Tompkins Conservation

To understand where the motivation and passion to protect the environment was developed, one looks to the rapid deforestation of East Coast old-growth forests at the turn of the century. “As Gifford Pinchot expressed it, ‘The American Colossus was fiercely at work turning natural resources into money.’ ‘A

1. Karl Jacoby book brings the remarkable accounting of the negative aspects of conservation movement to the sunlight. Jacoby uses the early years of Adirondack Park, Yellowstone National Park, and the Grand Canyon Forest Preserve to demonstrate his theme of the locals’ reactions to the creation of the park and the actions from the conservationists. And the fantasies the early conservationists’ promulgated of the locals of being satanic rapists of the environment are dispelled (193).

“American seemed to think nothing of remarking nature for the sake of progress”, Alexis de Tocqueville, a French diplomat commented when he was visiting the United States in 1831. While the American people were overwhelmed by pride and pleasure from their achievement in making industrial and economic progress, the environment was harmed in an alarming speed. Landscape was transformed, and forests were destroyed due to industrialization. By 1990, only a fraction of the United States Virgin forests were still standing. Farmers cleared trees to plant crops, and loggers cut down large areas of woodland for business profits. More than that, the most horrific thing was the government was willing to encourage loggers to exploit the forests resources by selling them large plots of land in the North West. In other words, the government was inviting loggers to destroy the landscape. Besides the loss of forests, the increasing number of ranching boosted the erosion of landscape. Crops were

People have seriously affected the land. We utilize it to develop harvests to sustain our developing populace. We additionally utilize it to give vitality. Every year one individual in North America utilizes assets equivalent to more than 12 sections

“Timber!” is a word that engulfed Woodrow Wilson in fear, as a loving, determined environmentalist he was the driving force behind the Organic Act of 1916. Wilson’s Organic Act set grounds for the founding of the National Park Service, which sets and enforces regulations that protect National Parks. Woodrow Wilson’s determination, conveyed by his adamant support for the Organic Act, was evident throughout Wilson’s lifetime. Wilson realized how important it was to protect America’s land and took action to protect it. Through the Organic Act, Wilson was able to save the current thirty-five national parks and land for hundreds of future national parks throughout the United States. The founding of the National Park Service was a major part of Wilson’s plan to preserve and protect America 's natural land. Wilson’s idea of preservation of the United States’ land has lived throughout the years through the National Park Service. The National Park Service today continues with the same responsibilities along with a multifarious collection of others. The actions taken in the Organic Act of 1916 have helped eternalize the ideas proposed by President Wilson by preserving the scarce remaining natural land of America.

Doing so will help citizens to expand their conceptions of the land and begin to appreciate it’s many resources. Which is equally significant when one considers the recent climate changes and negative effects of human pollution of the earth. Some opponents argue that intrusions of sacred Native American land and that harnessing natural resources from said land is irrelevant in today’s day and age. But it must be argued that this assertion is false and that current events such as the recent standoff at Standing Rock Reservation over crude oil pipelines in North Dakota have proven that this issue is still alive and well in American society.

The 1970’s represent a pivotal point in history that rewrote how America viewed its environmental policies- both on a policymaker and citizen scientist standpoint. As the public became more aware of environmental issues, concern about pollution, improper disposal, dwindling resources, radiation and poisoning enraptured a growing number of supporters. These supporters made it so that unlike the Progressive Era’s conservation movement (1890’s-1920’s), which was mainly elitists, this modern movement was pushed by “the common man.” It was an era that celebrated leaders such as John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thomas Jefferson. One of those leaders in the forefront of these radical changes was Congressman Morris K.

Leopold expresses, “a system of conservation based solely on economic self-interest is hopelessly lopesided,” (p. 251). The self-interest economists who are only interested in the profit of which they gain from the land cannot spread the importance of the respect for the community. The people who share a knowledge and passion for the environment will educate those who are unaware. As well as being educated on the land, it is essential for humanity to understand that we are not users of what Earth has to offer us, but associates,

Of our 45 presidents, Theodore Roosevelt is not one that will be easily forgotten. During his time, his accomplishments wrought a change in the United States, and are still impacting us today, even long after his death. Among his many notable feats, many consider his conservation efforts specifically to be his legacy. He had a love and passion for nature, and he even became a permanent fixture of nature when his face was carved into a wall of rock, as one of the four presidents of Mount Rushmore. During the 1900s, “conservation” was not a word often thrown around in conversation. Today however, conflicts such as limited resources, conservation, climate change, and environment are words that have been on everyone’s lips at one point or

An important part of this model was to divide the Champion lands into separate but complementary ownerships on the basis of ecological values and basic management purposes: areas with the greatest ecological significance would be publicly owned and protected, with timber harvesting precluded on substantial acreages to allow natural processes like forest succession to occur unimpeded; and the most productive timber lands, with fewer special ecological values, would be kept in private ownership with a requirement that they be managed for long-term sustainable forestry. Public access for a variety of historic uses and other activities would be guaranteed on the entirety of the property.

Deforestation is defined as: “the clearing of virgin forests, or intentional destruction or removal of trees and other vegetation for agricultural, commercial, housing, or firewood use without replanting and without allowing time for the forest to regenerate itself” (SCRIBD). Deforestation has been a problem in Latin America since the early 1900s and the severity of the dilemma is increasing rapidly. Deforestation not only has consequences for the environment, but also, the indigenous people and the national economy. The logging industry in Latin America is often exploited by multinational companies that are not properly regulated. The land that has provided a home and cultivated indigenous development for centuries is being dissipated rapidly. Due to an exponentially growing global population, there is an increased demand for low priced goods--like timber, crops, and meat. Many Latin American countries value revenue from selling these goods over the health of their local ecosystems. The crisis of deforestation and habitat loss is shifting from a local to global problem. As deforestation continues, global warming escalates worldwide, impacting every country and person. About 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from tropical deforestation, which is more than from all the world’s cars, trucks and buses combined (Schwartzman). Puerto Rico and Brazil provide contrasting examples of the impact of deforestation. Puerto Rico had an economic and environmental shift

Before reading Changes in the Land by William Cronon, I was never interested in the history and the transformation of our land but after reading this book, it helped me realize the deeper meaning of how we, the people of the world, has the power to change the formation of land. I agree with the book’s conclusion because Cronon provided me with informative and persuasive text evidence. In the text book it’s quoted, “But native peoples in the precontact Americans transformed their world on grand scales as well” (Innovations and limitations 11). This quote compares to the quote in book, “…Natives in New England,” he wrote, “They in close noe Land, neither have any settled habitation, nor any tame Cattle to improve the Land by, and soe have noe other but a Naturall Right to those Countries” (Cronon 56). These two quotes prove that the Natives wanted to improve the land while the Europeans wanted to focus on changing the land and their lifestyle. I didn’t seem to detect any bias from the author because he seems to maintain the integrity of the historical events that led to the profound ecological changes in the environment. His evidence includes personal accounts of travelers and early naturalists, legal records, ancient stands of timber, and mere microscopic changes. He did plenty of research of the topic and he made sure to give credit to the people who provided him with logical information. William Cronon studies American environmental history and the history of the American West. Cronon's research seeks to understand the history of human interactions with the natural world: how we depend on the ecosystems around us to sustain our material lives, how we modify the landscapes in which we live and work, and how our ideas of nature shape our relationships with the world around us. His first book, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (1983), was a

With an ever-shrinking base and the increase in their resource need, it is imperative that the nation focus our attention on conserving our rangelands for the future. This concern has become evident in recent years, and there is a pressing need to relay public concern for conservation of our natural resources into the establishment of national policy. The health of our nation is held in our soil and water resources found on rangelands. Their conservation is the responsibility of both public and private landowners. We, as a nation, must recognize that there is ultimately a cost for the conservation. But this cost is minimal in comparison to the damage to our environment if rangelands are not conserved. Therefore, as a nation, we must be willing to help the land user establish and apply long-term conservation management. There should also be consider of long-term, low-interest loans for conservation treatments and tax incentives for conservation practices (Hayenga). The USDA must adopt policies that will provide economic incentives rather than economic penalties to range conservation efforts by private land owners and

Environmentalism has always been two sided. Nature versus urban. locals versus national. Frequently, large tracts of public and federal land are bought and developed by industry. Pristine wilderness turned to bustling epicenters of human activity, all in the name of progress and economic growth. This tale of preserving natural wilderness is one that begins with John Muir, an advocate against the taming of Yosemite national park and the Hetch-Hetchy reservoir, while the head of the US Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot, insisted on the reservoir to supply the city of San Francisco with water. This timeless epic of conservation or preservation brings us to the Jumbo Valley, a vast expanse of uninhabited, pristine wilderness home to diverse

Right from the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th Century, there has been a fierce debate concerning how economic growth or development affects the environment or ecological setup of a country. The debate has its basis on whether it would be recommendable for a nation to concentrate on growing its economy while at the same time hurting or harming its ecological system. Naturalists like Pinchot Gifford, John Muir, Love Canal and Cuyahoga County always argued in favor of environmental preservation as opposed to concentrating all efforts towards developing the economy (Olmes 154; Miller 150-51). This paper will, therefore, discuss the struggle between economics and ecology specifically looking at particular events across the Twentieth Century. It will also attempt to explain the factors involved in the pursuit for change on the way people and the administration perceived the environmental conservation as opposed to economic growth.