History of Conservation
A Brief History of
Conservation
Major Developmental periods
in human history
• Hunters and gatherers
– 95% of our history as a species we were nomadic
hunters, gatherers.
– Nature was feared, respected, worshipped
• Agricultural revolutions
– plant crops, as a necessity?
– cities, communities form.
• Industrial Revolution
– tremendous power to change environment.
– Exploitive
• Conservation-Environmentalism
?
Continued growth
Population
stabilization
Number of Humans
?
Population
crash
?
(10,000 years)
(100,000 years)
(1 million years)
Industrial and information revolutions
Agricultural revolution
Tool-making revolution
Time
Fig. 2.2, p. 24
Slide 2
Hunter-Gatherer Culture
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Include Native Californian cultures
Nomadic:
– Hunters followed game’s seasonal movement inland, more
stationary along coast.
– Moved on when resources where being reduced, allowing for
recovery
Environmental impact was limited and local
– Small populations
– Little resource demand per person
Intimate knowledge of natural surroundings
– local medicines, foods, seasonal animal migrations
Generally work with natural processes
– Native Californians burning forests to maintain open Oak
woodlands
– Technology limited their ability to disturb environment
Miwok
and
Ohlone
The Agricultural Revolution
• Agriculture formed 10-12,000 years ago
• Settled communities, domestication of crops and
livestock
– beginning of cities
– Hard to move in response to drought, resource deletion
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Shifting cultivation and slash and burn
Basically Sustainable resource use
Limited to human muscle power and animals.
Tool designed advances yields
Excess food allows for people to dedicate
themselves to arts, etc.
• Demand for nutrients – deforestation,water
resources increases impact on enviroment
Slash and Burn, shifting cultivation
1
Clearing
and burning
vegetation
2
Allowing
to revegitate
10 to 30 years
4
5
Planting
Harvesting for
2 to 5 years
Fig. 2.3, p. 25
Slide 3
The Industrial Revolution 1700-1800’s
• Increased reliance on machinery
• More resource exploitation,
– “mining” not sustainable
– non renewable fossil fuels
• Pollution becomes large problem
– Polluted waters, wastes dumped in rivers
– Burning of coal, oil pollute air
• Dramatic increase of impact on environment
– Deforestation rampant in US, Strip mining
– Hydro-mining for Gold in Sierras – pollute Bay still
– California’s Redwoods disappearing
Industrialization
• Expanded search for new resources and markets
fuels colonialism in America, Africa, Asia
• Exploitation of resources requires cheap labor– slavery spreads across colonies
• Large cities form as Factory towns, grow many
more people move to cities
• Crop yields expand, but need the machinery and
fertilizers.
– Feed more people with less land
– “Old Style” farms can’t compete
• Follows Fundamental Christian / Biblical Views –
– Dominate the lands and animals
– Be fruitful and multiple
– Purpose of land is to serve us
Hydraulic mining
Redwood Logging
Train
Save the Redwoods
League: Big Basin
Conservation 1900’s
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Recognize depletion of resources
Study effects of Pollution
Colonies seek independence
World Population growth soars
Political Activism spreads
Europe changes after world wars
– Socialism takes hold
– Better societies dreamed of
The Information
Revolution/Globalization
• Information Revolution
• Rate of information increase and speed of
communication
– Get information to/from of all parts of
developing world
• Globalization
– Move food bought sold everywhere
– Harder to control your own crops, imports
• Decrease in cultural diversity
– Same products world wide
• Decrease in crop, bio diversity
Sustainability
• Provide for current use without
undermining future generations
ability to use and enjoy the same
resources.
• Post- Industrial movement, still forming.
– Organic foods
• Will need even more technology,better
distribution systems
• Emergence of Biotechnology
• Population growth, migration
Environmental History in the
United States: Four eras:
• Tribal
– before 1607
• Colonial / Frontier
– 1700’s to 1890
• Conservation
– late 1800’s to 1960
• Environmental
– 1960’s to 1980s - today
• Sustainability
– Tomorrow ?
The Tribal Eras
• Tribal Era: Native Americans before 1607
and European settlers arrive.
• Native Americans generally low-impact
hunter-gather or agricultural societies
• Deep respect for the land its animals.
– Most did not have private ownership of lands
– All Lands held by group as a whole
• Need large areas to maintain hunter
gatherer lifestyle.
Frontier Era & Industrialization
• Frontier Environmental Worldview:
European Settlement (1607-1890)
• Significant impact as wilderness frontier
was “tamed”
• Resources seemed unlimited
• Forests “cleared” for agriculture, fuel
• Wild lands viewed as dangerous –
– Predators threaten settlers: Bears
– Attack the “savages” living there
• Huge land tracts given away by Federal
Government to Homesteaders
• Ends in 1890, but romanticism of the era
remains in US culture
The Early Conservation Era
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Period: 1832-1960
Concern over resource use
Preservation of public lands
Public health initiatives
Environmental restoration projects
Conservation Era: 1832-1960
Cycles of Crisis and Activity
• Concern over resource use
– Loss of Eastern Deciduous Forest
• Evolution – Darwin’s views
– Placed humans in nature instead of apart from
– Non-biblical view of nature, against domination
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Preservation of public lands
Public health initiatives
Environmental restoration projects
Ecology emerges as a distinct branch in
biological science
Some Important US Conservation Figures
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Perkins Marsh (1801-1882)
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
John Muir (1838-1914)
Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946)
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)
Alice Hamilton (1869-1970)
Aldo Leopold (1887- 1948)
Rachel Carson (1907-1964)
Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862)
• Wrote of nostalgia for lost wilderness
– Left with “a tamer, and as it were, emasculated
country”.
• Lived in cabin on Walden Pond 26 months,
wrote book in 1854
• Advocated rejecting material goods
• Sought harmony by contemplation and
scientific study of nature
• Advocated each city / town have a large
park or primitive forest
Perkins Marsh
• Congressman from Vermont
• Scientist – early ecologist studied resource
conservation priciples
• Ambassador to Turkey (1849-54); Italy (1861-1882)
• Called "the fountain- head of the conservation
movement".
• Marsh became convinced that human civilization had
remade the natural world but with disastrous
consequences.
• Wrote: Man and Nature (1864). Warnings about
uncontrolled spoiling of the environment from
observations of his travels.
John Muir
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Geologist, Explorer, Naturalist, Writer
President and Founder of Sierra Club in 1892
Did not hold public office
Influenced others by his writings
Traveled widely, wrote of his observations of
nature
– Influenced by temporary blinding accident while young.
• Loved Yosemite, and the Sierras
– Wanted to open up access to Sierras
– Opposed forest logging and burning,
– Opposed running cattle, sheep in Sierras
• Opposed Hetch Hetchy Project
• Influential in getting Teddy Roosevelt to add
lands to National Park System
• Promoted wilderness areas – adopted in 1964
John Muir
Promoted Biocentric Conservation
“The world we are told was made for man. A
presumption that is totally unsupported by the
facts... Nature’s object in making animals and
plants might possibly be first of all the happiness
of each one of them... Why ought man to value
himself as more than an infinitely small unit of
one great creation?”
Establish Parks to preserve pristine environment
Gifford Pinchot
Promoted a pragmatic “Wise
Use” or Utilitarian Conservation
• First native born professional forester, becomes
Director of Forestry for Roosevelt
• Conserve “not because they are beautiful or
because they shelter wild creatures of the
wilderness, but only to provide homes and jobs
for people.” Resources used for “the greatest
good, for the greatest number pf people, for the
longest time”.
• National forests are to provide trees for your
grandkids to go cut down.
• Supported damming Hetch Hetchy
Theodore Roosevelt
“We have become great because of the
lavish use of our resources. But the time
has come to inquire seriously what will
happen when our forests are gone, when
the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are
exhausted, when the soils have still
further impoverished and washed into the
streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the
fields and obstructing navigation."
Theodore Roosevelt
• 26th President of United States (1901-1909)
– Republican - Liberal party of the time (like Lincoln)
• Loved outdoors- most important conservationist
president
• Hunter – recognizes need to save land, animals to
hunt in the future
– Game legislation established
• Wants to conserve resources
– Expands national forests
• Wants to protect endangered species
– Set us first national wildlife refuges
– Egrets being killed off for plumes for hats
• First National figure to take up Conservation
issues
Theodore Roosevelt’s Major
Conservation Accomplishments
• Congress grants President authority to designate
public land as wildlife refuges and monuments
– Antiquities Act
– First federal refuge at Pelican bay Florida, 1903 to save
Brown Pelican
– Designated Grand Canyon a protected area
– National Park Service will become law in 1916 under
Woodrow Wilson
• Established US Bureau of Reclamation
• More than tripled size of National Forest lands,
moved to USDA for enforcement
• Both Pinchot and Muir held Roosevelt’s ear.
• Roosevelt agreed with both points of view.
• Roosevelt expands national forests to conserve
resources (Pinchot)
• Roosevelt sets up national parks, monuments for
conservation of species (Muir).
Private Groups Step in
• Sierra Club 1892
• Audubon Society 1886
– Pushed for refuges to be established
• Wilderness Society 1935
• Duck’s Unlimited 1937
– First Nonprofit group dedicated to preserving
wetlands by buying marsh lands to save them
for hunting
• Nature Conservancy 1951
– Buy lands to preserve them
• Green peace 1971
– Political Activists
Environmental Era: 1960 - 2000
• Political Activism period
• Environmental Movements
• “Green” Political Parties form
Alice Hamilton
1869-1970
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Founder of occupational medicine
First woman professor at Harvard Medical School
Study health hazards in the workplace
Wrote: Industrial Poisons in the United States
Opposed lead in paint, gasoline
Work to get several worker's compensation laws
passed in Illinois and elsewhere.
• Strong advocate of pollution prevention: testing
new materials before their release as products.
Alice Hamilton’s work:
• I don't know what your Company is feeling as of
today about the work of Dr. Alice Hamilton on
benzol [benzene] poisoning. I know that back in
the old days some of your boys used to think that
she was a plain nuisance and just picking on you
for luck. But I have a hunch that as you have
learned more about the subject, men like your
good self have grown to realize the debt that
society owes her for her crusade. I am pretty sure
that she has saved the lives of a great many girls
in can-making plants and I would hate to think
that you didn't agree with me.
• Dewey to S. P. Miller, 9 February 1933,
Aldo Leopold
• Founding father of wildlife ecology,
• Text Book Game Management (1933)
• Stressed Land Ethic
• Stressed importance of ecosystem (living and
non living resources)
• In 1935, purchased a worn-out farm near the
sand counties. It is here Leopold put into action
his beliefs that the same tools people used to
disrupt the landscape could also be used to
rebuild it.
• Wrote Sand County Almanac, published
posthumously.
• One of Wilderness Society founders
Land Ethic
• “The land ethic simply enlarges the
boundaries of the community to include
soils, waters, plants, and animals, or
collectively: the land.”
• “A land ethic of course cannot prevent the
alteration, management, and use of these
'resources,' but it does affirm their right to
continued existence, and, at least in spots,
their continued existence in a natural
state.” -- Aldo Leopold
Environmental Era 1960•
Grassroots efforts activate citizens to
demand the government:
1. Curtail pollution
2. Clean up polluted environments
3. Protect pristine areas from degradation
Rachel Carlson's 1962 book broadens
resource conservation to include the
quality of our air, water soil, and wildlife.
Not just focus on specific properties,
species.
Rachel Carson
(1907-1964)
•Aquatic biologist for U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service
• Wrote:The Sea Around Us, published in 1961
• Silent Spring, was published in 1962.
– Warned about the toxic role of DDT in ecosystems
– Started Environmentalism movement
• President Kennedy’s Science Advisory Committee
confirmed her results in 1963
• In 1980, Carson was posthumously awarded the
presidential Medal of Freedom
Some Key Environmental Events
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1974 CFC’s shown to deplete ozone
1978 Love canal evacuated in New York
1979 Three Mile Island Accident
1984 Bhopal India chemical plant accident
kills 5,000, injures 50,000
• 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant
explodes
• 1989 Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska
Spaceship Earth
• 1969 Apollo Mission photos changes how world
views itself
Earth Day
• Created by Senator Gaylord
Nelson in 1970.
Legislation milestones
• 1964 Wilderness Act
• 1970 Environmental Impact Reports required on
Federal projects. States Follow suit.
• 1970 EPA founded
• 1970 Clean Air Act Amendments
• 1972 Oregon passes first bottle recycling deposits
• 1972 Clean Water Act
• 1973 Endangered Species Act
• 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act
• 1976 Toxic substances Control Act
• 1980 Superfund Act
Modern Environmental Activism Period
• spanned Several administrations
– Nixon (1969-1974)
– Ford (1974-1977)
– Carter (1977-1981)
• Periods Stops with Ronald Reagan
– Appoints James Watt secretary of Interior.
– Supports an Anti-environment ‘Wise-Use
Movement” funded by ranchers, farmers,
timber companies unhappy with regulations
limiting their activities.
Anti-Environment
backlash
• After years of success the
environmentalism
movement grinds to halt
with Reagan and Watt.
James Watt Secretary of Interior
• Under Reagan
• Very conservative,
religious man
• Only 2and half years
• Policies outraged the
environmental
communities
1990’s Bill Clinton
President 1993-2001
• Gives key positions to environmentalists
• Consulted with environmental groups to
formulate new policies
• Vetoed anti-environmental bills from
congress
• Up SUV gas emissions standards
• Used Antiquities Act to preserve more
land than any other president.
• Limited roads, logging in areas of national
forests
Bruce Babbitt Secretary of Interior
1993-2001
G W Bush
2001-2009
• Former Interior Secretary
Gale A. Norton
2001-2006
Current Secretary • Former Governor (R-Idaho), Dirk
Kempthorne US Secretary of the Interior
2006- 2009.
• Pro-development track record
• Wants to open 3.6 million acres in the Gulf
of Mexico to oil and gas drilling
• Supports drilling in the Arctic refuge
• National park Service Centennial Projects
206-2016.
Many Modern Issues are Global
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Ocean Pollution
Whaling accords
Kyoto accord – greenhouse gasses
World trade
Cruise ship air pollution, garbage
dumping
• Nuclear wastes, fuels
• Oil spills
• Water wars
How our View of Nature has
changed as well:
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Hunter gatherer
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Agricultural revolution
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Domination of the land.
“humans and nature as equal partners”
Industrial Revolution
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Stewardship / Dependence
“A general respect and awe for nature”
Consumerism - Exploitation
“Nature was made to serve humans”
Sustainability
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“Nature needs us to save her”
Land Ethic
Conservation Case Studies
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North American Bison
California Sea Otters
Whopping Crane
Peregrine falcon
Everglades
Disappearance
of the North
American Bison
Herds
1500
1850
1870
1880
1906
• Restored
from 85
in 1906 to
200,000
today
Fig. 2.1, p. 23
Slide 1
California
Sea Otters
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Sea Otter decline
• In Alaska due to fisheries collapse and
predation by Orcas
• In California by a pathogenic bacteria
– From cats on land?
Whopping
Crane
California Condor
Peregrine
falcon
Threats to Species
• Over-harvesting of food species, or
hunting species itself
– Most species are rare.
– Many larger plants & animals are fewer in
number and reproduce slowly (low inherent
growth rate) and can not recover quickly.
• Pollution - Pesticides and insects,
amphibians
• Currently in a mass extinction
What to save?
• We can’t save them all. Not enough $$ or
land to save everything
– Interests change with political climate
– Population growth demands on local areas
– More demand for exports in developing
countries – raw materials, energy
• What species to save? Choosing the
fights to preserve an area.
– Unique species - no closely related species
(not just another beetle)
– Charismatic species - Giant Panda, Florida
Panther, Bald Eagle
– Unique ecosystems
Park / Reserve Design
• Best: Large, close- by reserves.
– Large round parks reduce edge effects
– Increase immigration, population migration
(gene flow)
• Less desirable: many, small isolated
preserves.
Land Use
• About 40% of our land is in public trust.
– Distribution is unequal!
– Western States have many more acres in
parklands, forest than East Coast.
• Very little is actually protected
– 15% as wilderness.
• Species conservation has to fight with timber, hunting, farming, grazing, oil
exploration, etc..
National Parks and Monuments
• Started in US - 1864 - Yosemite
– protected by Abraham Lincoln during Civil War.
– Turned over to State of California to administrate.
• 1872 Yellowstone First National Park –
– United States Federally administrated park
• Yosemite and Sequoia Kings canyon in 1890.
– Each was founded independently by an act of congress.
• 1906 Congress gave President authority to set
aside areas of scientific, historic or cultural value
as national Monuments.
– Teddy Roosevelt used this to establish many reserves
Early National Park System
• Loosely managed by US Army to protect lands
form hunters, loggers etc.
– Yosemite was patrolled by cavalry at first.
• Until 1916 when National Park Service was
established to better protect parks,
– in part as a response to Hetch Hetchy dam in Yosemite.
• National Park concept has spread around the
world, some say it America’s best invention.
• Originally just natural areas
• Now have expanded to include many more
historical (battlefields) and cultural sites (Pueblo).
National Parks
• After cars made visiting easier, NPS stressed the
visitors pleasures more than natural environment.
– Camp Curry in Yosemite shows would draw over 2,000
nightly.
– Had fire falls, bear feedings, Jazz bands, toboggan runs
etc.
• California has the most National parks with 23.
• Many states have none, causing a political
problem.
• New Ideals stress Rangers as nature interpreters,
and preservation as top priorities
• Unfortunately many Rangers have become more
like police in some areas.
National Parks
• Seem large (miles across) but are often too small
for the larger animals to maintain a viable number
of individuals.
• Yosemite has limited access (closed when full).
– Most visitors don’t stray far into the wild.
– 95% of visitors don’t venture past Yosemite Valley floor
which is less than 1% of the park’s area.
– Park becomes crowded, dusty, smoky etc.
• Yosemite Valley Plan
• Yellowstone only has 100 grizzle bears.
• Most Parks are generally over-crowded and under
funded
National Parks
• Restoration – allowing forested areas return to old growth
without logging.
• Reintroduction of native species –
– wolves in Yellowstone, Great Smokey
Mountains, Arizona
– Restoration projects in meadows, marshes
National Wildlife Refuge System
• 1964 Wilderness Act- areas of federal land
that are to be managed to retain its:
– primeval character with no commercial
enterprise, no permanent road, and no
motorized vehicles
• Many are set up to protect migratory bird
areas.
Other Parks
• State Parks, Beaches
– Mt Diablo- Mitchell Canyon
– Bodega Shoreline – Sonoma County State
Beaches
• East Bay Regional Parks (EBRPD)
– Founded in 1934.
– Includes: Briones, Redwood
– 50 parks, shorelines and lakes; 20 trails.
Totaling more than 75,000 acres.
– Alameda and Contra Costa Counties (once one
county-parks remained joined)
• City Parks- mostly for recreation not
nature reserves
Private Reserves- Nature Conservancy
• Highest level of protection is private ownership.
– founded by Ecological Society of America, college
professors.
– Largest private land owner in US. In 1999 had 7 million
acres. 78% on Biologically significant sites.
– Other land donated may be sold / exchanged for more
biologically significant sites later.
– Able to purchase high price lands.
– 286 square miles of unbroken forest in Maine for $35
million
• 14,000 acres of CO wetlands for $4.5 million.
• Easements - sold to owner.
– Doesn’t change ownership of land, but restricts future
development.
Private Reserves
• Started by Ducks Unlimited
• Other hunting groups
• Local interest groups
– Friends of Mt. Diablo
– Save the Redwoods
– Many Others
Zoos
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Originally just for our pleasure
Now for many a last resort Animals are Safe, but in artificial habitat
Is it ethical ?
– free roaming animals, trapped in small enclosures,
tanks.
– Captive vs. Extinction?
• Animal’ s visitors pay most of the bills.
• Animals bred in captivity without (or reduced)
natural rearing.