Conservation movement
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The conservation movement is a political and social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including plant and animal species as well as their habitat for the future.
The early conservation movement included fisheries and wildlife conservation, water, soil conservation and sustainable forestry. The contemporary conservation movement has broaden from the early movement's emphasis on use of sustainable yield of natual resouces and preservation of wilderness areas to include preservation of biodiversity. The conservation movement is part of the broader and more far-reaching environmental movement
History
The nascent conservation movement slowly developed in the 19th century, starting first in the scientific forestry methods pioneered by the Germans and the French in the 17th and 18th centuries. While continental Europe created the scientific methods later used in conservationist efforts, British India and the United States are credited with starting the conservation movement.
Foresters in India, often German, managed forests using early climate change theories (in America, see also, George Perkins Marsh) that Alexander Von Humboldt developed in the mid 19th century, applied fire protection, and tried to keep the "house-hold" of nature, an early ecological idea, in order so as not to disturb the growth of delicate teak trees. The same German foresters who headed the Forest Service of India, such as Dietrich Brandis and Berthold Ribbentrop, traveled back to Europe and established themselves at forestry schools in England (Cooper's Hill, later moved to Oxford), and in Germany. These men brought with them the legislative and scientific knowledge of conservationism in British India back to Europe, where they distributed it to men such as Gifford Pinchot and Bernard Fernow.
America had its own conservation movement in the 19th century, most often characterized by George Perkins Marsh, author of Man and Nature. The expedition into northwest Wyoming in 1871 led by F.V. Hayden and accompanied by photographer William Henry Jackson provided the imagery needed to dispel any rumors about the grandeur of the Yellowstone region, and resulted in the creation of Yellowstone National Park, the world's first, in 1872. Travels by later U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt through the region around Yellowstone provided the impetus for the creation of the Yellowstone Timberland Reserve in 1891. The largest section of the reserve was later renamed Shoshone National Forest, and it is the oldest National Forest in the U.S. But it was not until 1898 when German forester Dr. Carl A. Schenck, on the Biltmore Estate, and Cornell University founded the first two forestry schools, both run by Germans. Bernard Fernow, founder of the forestry schools at Cornell University and the University of Toronto, was originally from Prussia (Germany), and he honed his knowledge from Germans who pioneered forestry in India. He introduced Gifford Pinchot, the "father of American forestry," to Brandis and Ribbentrop in Europe. From these men, Pinchot learned the skills and legislative patterns he would later apply to America. Pinchot, in his memoir history Breaking New Ground, credited Brandis especially with helping to form America's conservation laws.
In the early 1900s the Conservation movement in America was split into two main groups: conservationists, like Pinchot, who were utilitarian foresters and natural rights advocates who wanted to protect forests "for the greater good for the greatest length," and preservationists, such as John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club. Whereas conservationists wanted regulated use of forest lands for both public activities and commercial endeavors, preservationists wanted forest to be preserved for natural beauty, scientific study and recreation. The differences continue to the modern era, with sustainable harvest and multiple-use the major focus of the U.S. Forest Service and recreation emphasized by the National Park Service.
Religious influence
Conservation as such has historically been associated with religion - Zoroaster, Tao, and Islam (hima) in particular - but only in the 19th century became explicitly associated with Christian morality, which was formed in part in opposition to Pagan nature worship.For some, conservation during the 19th century invoked Christian reverence for the Creation to protect natural habitats from man. They lobbied consistently for parks and human exclusion from "the wild". They saw humans as apart from nature, in line with Judeo-Christian ethics of the time, and believed that an awe of biodiversity (as we call it today) would inspire religious piety.
See also
Sources
- Gregory A. Barton, Empire Forestry and the Origins of Environmentalism, Cambridge University Press, 2001
- Brett Bennett, "Early Conservation Histories in Bengal and Colonial India, 1875-1922," The Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, Dec. 2005
- Richard W. Judd "Common Lands and Common People, The Origins of Conservation in Northern New England" Harvard University Press, 1997
- Samuel P. Hayes, "Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency" Harvard University Press 1959
- Roderick Nash "Wilderness and the American Mind" Yale University Press,1967
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