Conservation in the United States can be traced back to the 19th century with the formation of the first National Park. Conservation generally refers to the act of consciously and efficiently using land and/or its natural resources. This can be in the form of setting aside tracts of land for protection from hunting or urban development, or it can take the form of using less resources such as metal, water, or coal. Usually, this process of conservation occurs through or after legislation on local or national levels is passed.
Conservation in the United States, as a movement, began with the American sportsmen who came to the realization that wanton waste of wildlife and their habitat had led to the extinction of some species, while other species were at risk. John Muir and the Sierra Club started the modern movement, history shows that the Boone and Crockett Club, formed by Theodore Roosevelt, spearheaded conservation in the United States.
While conservation and preservation both have similar definitions and broad categories, preservation in the natural and environmental scope refers to the action of keeping areas the way they are and trying to dissuade the use of its resources; conservation may employ similar methods but does not call for the diminishing of resource use but rather calls for a responsible way of going about it. A distinction between Sierra Club and Boone and Crockett Club is that Sierra Club was and is considered a preservationist organization whereas Boone and Crockett Club endorses conservation, simply defined as an "intelligent use of natural resources."
History
Philosophy of early American conservation movement During the 19th century, some Americans developed a deep and abiding passion for nature. The early evolution of the conservation movement began through both public and private recognition of the relationship between man and nature often reflected in the great literary and artistic works of the 19th century. Artists, such as Albert Bierstadt, painted powerful landscapes of the American West during the mid 19th century, which were incredibly popular ages representative of the unique natural wonders of the American frontier. Likewise, in 1860, Frederic Edwin Church painted "Twilight in the Wilderness", which was an artistic masterpiece of the era that explored the growing importance of the American wilderness.
American writers also romanticized and focused upon nature as a subject matter. However, one of the most notable literary figures upon the early conservation movement proved to be Henry David Thoreau. Throughout his work, Walden, Thoreau detailed his experiences at the natural setting of Walden Pond and his deep appreciation for nature. In one instance, he described a deep grief for a tree that was cut down. Thoreau went on to bemoan the lack of reverence for the natural world: "I would that our farmers when they cut down a forest felt some of that awe which the old Romans did when they came to thin, or let in the light to, a consecrated grove". As he states in Walden, Thoreau "was interested in the preservation" of nature. In 1860, Henry David Thoreau delivered a speech to the Middlesex Agricultural Society in Massachusetts; the speech, entitled "The Succession of Forest Trees", explored forest ecology and encouraged the agricultural community to plant trees. This speech became one of Thoreau's "most influential ecological contributions to conservationist thought".
A basis for the philosophy curated by the prominent sportsmen, writers, anthropologists, and politicians came from observing Native Americans and how they interacted with the resources available to them. For example, George Bird Grinnell was an anthropologist who joined an expedition in 1870 which encountered different tribes such as the Pawnee for large, extended periods of time. He noted their use of every single part of an animal following a hunt and that they ceremoniously prepared for utilizing and taking any resource the land was able to provide them. These observations, fraught with condemning language toward the way European hunters and sportsmen treated wildlife and resources such as timber, were published in widely circulated journals and magazines at the time.
Early American conservation movement
America had its own conservation movement in the 19th century, most often characterized by George Perkins Marsh, author of Man and Nature. The expedition into northwest Wyoming in 1871 led by F. V. Hayden and accompanied by photographer William Henry Jackson provided the imagery needed to substantiate rumors about the grandeur of the Yellowstone region, and resulted in the creation of Yellowstone National Park, the world's first, in 1872. In 1887, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell and other prominent sportsmen of the day formed the first true North American conservation organization, the Boone and Crockett Club, with the purpose of addressing the looming conservation crises of the day. Travels by later U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt through the region around Yellowstone provided the impetus for the creation of the Yellowstone Timberland Reserve in 1891. The largest section of the reserve was later renamed Shoshone National Forest, and it is the oldest National Forest in the U.S. But it was not until 1898 when German forester Dr. Carl A. Schenck, on the Biltmore Estate, and Cornell University founded the first two forestry schools, both run by Germans. Bernard Fernow, founder of the forestry schools at Cornell and the University of Toronto, was originally from Prussia (Germany), and he honed his knowledge from Germans who pioneered forestry in India. He introduced Gifford Pinchot, the "father of American forestry", to Brandis and Ribbentrop in Europe. From these men, Pinchot learned the skills and legislative patterns he would later apply to America. Pinchot, in his memoir history Breaking New Ground, credited Brandis especially with helping to form America's conservation laws.
In 1891, Congress passed the Forest Reserve Act, which allowed the President of the United States to set aside forest lands on public domain.Utley, Robert M. and Barry MacKintosh. The Department of Everything Else. 1989. Retrieved on 17 November 2008. A decade after the Forest Reserve Act, presidents Harrison, Cleveland, and McKinley had transferred approximately into the forest reserve system.Brands, H.W., "T.R. The Last Romantic" (New York: Basic Books, 1997) 623. However, President Theodore Roosevelt is credited with the institutionalization of the conservation movement in the United States.
John Muir
John Muir was one of the founding fathers of the preservation movement in the United States in the late 19th century. He believed that nature had intrinsic value and viewed nature as a sacred religious temple, which opposed the view of many utilitarian conservationists. One of Muir’s first endeavors was helping create Yosemite National Park. He first visited Yosemite in 1868 and went back annually until 1871. These visits ultimately led to his support to create Yosemite National Park nearly 20 years later in 1890.
Starting in the 1870s, when Muir first arrived, until 1930 there was a mass removal of Native American people from their homeland in Yosemite National Park. The majority of these people were from the Miwok tribe, which according to author Robert Enberg of the John Muir Newsletter, Muir characterized as “poor, lazy, and dirty” and according to author Jedediah Purdy as “four legged animal people”.
In 1901, Muir published the essay “Our National Parks” which was used to promote tourism to national parks. He assured future visitors and readers that most of the Native Americans were dead or civilized into useless innocence. This furthered the prominence of the racist ideologies Muir had to the Miwok tribe and other tribes he dealt with around the country.
After the creation of Yosemite National Park, Muir as well as the United States government pushed for the creation of Yellowstone and Glacier National Park. This led to the removal and killing of Native peoples. Early preservationists like Muir believed that these Native people were “‘primitives’ who were obstructing the progress of the nation's destiny” (544). These racist beliefs have been coined by historian Mark Spence as “the justifying myth”(544). which the government's and preservationists like Muir’s used to rationalize their political ideologies towards native people.
John Muir is remembered because of his respect for the non-human world and his unique view of nature. However, Jedediah Purdy argued that Muir's views should not be dismissed as merely the "casual" racism of his time, noting that they appear less tied to the organized racial theorizing of contemporaries like Madison Grant, but that this context explains rather than excuses them. Muir's legacy in the preservation movement remains significant, and scholars continue to debate how his advocacy for wilderness intersected with his views on Native peoples.
Gifford Pinchot
Gifford Pinchot was a key figure in the early conservation movement in the United States. After graduating from Yale in 1889 he pursued a career in forestry in which he was later appointed head of the Division of Forestry in 1898. Later he was appointed as the first chief of the United States Forest Service in 1905 under Theodore Roosevelt.
When appointed as the head of the U.S. Forest Service, Pinchot as well as President Roosevelt pushed what was known as “new conservationism.” This new wave of conservation led a more progressive agenda which forced the issue of conservation into the limelight. He believed “the fundamental principle of the whole conservation policy is that of use, to take every part of the land and its resources and put it to that use in which it will serve the most people '' (Pinchot 1913). Using this ideology he later pushed for the creation of national forests as well as one of Pinchot’s most controversial decisions in Hetch Hetchy Valley.
The damming of Hetch Hetchy Valley located in Yosemite National Park was proposed in 1913 by a conservationist group led by Pinchot and Roosevelt and was opposed by a group of preservationists led by John Muir. Pinchot’s view on conservation was more utilitarian, meaning he wanted to use nature's resources for the benefit of the public, while Muir believed that the Valley should not be touched as he viewed nature in a religious light. The O’Shaughnessy dam was ultimately built in 1923 and led to the drowning of the sacred indigenous land of the Miwok and Yokuts tribes.
Prior to the dam being built Native peoples had access to resources from the Tuolumne River. The river provided plant foods like seeds, berries, leaves, bulbs, and tubers. Year-around water was available for drinking, food preparation, and other practical uses. The area provided a plentiful food source for tribes that included birds, deer, and other mammals. These animals were also used for clothing and ornamentation. Plentiful fibers like grasses, sedges, and roots were used for baskets and other useful items. These resources also found their way into tools and weapons. The Native tribes used obsidian which became an important material resource used for arrow points, scrapers, and blades. Once the dam was put into place it destroyed the Miwok and Yokuts people's ways of life.
Pinchot’s impact in the early conservation movement in the United States is undeniable. However, the implementation of the dam was tragic for the Native people surrounding Hetch Hetchy. It was a complete landscape transformation and destroyed an entire ecosystem that the Native tribes once relied on.
Theodore Roosevelt