Different ways of preserving and protecting natural areas--this list is publicly owned land:
- National Parks (run by the Park Service eg. Yellowstone, include National Monuments, National Historic Sites)
- allow the public to enjoy
special places
- State Parks (like Adirondack State Park in New York)
- National Forests (run by the Forest Service, eg. Frances Marion National Forest)
- ensure a continuous
supply of timber (also hunting)
- National Wildlife Refuges (run by the Fish and Wildlife Service)
- protect endangered species
- public land run by the Bureau of Reclamation
- manage land for use (eg.
grazing and mining)
There were some areas in of wilderness in the national parks and forests, but for more permanent protection you need laws
Wilderness areas were set aside in the above kinds of public land, rather than creating a separate system
- technology for modifying nature for human benefit is increasing--for example building of big dams during the 1930s
- people still believed in
conquering nature: video--technological
arrogance
- government is increasingly willing to undertake very large projects
- people are increasingly concerned about the loss of wilderness and other natural areas
- environmental organizations
are organizing on a national scale (Audubon, Sierra Club, Isaac Walton
League, Wilderness
Society, Greenpeace)
- Robert Marshall, a biologist and forester whose father was a lawyer, helped advocate wilderness in the 1930s
- He was one of the core group who founded the Wilderness Society
- the Wilderness Society fought to preserve wilderness all over the country--fights like that over Hetch Hetchy became common
- eg. prohibiting water-landing airplanes that had been used to bring people into a wilderness canoe area in Minnesota
- "During this same post World War II era, a new threat to the wilderness came in the form of bush planes invading the core of the canoe country, and with them came dozens of fly-in fishing resorts and private cabins. Ely became the busiest inland float-plane base in the world. While the operations may have been wonderful for day fishermen and those who made money from the frequent flights into what had been canoe country, they made a mockery of any effort to find solitude, or the labor of those who paddled and portaged for days to reach a spot, only to have day visitors drop in effortlessly by airplane. The Ikes, with its associate group, the Quetico-Superior Council, lobbied for, and won, an Executive Order signed by President Truman prohibiting flights below 4,000 feet or landing within the wilderness. It was the first air ban anywhere in the world established other than for military purposes. " source
- later in some areas
planes were allowed on certain lakes but not on others
- how do you do a cost-benefit analysis between water for development and wilderness?
- Park Service approved the project
- Wilderness society argued
against
- different kinds of arguments against:
- we need wilderness for
its beauty and spiritual value
- we need wilderness for
ecological research (science)
- we need to respect wilderness (land ethic)
- research suggested it would be more efficient to build a dam somewhere else
- advocates of the larger water project decided to take the dam out of their plans in 1956 because opposition was so intense they were afraid it would hold up the whole Colorado River Storage Project Act
- the environmentalists agreed not to oppose the Glenn Canyon Dam
- some environmentalists
regretted that
afterwards, felt they shouldn't have compromised
- the Forest Service had already set aside some wilderness areas, but they weren't permanently protected (Forest Service could change the classification of the land) and not enough
- Wilderness Society
advocated a new law to permanently protect wilderness areas within
National Parks, National Forests and other publicly owned land
- Congress worked on a wilderness bill from 1957 to 1964
- oppostion: many interests argued for multiple use instead of protected wilderness used by few
- advocates wanted to
preserve some land as wilderness, defined as no roads even for
firefighting
- when the bill was passed it included 9.1 million acres, not the original 60 million
- but it provided a mechanism for permanent protection and more land could be added
- Wilderness Act
of 1964
Bridge Canyon Dam Site
Next fight was against dams in
the Grand
Canyon- newspaper ad: "only you can save the Grand Canyon from being flooded, for profit"
- two dam sites were
proposed: Bridge Canyon and Marble Canyon
- the public knew the Grand
Canyon and there was a lot of opposition
- in 1968 the proposal was dropped
- preservation of natural
land has gained enough public support to be able to stop big projects
that were particularly harmful to the environment by political influence
- gotten the attention of the
dam builders (Army Corps of Engineers)
Marble Canyon Dam Site
- New ideas that value wilderness
- groups like the boy scouts spread those to a broader public
- organizations formed to protect particular areas or wilderness in general
- those organizations are able to mobilize public opinion (letter writing campaigns)
- Congress was willing to stop projects if there was enough opposition
- Environmental groups have proved themselves to have political muscle
- public views are shifting significantly from believing in conquering nature to wanting to preserve it
- watch for that dramatic
shift in public opinion in the 1960s
This
page written and copyright Pamela
E. Mack