New York State Forest Rangers Women

On April 29, 1910, the largest forest fire in American history occurred. Some would come to know it as the Big Burn, or the Big Blowup. Later others called it the (the one that says it saved American landscape.) This travesty took more than 100 men. The impact it had on Americans was monumental. Timothy Egan’s The Big Burn, he writes about the many people who perished during this disaster. Stories of people who were engulfed by the flames at Bitterroot Mountain who had little chance of escaping their devastating fate. Even though this is still seen as a travesty, some look at it in a different way. Due to how large the fire was and how far it stretched, it made people aware of the importance to protect Americas forests and natural resources. During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, reform was occurring. The United States population was on a rise which had an effect on economic growth. This caused expansion in the consumer market and made way for an enormous amount of advancement in technology. Due to all of this, the demand for natural resources vastly increased. Inventions such as cars and trains consumed massive amounts of fossil fuels. Wood was stripped away from forests to make comfort items such as chairs, tables and other items for the large number of families now setting in the United States from foreign countries. People did not seem to pay much attentions to the effects these changes were having on the land. However, President Theodor Roosevelt had

Karl Jacoby. Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation. Berkley: University of California, 2001.

Imagine voluntarily getting into a cage with wild Grizzly Bears, and having nothing to defend yourself. This is what Timothy Treadwell did, except he upped the ante and chose to live alongside the Grizzly Bears of Katmai National Park in Alaska. The last 13 years of Treadwell’s life, he spent the summer months living with the bears. Grizzly Man is a film that was created by Werner Herzog. The film show contains content that Treadwell filmed himself, as well as portions filmed after his death, that have Werner interacting with people who knew Timothy very well. I believe that this film is very well put together and does a great job of showing Treadwell’s interactions with the bears, with minimal input from the narrator. I enjoy this part of the film because it allows you to form your own opinion of Treadwell and see what he thinks is best for himself and the bears. In this paper, I will be touching on how Treadwell’s actions throughout the film relate to writings done by; Michael Nelson, J. Baird Callicott, and Reed Noss. Some of Nelson’s wilderness preservation arguments fit right alongside what Treadwell is doing on his expeditions. Calllicot and Noss focus on wilderness alternatives and the impact that humans have on the environment.

The modern Environment Movement began with the passing of the Wilderness Act of 1964. The act established a National Wilderness System and created 9 millions acres. The main influence and writer of the act Howard Zahniser, who felt that we needed wilderness as it takes us away from technology that gives us perspective of mastering the environment rather than being a part of it (Nash, 2001). With the passing of the act Americans questioned both preservation and conservation. A new culture emerged in America that rejected societal norms and praised independence and freedom. This culture developed in the youth of America and sparked change in preservation growth and the overall outlook of wilderness.

He mentions that the Montana Yaak Valley has not been included in the “already in effect” Wilderness Act of 1964 and so far “not a single acre” (5) has been designated. The Yaak is public land and falls under the government’s passed Act, but it is thought by a good majority of the opposition as “private land.” He also explains that because his “home valley of the Yaak grows big timber and for this reason primarily was excluded from earlier Montana wilderness protection bills in the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s” (3). He states why the timber industry is against bills for the protection of wild lands, and that is because it needs the woods to produce labor opportunities. Bass also mentions a strategy formed, which pertained to assigning specific areas within the protected land to be used for recreational purposes, in order to please the opposition. Lastly, he insists that the Yaak, as one of the United States’ lungs, is worth protecting because “it nurtures the greatest biodiversity in the state” (2). The reality is that the Yaak Valley is a relative large area with minimum human involvement, which is perfect to maintain the existence of many fauna and

During the Progressive Era the Second Industrial Revolution was in action, sprouting new technological advancements and ground-breaking creations or processes. During this era, new inventions were being made and big monopolies were increasing their use of natural resources to a point where it was becoming harmful. One of the areas of resources that was becoming alarmingly low was forests and lumber, leading to the Forest Reserve Act of 1891. This act, which occurred during the conservation reform, allowed the president to choose forests of interests and claim them as reserves, protecting them from being harmed or negatively affected by big businesses.

In June 1864 the Yosemite Land Grant was signed by Abraham Lincoln, which deeded 39,000 acres of the Mariposa Big Tree Grove and Yosemite Valley to the State of California (Hawken 40). It was an unprecedented piece of legislation, having almost universal support from private business, environmentalists and Congress. Sparked largely by the de-barking of “The Mother of the Forest”, one of the oldest sequoias in Yosemite’s Mariposa Grove, several years earlier (Hawken 39). The Yosemite Land Grant was the first piece of legislation founded on the principle that nature needed to be preserved and protected from humans (Hawken 40). After nearly a century of clearing many forests on the East Coast, affording protection to land on the West Coast was a novel concept.

"There was no damn horse fast enough in the country to keep ahead of that fire.” (546). In 1910, the US Forestry Service was in its infancy. Teddy Roosevelt had put Gifford Pinchot in charge of the foundling agency. For instance during the Presidency of William Taft, his term in office he denied the service and the manpower and resources needed to actually protect the growing quantity of land held in public trust. Then, without notice a drought-parched lands of eastern Washington, western Montana and northern Idaho, the greatest forest fire in U.S. history sparked a major change in public consciousness. This is the Big Burn of 1910.

In Wallace Stegner’s “Wilderness Letter,” he is arguing that the countries wilderness and forests need to be saved. For a person to become whole, Stegner argues that the mere idea of the wild and the forests are to thank. The wilderness needs to be saved for the sake of the idea. He insinuates that anyone in America can just think of Old faithful, Mt. Rainier, or any other spectacular landform, even if they have not visited there, and brought to a calm. These thoughts he argues are what makes us as people whole.

The American Wilderness Coalition has created a system that preserves 110 million acres of land in the United States. It was made possible through The Wilderness Act that was passed in 1964. This was written by Howard Zahniser who was one of the groups own members. The Wilderness Society, along with many other conservation groups have been lobbying, which has created the passing of a handful of bills.

Gifford Pinchot, was born in Simsbury Connecticut on August 11, 1865. He was raised in an upper class family of politicians, merchants, and land owners. Pinchot spent most of his younger years traveling the world (The Forest History Society, 2015). He attended college at Yale where he decided he wanted to pursue in the study of Forestry. Since Yale didn’t offer Forestry, Pinchot traveled to France to fulfil his passion. Gifford Pinchot believed in conservation and thought that we should grow trees and then harvest them to improve nature (Adams, 1993). He taught people a way of practicing his guiding idea that forests can produce timber and still be maintained for future generations.

I agree with Elazar’s thesis that the generational fundamentality of the state constitution would have regulated the park-trails. Similarly, Bowman reports that a state constitution represents the fundamental laws of that state, which provide a set of rules, regulations, and procedures for its people (Bowman 47-48). The regulations requested for the widening of the park trails fell within these provisions of a state constitutions purpose. Elazar's break down of fundamentalist theory between the universal and generational is why issue such as an environmental crisis is brought up because of the concerns of its citizens and the current state of the issue itself. The NYS Constitution bill of rights, which caters more to generational issues such

Raids in the Rainforest demonstrated a conflict conservationists face. Before watching the video, I thought problems surrounding the use of protected areas and environmental regulations were caused mostly by large companies and ignorant people wanting money and power, but I now realize this is a U.S.-centric view. Workers in countries which are underdeveloped compared to the U.S. may not have as much respect for protected areas because they need to focus more on providing for their families and generally surviving than preserving nature. The video also showed the unfortunate reality that policies don’t stop true criminals. Although some of the people found damaging the protected area were given fines, posted rules didn’t stop people from illegally

“A measure of success in this is all well enough, and perhaps is a requisite to objective thinking, but too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run.” This quote from “Thinking Like a Mountain” supports the fact that the author Aldo Leopold believes that animal struggle every day from predators to human interaction. Similarly, in the documentary Cold Worries: Wolves vs Buffalo, director Jeff Turner explains that the animal is always hunting and defending their little ones no matter what the outcome is. For this, and other reasons, Aldo Leopold would feel conflicted about what is happening in Wood Buffalo National Park.

But they are pitting themselves against criminal logging gangs that have infiltrated their protected reserves.In their everyday life, they are rubber tappers. They take us on a trail that leads to their rubber trees, which grow wild on the reserves where they live. These trees are native to the Amazon region, one of the most dangerous places in the world to be an environmental defender.”The most logical conclusion we can draw from this is that rubber tappers don't hurt the forest because of rubber tappers have a nickname which called ourselves the Guardians of the forest and we defend the land.Defending the land is so different from hurting the land.Also, rubber tappers are losing their lives to guard the forest from criminal logging gangs.This can also can be seen as “We rubber tappers are being hunted because we are trying to protect what you see around you," he tells me.Sixteen rubber tappers in this area alone have been murdered in the past decade. One corpse was found stuffed into the burrow of a wild animal.Berçacola is wearing a battered backpack that has three bullet holes in it. It's from a recent attempt on his life. His wife and children have left the state because of threats against them.” As you can see, from a living rubber tappers says to what they had gone and still going through is that people are threatening them, people families have to move from threats against them. This proves that the rubber tappers did good things for the forest.For example in one piece evidence, it says