in other recent, more focused and sophisticated reviews in journals. For a more useful discussion of land stewardship, see Andro Linklater's Owning the Earth (CH, Jul'14, 51-6311). --Bernd Blossey, Cornell University