1901-1907
1901-1907
1901
Congress passes what is known as the Right of Way Act, permitting the use of
rights of way through forest reserves and national parks for electrical power,
telephone and telegraph communication, and irrigation and water supply.
Theodore Roosevelt becomes President of the United States upon the death of
President McKinley on September 14, and conservation becomes a cornerstone of
his domestic policy.
President Theodore Roosevelt's First Annual Message outlines his goals of
forest conservation and preservation (including the use of forest reserves as
wildlife preserves), and the need for government-sponsored irrigation projects
in the arid West.
John Muir publishes Our National Parks, a beautifully-written portrait of some
of the nation's great scenic wildernesses by their greatest defender; the book
goes through a dozen printings and establishes Muir's reputation in the public
mind.
The American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society is founded in New York,
developing out of the state-level Trustees of Scenic and Historic Places and
Objects which had been founded by Andrew H. Green, president of the
Commissioners of the State Reservation at Niagara, in 1895, and modelled after
Britain's National Trust; the new organization advocates protection of both
scenic places and historic sites throughout the nation, demonstrating--like
the American Antiquities Act of 1906--the relationship between the movements
for natural and cultural preservation in turn-of-the-century America.
The periodical Country Life in America begins publication under the editorship
of Liberty Hyde Bailey; its pragmatic celebration of the suburban pastoral
soon brings it widespread popularity.
1902
Congress passes "An Act Appropriating the receipts from the sale and disposal
of public lands in certain States and Territories to the construction of
irrigation works for the reclamation of arid lands," known as the Newlands
Reclamation Act in honor of its chief sponsor, Sen. Francis G. Newlands, which
designates proceeds from the sale of public lands in sixteen Western states as
a fund for the development of irrigation projects; settlers are to repay the
costs of these projects, thus creating a permanent revolving fund. This Act
commits the Federal government to support and, ultimately, control of the
large-scale irrigation which transforms the landscape, economy, and social and
political structure of much of the West.
Congress passes a bill establishing Crater Lake National Park, Oregon.
In one of a series of acts designed to regulate harvesting of Alaskan
wildlife, Congress passes "An Act For the protection of game in Alaska, and
for other purposes," known as the Alaska Game Act, protecting certain game
animals in Alaska; these provisions are strengthened by an act amending the
Alaska Game Act in 1908.
Bernhard E. Fernow publishes The Economics of Forestry: A Reference Book for
Students of Political Economy and Professional and Lay Students of Forestry, a
comprehensive overview of forestry principles and their contemporary and
historical relationship to public policy, written at a time when forestry
practices were in the vanguard of conservationism.
Reflecting the popular fascination with nature-based recreation and concern
with wild nature as a resource for character development, Ernest Thompson
Seton publishes a series of articles in the Ladies' Home Journal calling for
the creation of a boys' organization to be named the Woodcraft Indians; this
directly inspires Sir Robert Baden-Powell's founding of the Boy Scouts in
Britain in 1908 and helps launch the scouting movement in the United States.
John Wesley Powell dies in Maine, shortly after Congress passes the Newlands
Reclamation Act.
1903
On March 10, President Roosevelt establishes a Federally-protected wildlife
refuge by executive order setting aside Pelican Island on Indian River,
Florida, as a preserve and breeding ground for native birds; it is the first
of fifty-three wildlife sanctuaries Roosevelt creates while President, and
establishes the precedent on which the system of national wildlife refuges
will be based. Roosevelt's keen interest in birds and their conservation is
documented by contemporary film footage of his visits to bird sanctuaries.
Concern about the administration of public lands in the West, particularly the
question of grazing leases for cattlemen, prompts the Roosevelt administration
to appoint a Public Lands Commission to study and report on public lands
issues; the Commission's members are W.A. Richards, F.H. Newell, and Gifford
Pinchot.
Congress passes a bill establishing Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota.
Mary AustinThe Land of Little Rain, a classic celebration of the desert
country of California.
John Burroughs publishes an influential essay in the Atlantic Monthly, "Real
and Sham Natural History," attacking sentimental popular nature-writers such
as Ernest Thompson Seton and William J. Long as "nature fakers;" Roosevelt
later joins the controversy in support of Burroughs.
1904
The American Civic Association is founded June 10 by merging the American Park
and Outdoor Art Association with the American League for Civic Improvement;
under the leadership of J. Horace McFarland, a civic activist and newspaperman
from Harrisburg, Pa., its activities include leading campaigns for the
creation and protection of national, state, and municipal parks.
Congress passes a bill which leads to the establishment of Sullys Hill
National Park, North Dakota.
1905
Acting under the influence of Gifford Pinchot, The American Forestry
Association sponsors the American Forest Congress in Washington; attended by
leaders of lumbering, mining, grazing, and irrigation industries and by
leaders in education and government, the Congress underscores the prominence
of questions of natural resource management in the economic concerns of the
nation; the Conference's Proceedings are published later in the same year.
In accordance with one of the Forest Congress's principal recommendations,
Gifford Pinchot succeeds in having the oversight of national forest reserves
transferred from the Department of Interior (General Land Office) to his own
jurisdiction, the Bureau of Forestry (formerly known as the Division of
Forestry) in the Department of Agriculture, and transforms the Bureau into the
Forest Service; this is accomplished by "An Act Providing for the transfer of
forest reserves from the Department of Interior to the Department of
Agriculture", known as the Transfer Act of 1905. This change also symbolizes a
shift of emphasis from preservation to scientific forestry, and Pinchot's
dominance in public conservation policy.
The Public Lands Commission appointed by by President Roosevelt publishes its
by Report, recommending adjustments in the law and administrative procedure
governing Federally-held lands based on a belief in the value of
rationally-managed public control of natural resources.
Congress passes a by "Joint Resolution Accepting the recession by the State of
California of the Yosemite Valley Grant and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove in the
Yosemite National Park," appropriating $20,000 for the re-acquisition of these
lands by the Federal government; this transaction is confirmed by another by
Joint Resolution enacted in 1906, which reconfigures the boundaries of
Yosemite National Park.
J. Horace McFarland, President of the American Civic Association, publishes a
series of articles in Ladies' Home Journal advocating preservation of Niagara
Falls from the threat posed by water power demands, which generates a huge
favorable response from readers and inaugurates a campaign that provokes the
Congressional action on Niagara of the following year.
The National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds
and Animals is founded in New York, officially uniting the numerous state
groups which have sprung up since 1896, and establishing a strong national
voice for conservation. (In 1940, the organization's name was changed to the
National Audubon Society.)
Nathaniel Southgate Shaler publishes by Man and the Earth, a prophetic
scientific and philosophical exploration of mankind's relationship with the
earth which anticipates the writings of such figures as by Liberty Hyde Bailey
and, much later, Aldo Leopold; Shaler predicts that in the future humanity's
relations with the earth will be characterized by a new consciousness of man's
ethical responsibility to the natural world, and he directs attention to
problems of ecology, biodiversity loss, and the need for worldwide efforts
toward scenic and wildlife preservation.
1906
Congress passes by "An Act For the preservation of American antiquities,"
known as the American Antiquities Act, authorizing the President to establish
national monuments for the preservation of features of historic, prehistoric,
and scientific interest, and forbidding unauthorized injury of objects of
antiquity.
by President Roosevelt issues a by Presidential Proclamation establishing
Devil's Tower National Monument, Wyoming, as the nation's first National
Monument; later in the year, he issues another by Proclamation, establishing
Petrified Forest National Monument, Arizona.
Congress passes by a bill establishing Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, and
by a Resolution designating Sulphur Springs Reservation, Oklahoma, as Platt
National Park.
Congress passes by "An Act To extend the irrigation Act to the State of
Texas," extending the provisions of by the Newlands Act to Texas.
Responding to the campaign of public concern about the depletion of Niagara
Falls orchestrated by J. Horace McFarland and supported by the Sierra Club and
the Appalachian Mountain Club, Congress passes both a by Joint Resolution
instructing the American representatives to an international commission on
Niagara to work with their Canadian counterparts to preserve the Falls; and by
"An Act For the control and regulation of the waters of Niagara River, for the
preservation of Niagara Falls, and for other purposes," restricting the
diversion of water from the sources of the Falls and requesting the President
to undertake the necessary treaty negotiations to guarantee the Falls'
protection by both the United States and Canada; though it permits greater
water diversion than preservationists like McFarland had hoped, a final treaty
is signed in 1909 which limits the total amount of water diverted from the
Falls by both nations to 56,000 cubic feet per second, a limitation which
remains in effect until 1950.
This year and the following, by Gifford Pinchot prepares bills for Congress
placing the national parks under the Forest Service so that they may be open
for resource development; these measures are successfully opposed by by Rep.
John F. Lacey, Chairman of the House Public Lands Committee and Congressional
spokesman for the preservationist approach to conservation; Pinchot's effort
ultimately backfires by sparking the preservationists' campaign to establish a
permanent separate bureau to administer the national parks.
1907
John Muir publishes "The Tuolumne Yosemite in Danger" in Outlook, the opening
salvo in his campaign to save Hetch Hetchy Valley from damming as a reservoir
for San Francisco; the campaign becomes a national focus for conservation
efforts and thought during the next several years, and signals the ideological
bifurcation of the conservation movement between advocates of preservationist
conservationism (those who seek to retain natural areas in their "natural"
state) and advocates of utilitarian conservationism (those who seek to manage
the sustainable harvesting of natural resources for human benefit).
Through provisions embedded in the Forest Service sub-section of an
Agriculture appropriations act, Congress renames Forest Reserves "National
Forests," and forbids their further creation or enlargement in six Western
states (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, or Wyoming), except by
act of Congress; when the bill passes Congress on February 25, Pinchot and his
staff work feverishly to identify sixteen million acres of forest in these six
states which are designated as national forests by President Roosevelt before
he signs the bill into law on March 4.
Heralding the growth of organized opposition to conservation policy, the
Colorado legislature and Governor Henry Buchtel sponsor the Denver Public
Lands Convention; it is attended by representatives of Western ranching and
mining interests who call for cession of public lands to the states and
restriction of national forests; the Convention's Proceedings are published
later in the same year.
President Roosevelt issues a Proclamation establishing Cinder Cone National
Monument, and a Proclamation establishing Lassen Peak National Monument, both
in California.
President Roosevelt appoints an Inland Waterways Commission to study the
nation's declining river navigation and recommend measures to revive it; the
Commission's Report, submitted by the President to Congress the following
year, supports a carefully planned multi-purpose approach to the use and
development of the nation's rivers, to be coordinated by a single executive
agency.
In his Seventh Annual Message, President Roosevelt makes the case for
utilitarian conservationism especially forcefully, asserting that "the
conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the
fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our National
life," and that his administration has been trying "to substitute a planned
and orderly development of our resources in place of a haphazard striving for
immediate profit."
At the request of the Massachusetts legislature, with which he worked to
prepare model bird-protection laws, ornithologist Edward Howe Forbush
publishes Useful Birds and Their Protection, the first major work by an
American to analyze the economic importance of birds and the strategies
necessary for their protection.
Photos by daxphotography.com