Nature preservation policy

DEFINITION: Decisions made and regulations put in place by any level of government to undertake the protection of natural resources

Governments generally promote their policies concerning nature preservation through the passage of legislation. In the United States, changes in nature preservation policy over time have reflected the changes that have taken place in the attitudes of the public toward the need for government protection for the natural environment.

The Industrial Revolution, which diminished traditional agriculture while encouraging urbanization and technology, began straining the relationship between humanity and natural resources during the early nineteenth century. As the technological advances being made in Europe rapidly spread west, environmental damage and natural resource depletion escalated in the United States, inspiring the American conservation movement. The conservation and environmental movements have continued to exert tremendous influence on policy making.

American artist George Catlin first proposed setting aside land for wildlife and American Indians during the nineteenth century, and in 1864 geographer George Perkins Marsh published Man and Nature: Or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action, the first influential book to address the human impact on nature. The Homestead Act of 1862 greatly encouraged expansion in the western United States by giving more than 405 million hectares (1 billion acres) of land to settlers, a policy that often resulted in barren landscapes. Destructive logging methods were employed, land was rapidly cleared for agriculture, and large-scale fires raged. Some western grasslands experienced such excessive grazing that many regions had not recovered their full productivity by the end of the twentieth century.

As farmers’ journals described “wearing out” several homesteads during westward journeys, naturalist Henry David Thoreau and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson countered with writings that fueled increasing support for nature conservation. The public expressed considerable outrage regarding the near elimination of several wildlife species that previously had existed in massive numbers, such as bison, deer, elk, and beaver. This led to legislation that created the world’s first national park in 1872 at Yellowstone, Wyoming, followed by an 1873 petition to Congress by the American Association for the Advancement of Science to curtail the inefficient use of natural resources such as water, soil, forests, and minerals.

The 1891 Forest Reserve Act began the establishment of natural forests, and the 1900 Lacey Act initiated wildlife protection by regulating commercial hunting. The 1894 Buffalo Protection Act provided recognition that a previously abundant natural resource could rapidly become an endangered species. As naturalist John Muir championed numerous wilderness preservation projects and became the first president of the Sierra Club in 1892, federal legislation in the United States began classifying natural resources as renewable or nonrenewable. Renewable resources can be regenerated and even improve under proper management but can be depleted or completely eliminated if misused. Nonrenewable resources are present only in fixed amounts and will not regenerate regardless of human efforts. Examples of renewable resources include plants, animals, soils, and inland waters; nonrenewable resources include minerals and fossil fuels. The founding of private conservation organizations such as the American Forestry Association in 1875, the American Ornithologists’ Union in 1883, the Boone and Crockett Club in 1887, and the New York Zoological Society in 1895 increased public influence on conservation legislation at all levels of government.

Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt

President Theodore Roosevelt initiated protection for wildlife in 1903 when he set aside Pelican Island in Florida’s Indian River as a federal bird sanctuary. Through such initiatives as the 1908 White House Governors’ Conference on Conservation, Roosevelt’s politics and personality helped establish more than fifty wildlife refuges, five national parks, and eighteen national monuments, and increased the area of national forests by more than 69.7 million hectares (150 million acres). Roosevelt’s policies required that certain public lands be held in trust for the “good of the country” and separated many public domain regions from commercial interests.

During and immediately following Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, Forest Service chief Gifford Pinchot and Interior Secretary James Garfield implemented more unified policies governing natural resource planning that relied on scientific principles, leading to development of the discipline of conservation biology. Many nonrenewable resources were then protected from exploitation by private industry by the 1920 Mineral Leasing Act.

Political debates and administration changes during the Great Depression of the 1930s shelved more environmental legislation until President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Taylor Grazing Act in 1934, whereby all public domain lands would be managed as part of the public trust. The dry Dust Bowl years of the Great Plains states during the early 1930s severely depleted migratory bird populations, motivating a renewed surge of public conservation activity and passage of the 1934 Duck Stamp Act, which tacked a conservation fee for the acquisition of onto waterfowl hunting licenses.

In 1933 the Soil Erosion Service (later called the Soil Conservation Service), the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the Tennessee Valley Authority were established to provide water and soil conservation assistance to landowners as farmland in the Midwest continued to deteriorate under improper agricultural practices. Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps provided unemployed Americans with more than two million jobs planting trees and building systems and dams. More federal involvement was initiated after dust clouds from the dry soil of midwestern farmland blew east all the way to Washington, DC. In 1940, the US Congress enacted the Bald Eagle Protection Act to protect the national bird.

Post-World War II Conservation

Advances in technology and economic development in the turbulent era following World War II, combined with the postwar baby boom, put additional on environmental resources. President Harry Truman began a national program for water-pollution control, with later legislation requiring states to set and enforce standards for natural rivers. In attempts to reduce insect-borne disease and increase food production, Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) and other synthetic pesticides were developed and had considerable initial success, causing the near-complete disappearance of malaria and the production of bumper crops.

The 1947 Forest Pest Control Act provided for the detection and chemical destruction of insects that carried diseases harmful to humans, but the numerous new and powerful experimental substances being invented caused other severe environmental problems, which in many cases caused more damage than those that the pesticides were created to prevent. Grassroots public outcry stimulated several federal restrictions on chemicals such as DDT, with many citizens alerted to these dangers by former US Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring. Carson is credited with warning mainstream America about the health and environmental hazards posed by pesticides and other toxic chemicals. Her work stimulated further writings that described human threats to the environment, including The Population Bomb (1968), by Paul R. Ehrlich, and The Limits to Growth (1972), by Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III.

All forms of environmental greatly increased during the 1950s and 1960s. Television beamed graphic examples of environmental problems into public view, notably the mercury poisoning at Minamata Bay, Japan; killer smog episodes in London, England, and Los Angeles, California; and the 1967 Torrey Canyon oil spill in the English Channel. As the prices of land and water rights skyrocketed, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which was set up by federal legislation during the 1960s to increase outdoor recreation space in the United States, generated revenues from offshore drilling leases. Several catastrophic environmental events occurred in 1969, including fires on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, and a coastal oil spill near Santa Barbara, California. Public pressure regarding these and other concerns led to passage of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), which became law on January 1, 1970. During the development of this precedent-setting act, Congress discovered that more than eighty governmental units had activities directly affecting the environment, but no government policies were in place to coordinate and review such activities.

Private individuals and organizations such as the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, the Wilderness Society, the National Wildlife Federation, and the National Audubon Society began lobbying for more laws to establish nature preservation areas for both renewable and nonrenewable natural resources. Two highly visible social programs that influenced public opinion were conducted by the Nature Conservancy: Oklahoma’s Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve “Adopt a Bison” program and Montana’s Pine Butte Swamp Preserve, where dinosaur fossils were discovered in 1978. The Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966 and the Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1969 did not directly protect any species, but they led to later legislation that did.

The 1970s and 1980s

Following unanimous passage of NEPA by Congress over President Richard Nixon’s objection, the 1970s saw the passage and often complicated enforcement of several laws regulating nature preservation. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established in 1970, followed later that year by passage of significant amendments to the 1963 Clean Air Act. Important pollution-control measures were then implemented by the 1972 Water Pollution Control Act, the 1973 Endangered Species Act, the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, the 1976 National Forest Management Act, and the 1977 Clean Air Act amendments. The Endangered Species Act is considered the most effective and wide-reaching act ever passed by Congress to protect natural ecosystems.

Key legislation supporting nature preservation that was passed during the 1980s included the 1980 National Acid Precipitation Act, the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (which enabled the size of the refuge and park systems to double), and the 1987 amendments to the 1972 Clean Water Act. Surveys conducted during the late 1980s revealed that more than 60 percent of wildlife areas in the United States were permitting activities that were harmful to wildlife, with the most destructive practices, such as military activities and drilling, not falling under legal jurisdiction of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. This era also saw increased public interest in nature preservation following events such as the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant catastrophe and the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, as well as controversies concerning acid rain, tropical deforestation, the harvesting of old-growth timber, and the discovery of a trend toward global warming.

Private corporations that had previously sacrificed important wildlife habitat began to realize that the was an important issue to American consumers. In response to pressure from consumers, employees, and stockholders, many businesses implemented stewardship programs designed to protect natural resources and allow public enjoyment of their underdeveloped lands.

The 1990s and Beyond

Many nature preservation goals first proposed during the Industrial Revolution finally began to be realized with the systematic creation and maintenance of healthy forests; the prevention of timber depletion and siltation of streams; the provision of food, cover, and protection for wildlife; and the establishment of places where human beings could escape growing urbanization by taking part in outdoor recreation. Water reservoirs could now control flooding, provide clean water for humans and livestock, keep the soil fertile for agriculture, provide irrigation, and generate power. Water treatment plants were now effective in keeping rivers clean by processing wastes from urban sewage, while fish hatcheries provided supplemental stocks to natural and human-made reservoirs, streams, and lakes. Scenic easements along riverbanks aided antipollution efforts and reduced erosion, while green spaces required by city zoning regulations held soil and became available for use while maintaining the environment’s natural beauty. Mass interurban transportation systems moved people efficiently, and footpaths and bicycle trails offered outdoor recreation and cultural opportunities. Continual management of resources was more successful in keeping delicate ecosystems in balance, with ongoing environmental efforts including the seeding of wildlife foods, controlled burning to destroy unwanted vegetation, and the closing of wildlife habitats during mating and birthing seasons.

Conservationists-turned-environmentalists greatly influenced nature preservation policies during the 1990s as President George H. W. Bush passed legislation in 1990 that amended the 1970 Clean Air Act to focus more on reducing acid rain and emissions from fossil fuels and nitrogen oxide. However, an activist citizens’ commission formed in 1992 by the Defenders of Wildlife found that the United States was “falling far short” of meeting the urgent needs of nature preservation. The public response to this information helped lead to passage of the 1997 National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act, which shifted the priorities of nature preservation systems toward the formation of multiple-use environments. This key legislation redefined the mission statement regarding conservation of habitats for fish, wildlife, and plants; designated priority public uses such as hunting, fishing, wildlife observation and photography, and environmental education and interpretation; and required that “environmental health” be maintained on public lands. The principle of multiple use, however, continues to allow mining, drilling, grazing, logging, and motorized recreation, as well as military training such as bombing, tank, and troop exercises, on lands designated for nature preservation.

By 2016, however, despite surveys finding that the American public values preserving nature through efforts such as maintaining national parks, experts argued that the National Park Service (NPS), responsible for overseeing this task, has been consistently underfunded over several years. While the number of people visiting the parks has steadily increased, the congressional budget granted to the NPS has proven inadequate to allow the organization to properly staff the parks and conduct necessary maintenance projects. Concerns deepened in 2024, when the Supreme Court struck down the Chevron doctrine. This legal tool had allowed federal regulation agencies, such as the NPS, to enforce their rules through the court system.

International Efforts

Cooperative international nature preservation efforts began with the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty signed by the United States and Great Britain (for Canada), and later Mexico. The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, founded in 1948, represented the interests of 116 countries toward protecting endangered and threatened “living resources.” The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, hosted by Sweden in 1972, was instrumental in establishing nature preservation as an international concern. Utilizing concepts from this conference, the US Congress passed the 1983 International Environmental Protection Act, which included landmark legislation incorporating wildlife and plant conservation and biological diversity as objectives when the United States provides assistance to developing countries.

The 1973, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) involved the cooperation of more than one hundred nations to regulate the import and export of natural resources. Earth Day, first held on April 22, 1970, as a campus-based event encompassing an estimated twenty million people across the United States, began to be combined with other concerns, and annual observances of Earth Day have continued to demonstrate massive support for conservation issues. The international Greenpeace Foundation was formed in 1971 with the aim of applying pressure to governments and organizations to stop such practices as the testing of nuclear weapons and the dumping of radioactive and toxic wastes.

Sentiments favoring the preservation of nature began taking political form in Europe during the early 1980s, notably with the formation of the Green Party in Germany. International collaboration on environmental preservation issues that influenced later legislation included the 1987 Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer, the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (also called the Earth Summit) in Brazil, and the 1994 United Nations Population Conference in Egypt. The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which was the largest international meeting ever held (representatives of 178 nations attended), emphasized an approach to nature conservation that focused on sustainable growth and utilitarian solutions. A paper that resulted from the Earth Summit titled “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity” warned that if current consumption rates continued, the earth’s resources would be reduced to the point where the world would be “unable to sustain life in the manner we now know.”

This monumental event was followed by another UN summit in 1997 in New York City, attended by representatives of more than fifty nations, during which the progress made in the intervening years was reviewed. Many analysts noted that although progress had been made, the local and global issues surrounding nature preservation and environmental problems were continuing to grow in complexity, and many kinds of environmental damage may be irreversible. Although the attendees did agree to take further action on issues of nature preservation, they made few concrete commitments. The five-year review process continued with the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, which was held in Johannesburg, South Africa; the United States did not participate in this conference, which also produced few concrete commitments.

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