Roosevelt the Conservationist
Theodore Roosevelt is credited with many achievements, but he was proudest of his work conserving natural resources and extending federal protection to land and wildlife. Roosevelt was a prominent conservationist, putting the issue at the forefront of the national agenda. He worked with all of the major figures of the movement, especially his chief advisor on the matter, Gifford Pinchot. Roosevelt was deeply committed to conserving natural resources, and historians largely consider him to be the nation's first conservation president. He encouraged the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902 to promote federal construction of dams to irrigate small farms and placed 230 million acres under federal protection. By the time he left office in 1908, Roosevelt had set aside more federal land, national parks, and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined.
Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five national parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he designated 18 new U.S. national monuments. He also established the first 51 bird reserves, 4 game preserves, and 150 national forests, including the nation's first, Shoshone National Forest. The area of the United States that he placed under public protection totals approximately 230,000,000 acres.
Gifford Pinchot had been appointed by McKinley as chief of Division of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture. In 1905, his department gained control of the national forest reserves. Pinchot promoted private use (for a fee) under federal supervision. In 1907, Roosevelt designated 16 million acres of new national forests just minutes before a deadline.
In May 1908, Roosevelt sponsored the Conference of Governors held in the White House, with a focus on natural resources and their most efficient use. Roosevelt delivered the opening address: "Conservation as a National Duty."
In 1903, Roosevelt toured the Yosemite Valley with John Muir, and tried to minimize commercial use of water resources and forests. Working through the Sierra Club, Muir succeeded in having Congress transfer the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley to the federal government by 1905. While Muir wanted nature preserved for the sake of beauty, Roosevelt subscribed to Pinchot's formulation, "to make the forest produce the largest amount of whatever crop or service will be most useful, and keep on producing it for generation after generation of men and trees." In effect, Roosevelt's conservationism embodied the Progressive ideal of efficiency: to protect nature in order to render it serviceable to the needs and uses of man for successive generations.
Theodore Roosevelt, the conservationist
This cartoon shows President Roosevelt as forester pointing to a sign that reads, "Protect and preserve the remaining forests upon public lands from devastation and destruction, which have been the fate of those in forest sections of the country."