Utilitarian Conservation

The Colonization and exploration of north america by europeans in the 15th century began for two reason: to avoid religious persecutions and economic prosperity. By the 1700s millions of people had migrated to the east coast of americas. As america developed and gained freedom from great britain, the america's expanded westward in hopes of continuous economic prosperity. Americans thought the land and its resources was unlimited which led them to to be wasteful and irresponsible. With that movement west also came the development of utilitarianism conservation and figures like Gifford Pinchot who helped save the nation's resources for the benefit of the public.

        Immediately upon independence from Britain americans rapidly expanded west. Americans believed in inexhaustibility that if the land wears out they could just continue west and there would be more resources. When Thomas Jefferson signed the Louisiana purchase in 1803 he opened up the door for even greater expansion. At the same time in the more developed eastern part of the country had been experiencing a revolution in industry which gave way to the creation of big business. Railroads became extremely popular as the demand for an effective way to transport goods and resources grew. Americans were only focused on the economic benefits that the land could offer and they wanted those benefits that the land could offer and they wanted those benefits as fast as possible. Once those benefits were reaped they moved on to new lands. This led some people to question those methods and argue that the land should be preserved, untouched and left wild. However one man Gifford Pinchot did not believe the land should be preserved, he thought thought the land should be conserved, utilized and controlled by the government for benefit of the entire nation.

        Gifford Pinchot was born in 1865 and quickly realized during his childhood that he loved the forest. His father was the first person to put the idea of forestry in his mind but at the time american colleges did not teach about it. After his college years at yale, Pinchot traveled to England and Germany to learn about forestry and studied silviculture in France. He talked with experts on the matter and was impressed with the laws on forestry and wastefulness. He became aware of the price americans were paying for lack of government regulation on the environment. Pinchot was influenced by many figures which shaped his career. George P Marsh had a major influence on Pinchot, Marsh traveled to Europe and studied how the great Roman Empire fell because they deplete all of their resources. In his book “Earth as Modified by Human Action”, he argues that man has forgotten the earth was given to him for the right to enjoy its advantages and resources. He explains how man overcomes and takes too much too fast from the earth. He believes that man's ignorance of his own destructiveness of nature is negatively his own interests. Pinchot believes that now America is the home of many former Europeans and they should put an end to this deterioration and the only way to do this is to educate the classes on their destruction. Other men such as John Wesley Powell, influenced Pinchot, similarly Powell believed that dams and irrigation systems should be controlled by the government and not public enterprise. Another great influence on Pinchot was Carl Schurz, whom Pinchot believed to be the father of of national forests. Schurz brought European perspective on resource management to the U.S. during his time as Sec of Interior. He as well believed it was time to stop selling public domain to private exporters. Pinchot was greatly influenced by all three of those men and put his philosophies of conservation to work during his political career.

        Pinchot made his mark on America during his political career which began with him serving on the National Forest Commission. This was 5 years after the Forest Reserve Act of 1891 was signed which gave the president power to set aside forest reserves from the land in the public domain. In 1897 the night before Grover Cleveland left office he signed the Midnight Proclamation which set aside 21 million acres of reserves. It was the job of the National Forestry Commision to deal with what to do with that land.  Pinchot stated that the intention of the commissioner is to prepare and recommend a plan by which the whole of the reservoir may be used for the good of the people. Pinchot believed that the Department of Interior was corrupt and began lobbying for a federal forestry service outside the Department of Interior. As Americans began to realize their theory of inexhaustibility was false the Forest Management Act was passed on June 4th 1897 which declared that the primacy use of forests is for steady supply of timber. The turning point in Pinchots career was when he became head of the Division of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture in which his first goal was secure the transfer forest reserves from the control of the Department of the Interior to the Department of Agriculture. When President Roosevelt took office in 1901 this became a huge possibility. Pinchot and Roosevelt had been friends for many years and had similar ideas of conservation. In 1901 the Division of Forestry was renamed the Bureau of Forestry and then in 1905 renamed the U.S. Forest Service, the same year the Transfer Act was passed which gave the reserves of the Department of Interior to the U.S. Forest Service, which was held by Pinchot.The U.S. Forest Service's mission was to arrest those who violated laws and make sure no young trees were harvested, percentage was left standing and brush was gathered to prevent fires. The May 1908 Conference on Conservation was a turning point in human history. Roosevelt gave a speech to many governors calling for the elimination of waste by more efficient methods of harvesting natural resources. He explained conservation is the development and use of natural resources for the benefit of the nation.