Conservation movement: Encyclopedia - Conservation movement

Conservation movement

The Conservation movement seeks to protect plant and animal species as well as the habitats they live in from harmful human influences.

The contemporary environmental movement and the Conservation movement have grown together in modern times, as the Sierra Club and Audubon Society have come to reflect the broader ethics of a more diverse society.

It continues to admire and use nature, and assign it varying ethical significance. Today it is more correct to say that there is no clear distinction between the conservation movement and environmental movement but rather a distinction between these and the ecology movement which gave rise to such strongly political groups as Greenpeace and the Green Parties.

Conservation 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 dispell 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 Biltmore, on the Vanderbilt University 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.

The Conservation movement in America was supported by 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 believed this could lead to commercial overuse, and ruin unspoiled wilderness. The differences continue to the modern era, with conservation the major focus of the U.S. Forest Service and preservation emphasized by the National Park Service.

Conservation movement - 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

• Conservationist
• Ecology movement
• List of environment topics

Conservation movement - 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. 2004

Categories: Ethics | Conservation

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Conservation movement", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki