From Manifest Destiny to Protection

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From Manifest Destiny to Protection

• Geography 648 Spring 04

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Topics

• Development Exploitation
• Starting to Conserve
• Forest Resource Use
• Rangelands
• Parks Protected Areas
• Wilderness

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Development Exploitation

• Before the Industrial Revolution (1750), open
  lands were not generally modified by human
  activity
• By the end of the 19th century the US controlled
  most of the present area
• The vast wilderness was considered an
  inexhaustible font of resources

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Manifest Destiny

•  ". . .the right to overspread and to possess
  the continent allotted by Providence, for the
  development of the great experiment of liberty
  and federated self-government, for our yearly
  multiplying millions." 
• Homestead Acts opened the west to settlement
  after the Civil War
• Cropland acreage increased 4x between 1850 1900
• Grazing by 1900 85-90 million sheep and cattle
• Homesteading100 million acres of grazing lands
  to private ownership/ranching

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Lumber

• Increasing population lumber to construct homes
• Development of the railroadrailroad ties
• Clear pasture and crop land

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Mining

• THE GENERAL MINING LAW OF 1872
• "All valuable mineral deposits in lands belonging
  to the United States, both surveyed and
  unsurveyed, are hereby declared to be free and
  open to exploration and purchase, and the lands
  in which they are found to occupation and
  purchase, by citizens of the United States and
  those who have declared their intention to become
  such.
• Still applies.

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Decline of wildlife

• As a result of habitat/forest destruction and
  farming as the frontier moved westward, many
  species of wildlife were eradicated
• Bison Estimates of the pre-European herd size
  vary from 30,000,000 to 70,000,000 animals and
  they ranged over most of North America.
• Unregulated killing of bison led to the animals
  being reduced to no more than 1,500 individuals
  in the mid to late 1800s.

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Starting to Conserve

• Americans like Thoreau and Audubon began to argue
  that our scenic resources were part of the
  American tradition, and that they should be
  preserved.

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The first parks

• Yellowstone (Wyoming) 1872
• Mackinac Island (Michigan) 1875
• Sequoia (California)1890
• Yosemite (California) 1890
• General Grant (California now Kings Canyon)1890
• Mount Rainier (Washington) 1899
• Crater Lake Oregon 1902

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The American Conservation Movement

• Theodore Roosevelt established the first national
  wildlife refuge in Florida in 1903
• Antiquities Act of 1906 protects all historic
  and prehistoric sites on Federal lands and
  prohibits excavation or destruction of such
  antiquities unless a permit is obtained from the
  Secretary of the department which has the
  jurisdiction over those lands. It also authorizes
  the President to declare areas of public lands as
  National Monuments and to reserve or accept
  private lands for that purpose.

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US Forest Service

• 1905 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

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John Muir

• 1907 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 dividing of the conservation
  movement between advocates of preservationist
  conservationism and advocates of utilitarian
  conservationism

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The New Deal

• Civilian Conservation Corps
• Under the New Deal, FDR signed the Emergency
  Conservation Work Act in 1932 to establish the
  CCC
• Put millions of unemployed to work on
  reforestation, soil erosion prevention, flood
  control, building fire towers, improving wildlife
  refuges, fish hatcheries, national forests,
  national parks, and native reservations.
• President Roosevelt appointed the Committee on
  Wild-Life Restoration in 1934, directing it to
  prepare a plan to restore Americas dwindling
  wildlife populations.
• By 1942, 53 of these new wildlife refuges had
  been worked on by the CCC

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Forest Resource Use

• Over 11 million hectares of forest cover are lost
  throughout the world each year
• Between 1990 and 1995, the total area of forests
  decreased by more than 56 million hectares -
  developed countries saw a net increase of almost
  9 million hectares, but developing countries
  posted a loss of over 65 million hectares.

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What are forests for?

• Loss of forests, especially tropical forests, is
  recognized as critical to environmental cycles
  and balance
• Forests are major components in carbon dioxide
  and water cycles
• Forests are the worlds principal reservoir of
  species
• Without forests, nutrients are removed, runoff
  and erosion increase, wind velocity and
  temperatures are more extreme

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Forests

• Outside of Alaska, only about 5 of the primary
  forests in the US remain
• About 1/3 of US is forested, mostly with
  secondary forests or tree farms/plantations
• Secondary forests are forests that have grown
  back after logging.
• Old-growth forests-are generally more than 250
  years old. They contain large trees, big fallen
  logs, and large standing snags (dead trees). With
  a mixed and multi-layered canopy broken by
  occasional light-filled gaps, trees may grow up
  to 100 meters high and over 2 meters in diameter.
  
• New research indicates these forests are the
  preferred, and sometimes only, habitat for a
  growing list of species, and mounting scientific
  evidence indicates that continued logging in
  old-growth forests will further endanger species
• Second growth forests..not as diverse..third
  growth, even less diverse, less diversity means
  less resistance to disease

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What causes deforestation

• Insect pests and diseases,
• fire,
• overharvesting of industrial wood and fuelwood,
• poor harvesting practices, like clearcutting
• overgrazing and air pollution

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Multiple-Use Sustained Yield

• Multiple use  management of all the renewable
  surface resources of the national forests to meet
  the needs of the American people.
• Sustained yield  achievement and maintenance of
  a high-level regular output of the renewable
  resources of the national forest without
  impairment of the land's productivity.

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Cont.

• Sustained Yield
• The purpose of the Sustained Yield Unit (SYU) Act
  of March 29, 1944 is to stabilize communities,
  forest industries, employment, and taxable forest
  wealth to assure a continuous and ample supply
  of forest products and to secure the benefits of
  the forests in the regulation of water supply and
  stream flow, prevention of soil erosion,
  amelioration of climate and preservation of
  wildlife.

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• MULTIPLE-USE SUSTAINED-YIELD ACT OF 1960
• An Act to authorize and direct that the national
  forests be managed under principles of multiple
  use and to produce a sustained yield of products
  and services, and for other purposes

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Clearcutting

• Clearcutting, removes all the trees (or all
  merchantable trees) on the site.
• Clearcutting considers only short-term economic
  gain not the long-term health of the forest or
  local community.
• Clearcutting ensures cheap resources now, but
  what about the future?

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Selection Cutting vs. Selective Cutting

• Selection cutting removes trees from every age
  and diameter class represented in the stand.
  Selection cutting is an environmentally sound way
  to thin a woodlot.
• Selective cutting is also known as diameter-limit
  cutting or high-grading. All trees above a
  certain diameter (often 12 inches) are removed.
  No matter what you call it, selective cutting is
  a major threat to the future health and
  productivity of forests.

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Sustainable Forest Management

• Forests are used sustainably for these purposes
  if all plant and animal species and their
  habitats are preserved and the forest continues
  to protect the rivers, catchments and climate.

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However.

• Many countries have recently introduced new
  logging regulations, adopted more enlightened
  management practices, and improved recycling and
  manufacturing efficiencies in wood processing,
  for example.
• Another encouraging trend is the increasing
  designation of large tracts of forest as strict
  conservation areas.

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Sustainable Forestry the Forest Stewardship
Council

• The Forest Stewardship Council certifies forest
  products that come from forests managed in an
  environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial,
  and economically viable way.

• Their system verifies claims from the forest all
  the way to the final product, a process known as
  "chain of custody" monitoring.

• FSC as of Nov 4th, 2002
• Certifies 93 forests
• Combined acres covered by these forests 9376408

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Rangelands

• More than 25 of the Earths land surface
• Prairies, steppes, savannas, shrubland, open
  woodlands, tundra
• Mostly too dry, too cold, too rocky, too steep to
  be farmed
• Grazing of domestic livestock and wild animals
• Many species of wildlife/reservoir of genetic
  diversity

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Rangelands Issues

• Traditional livestock herding (pastoralism)
• Threatened by boundaries, increasing populations
  and changing land use, conversion of rangelands
  to agriculture
• ABOUT 60 PERCENT of the world's pasture land
  (about 2.2 million km2), just less than half the
  world's usable surface is covered by grazing
  systems.

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Rangelands issues, cont.

• livestock use 3.4 billion hectares of grazing
  land and the production from about one-quarter of
  the world's croplands. In total, livestock make
  use of more than two-thirds of the world's
  surface under agriculture, and one-third of the
  total global land area
• livestock raising is the sole source of
  livelihood for at least 20 million pastoral
  families, and an important, often the main,
  source of income for at least 200 million
  smallholder farmer families in Asia, Africa and
  Latin America
• livestock provide the power to cultivate at least
  320 million hectares of land, or one-quarter of
  the total global cropped area. This would
  otherwise would have to be cultivated by hand
  tools resulting in harsh drudgery, especially for
  women, or by tractor power with an inevitable
  drain on foreign exchange
• finally, livestock are an important asset for
  investment and insurance for hundreds of millions
  of rural poor, in situations where banks are
  often too remote and the banking systems too
  unreliable for safeguarding any savings a
  smallholder might accumulate.

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Rangelands issues, cont.

• Commercial ranching
• Began during the 18th and 19th centuries on
  frontiers being settled by Europeans
• The largest operating units in commercial
  agriculturemeasured in sq. miles, not acres
• The U.S. Forest Service and BLM administer 85 of
  Western public ranchlandabout 260 million acres,
  or an area the size of the 14 Eastern seaboard
  states plus Missouri. Roughly 90 of Western BLM
  and 70 of Western Forest Service land is managed
  for ranching outside of Alaska.
• Approximately 98 of all livestock grazing on
  federal public lands in the U.S. occurs in the 11
  Western states.  

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Bureau of Land Management

• Administered by the Department of the Interior
• Administers 262 million acres primarily in 12
  western states
• manages a wide variety of resources and uses,
  including energy and minerals timber forage
  wild horse and burro populations fish and
  wildlife habitat wilderness areas
  archaeological, paleontological, and historical
  sites and other natural heritage values.
• National Landscape Conservation System
• National Conservation Areas
• National Monuments

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Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976

• Authorized Federal Land agencies to plan and
  manage public rangelands (now natural resource
  lands) on the basis of multiple use and sustained
  yield.
• Threatened ranchersthe Sagebrush
  Rebellionfederal lands should be owned by
  states or privatelyReagan supportedconservation
  and environmental interests prevailed.

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Parks in the US

• National Parks
• Administered by the Department of the Interior
• "...to promote and regulate the use of
  the...national parks...which purpose is 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 manner and
  by such means as will leave them unimpaired for
  the enjoyment of future generations."

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Parks in the US

• National Forests US National Forest Service
• Administered by the Department of Agriculture
• Multiple use timber extraction, recreation,
  maintenance
• caring for the land and serving people
• The plethora of laws that affect Forest Service
  management, particularly of national forests, has
  at best made management activities increasingly
  expensive, uncertain, unpredictable, contentious,
  unwieldy, and unlikely to take place. Jack Ward
  Thomas

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Parks in the US

• US Fish and Wildlife Service
• Administered by the Department of the Interior
• National Wildlife Refuges (Roosevelt 1903)
• The National Wildlife Refuge System contains 540
  refuges and 3,000 waterfowl production areas
  located throughout all 50 states and several U.S.
  territories. At 95 million acres, it is the
  world's largest system of lands and waters whose
  primary purpose is the conservation of wildlife
  and habitat.

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National Marine Sanctuaries (NOAA)
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Wilderness

• Reservoirs of Biological Diversity
• The outstanding scientific discovery of the
  twentieth century is not the television, or
  radio, but rather the complexity of the land
  organism. Only those who know the most about it
  can appreciate how little is known about it.
  Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (1949)
• Scientific Value
• Watersheds
• Life Support Systems
• Historical and Cultural Values
• Spiritual Values
• Aesthetic Values
• Recreation
• Refuge
• Educational Values

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Wendel Berry In Wildness is the preservation of
the world. Henry David Thoreau In human
culture is the preservation of wildness.