Conservation Versus Preservation: A Formative Debate

Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir at Yosemite, two champions of conservation and preservation respectively
Source: Shout! Magazine

In the mid-nineteenth century, the American environmental movement began and, for the first time, citizens began to think of nature as a resource to be protected.  The first national parks were created and political leaders such as Theodore Roosevelt lauded America's natural spaces as its greatest assets.  People flocked to these places like never before and countless areas were saved from overconsumption and development.  This period is thought of as a triumph for the environment, but there was a fair amount of discord as well.  There was an internal debate within the movement between its most prolific leaders.  The argument was whether these natural spaces should be conserved or preserved for the future.

To many, this may seem an odd debate because, in common speech, conservation and preservation are used interchangeably.  Back in the formative years of environmentalism, the two words represented different ideas about how best to manage nature.  Conservationists sought to stem the overexploitation of natural resources through wise harvest.  They believed long-term use of resources is more economically rewarding than immediate profits and destruction of the resource.  Conservationists were primarily motivated by economics and were focused on valuable or game species, or upon advantageous results such as slowing soil erosion and protection of water supplies.  Preservationists, on the other hand, endeavored to protect nature from any economic use or development whatsoever.  This group was only concerned with the preservation of an area "as is" and did not single out any specific species or resource.  Natural ecosystems were seen as self-maintaining and were only to be protected from human influence.

The two groups had the same overall goal.  They wanted to protect the majestic wilderness and natural resources that America contained.  What differed was how best to accomplish this goal.  In some ways, the debate continues to this day.  Perhaps that is to our own detriment, as the old views about nature may not hold relevance in today's environment.  For now, let us just explore how this early debate shaped the future of how this country interacts with its ecosystem. 

Beginnings of the Movements

Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, America's environmental policy was focused on land acquisition and expansion.  The entire American frontier was up for grabs and scores of Europeans headed to North America to claim a parcel of it.  The static European class system was abandoned in America for one where anyone could potentially become rich and prosperous due to an abundance of land.  In its early years, the United States government passed legislation that made it cheap to settle and buy land, such as the Preemption Act of 1841 and the Homestead Act of 1862.  Soon many Americans believed that land ownership was a God-given right and that it was their destiny to occupy every mile of the continent. 

Although ample, America always had a finite amount of space and in 1893, the historian Frederick Jackson Turner declared that the American Frontier had closed.  Industries dotted the landscape and the need for resources continued to grow as available land declined.  As Carolyn Merchant describes in her book, The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History, "The perception of abundant unexploited lands teeming with wildlife and fertile soils began to turn to one of wasted resources and inefficient use."  Timber was clear-cut and left without replanting.  Hunters, fishermen, and other sportsmen completely decimated wildlife populations.  Waterways became polluted by the factories and farms that tried to feed the hungry nation.  The system was unsustainable and people began to realize that the wild might be swallowed up by their compatriots' greed and desires. 

A Clear-Cut Hillside in Pennsylvania
Source: Pittsburg City Paper

The idea of conservation developed as a response to such wanton development and as an offspring of the European philosophical ideal of Utilitarianism.  Utilitarianism was developed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill with the slogan, "The greatest good for the greatest number."  American conservationists took this idea and added the factor of time.  They wanted to ensure that future generations also were able to reap the bounty of America's natural resources.  This idea was codified in the now famous phrase first written by W.J. McGee, "The greatest good of the greatest number for the longest time."  Laissaz-Faire capitalism began to lose favor with Americans who saw the limits of their nation's reach. 

The first political and civic leaders to champion the cause of conservation were Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, who was one of the first chiefs of the Divison of Forestry (now the United States Forest Service).  Both Roosevelt and Pinchot believed that timber should be treated as a crop and advocated for regulations that would set aside swaths of forest for sustainable harvest and replanting.  These leaders believed that our natural splendor was meant to be put to man's use but only in a way so that future generations could be afforded the same opportunities. 

A Painting of Gifford Pinchot
Source: US Forest Service

Around the same time that conservation was gaining steam, preservation became a popular rebuke to the economic priorities of the age.  This movement was heralded by John Muir, a Scottish-American naturalist who once proclaimed, "The world, we are told, was made especially for man - a presumption not supported by all the facts. A numerous class of men are painfully astonished whenever they find anything, living or dead, in all God's universe, which they cannot eat or render in some way what they call useful to themselves."  Muir believed that mountains were nature's cathedrals and that it was paramount to happiness for any person to go out and witness nature as it was.

John Muir at his Favorite Place, Yosemite Valley
Source: Yosemite Online

Wilderness had become a center point of the American ideal.  The wealthy and elite, seeking to escape the easy and soft lifestyle of urban cities, often ventured out to the vast untamed parts of the country to seek the contentment that Muir told them could be found there.  These elites also created outdoor clubs, such as the Appalachian Mountain Club (1876), the Boone and Crockett Club (1885), and the Sierra Club (1892).  It became ingrained in the American psyche to experience nature.  An American citizen was deemed to be of better quality if he or she were able to go out into the wilderness and survive for pure recreation.   These clubs and their elite members became the first to petition the United States to preserve the wild areas in parks and reserves. 

Many Clubs, like the Sierra Club, Still Work Tirelessly Today
Source: The Sierra Club

Getting Results and Starting Debate

It was from these elite wilderness clubs and their petitions that the first national parks emerged.  The initial park was Yellowstone National Park which opened in 1872.  The early parks were extremely strict on their definition of preservation, as the Yellowstone Park Act of 1872 sought for the "preservation from injury or spoliation of all timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities or wonders within the park, and their retention in their natural conditions."  Thus any active management of parklands was forbidden.  Even controlled burns, population thinning, or invasive management were not allowed as such actions were seen as disturbing the natural processes.  It was a common theory during this time that if people left nature alone that it would subsist inherently.  

Later on, when the National Park Service was created in 1916, the language was tweaked to allow for a few conservation methods to fall into the preservation favoring system.  The mission statement of the Park Service was written as "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such a manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."  The use of the word "conserve" and the mention of future generations meant the service could work on the parks as long as it helped sustain them for longer.  The service is still a preservation-focused organization but they are allowed to make some active management actions.  Even this small allowance was a step too far for some preservationists.  Victor Ernest Shelford, who helped develop the field of ecology, wrote that "many people conceive of the National Park Service as a conservation organization.  To conserve, as the term is now most frequently used, means to preserve while in use and it often implies ultimate depletion."  Shelford worried then that a more active role in the parks would mean a loss of its natural splendor.  

While working in quiet opposition of one another since the beginning of the environmental movement, the conservationists and preservationists did not come into direct conflict until 1906, when the future of the Hetch Hetchy Valley was to be decided.  In 1905, the Yosemite Valley and the smaller Hetch Hetchy Valley were formally incorporated into Yosemite National Park.  In 1906, an earthquake decimated San Francisco by starting fires which raged across the city.  In response, California and the federal government slated the Hetch Hetchy Valley to be dammed so that San Francisco could have a more reliable source of water.  Gifford Pinchot and his conservationists loved the idea as they knew the good a reservoir could do a struggling city.  John Muir and his wilderness loving elites hated it and sent legions of letters urging the government to preserve the grand beauty they found in the valley.  In the end, the need of citizens outweighed inherent beauty and the valley was dammed.  Many still lament its loss.  Others recognize the action as a necessary evil.  

A Before and After View of Hetch Hetchy Valley, the Valley is Still Dammed Today
Source: High Country News

The Outcome

It is hard to say who won the early debate between conservation and preservation.  I myself lean towards Pinchot and his conservationists as the victors simply because their model was adopted by a greater number of federal and state agencies.  The US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Fish and Wildlife Service all subscribe to purely conservationist ideals.  More land is managed according to conservation than preservation in the United States.  The Forest Service currently protects 193 million acres of land, while the Park Service protects 100 million acres.

Old Faithful, A National Symbol Now Protected
Source: Yellowstone National Park

This is not to say that John Muir and the preservationists failed in their mission.  They helped create the first national park system in the world and their principles inspired many states and foreign countries to form their own nature parks and reserves.  Our nation's most treasured symbols reside in national parks, such as Old Faithful and the Grand Canyon, and are protected against private interest.  Later on, the very idea of wilderness was defined and protected by the 1964 Wilderness Act, which stated, 

A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.  An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.

Currently, the preservationists and conservationists work together.  Many national parks are surrounded completely by national forests and the two services cooperate fully to protect these important areas.  Their methods may differ but the organizations know that they share a common goal.  While bureaucrats may still argue behind closed doors about what to do with newly protected lands, the debate is no longer public and contentious discourse that it once was.

A Map of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, Notice How the National Parks are Surrounded by Forests
Source: Ecoflight

There a new conversation that needs to be had about our current environmental protection system.  The ideals of preservation were solidified back when much of the American continent was daunting wilderness and it was believed that an area could be protected by simply erecting a fence around it.  The modern issues that our natural spaces face may have made these ideas and methods obsolete.  Climate change, invasive species, and pollution threaten every part of the globe and it may be foolhardy to believe that we can cordon off any place from these threats.  While John Muir's belief that nature is best left alone is a sound idea in theory, in practice today it seems an impossibility for success.  My next article will deal with how we should reassess the goals and practices of preservation for the present state of the world.