NATURE NOTES - Number 32 November 14, 2021
INTRODUCTION: Thanks for viewing NATURE NOTES. Use whatever you might learn here to make your scouts more aware of the nature around them.
OUR CURRENT TOPIC: Forestry in the U.S. – A history lesson
Let’s explore something you have probably never laid awake at night thinking about. I’m sure your scouts haven’t. We talked about What Is Forestry in NATURE NOTE # 18. But how did we get to this point?
Let’s start with the first explorers gazing on the North American coast from their ship as they approached land. All they saw was forest. And they came ashore and found more forests. More than they had ever seen. So they had to build shelters, and have fuel (you have to remind scouts that propane tanks and heat pumps didn’t exist then), and also clear land for crops and pasture. They didn’t get up each morning and decide they would go chop down a bunch of trees for fun and exercise. These trees provided for their survival. But eventually the forests became less available. So they packed up and moved west. More trees to cut for building, fuel and farm land. The country was growing. Companies began making lumber to ship back east for building towns and furniture and crates and railroads and utility lines. That was ok. There were plenty of trees. Keep moving and keep cutting – the market was there and the trees were there. Loggers moved from New England, through the mid-west, the Great Lakes area, the south, and finally to the far west. There were trees everywhere they went. Then slowly, things started changing. Trees available for harvest became harder to find and people began to see other values of the forests: for watersheds, for scenic beauty, for wildlife habitat. In the late 1800’s as transportation and communications began to improve, more and more people began to see the forests disappearing and decided to take action. Newspapers and magazine articles began to make people aware of the problem. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, the federal government began protecting sites, such as Yellowstone National Park (1872), and establishing national forests (1891) and started to look at our ability to manage our forests in a more responsible way. So they sought out professional foresters for advice and help. The problem was that in 1897, there were only three professionally trained foresters in the U. S. (Gifford Pinchot, Carl Scheck and Bernhard Fernow) Two had been trained in Germany and one in France. Uh oh. Now what? It was quickly realized that we needed to establish a means to train new foresters. As a result, in 1898, two forestry schools were established: one in Biltmore, NC (they had 8 students in 1900) and the NY School of Forestry at Cornell. Yale University opened a forestry school in 1900 with 7 students. From this tiny nucleus, the forestry profession in the U. S. began. Many states established forestry schools (Virginia Tech offered its first forestry class in 1902) and organized state departments of forestry (1914 in Virginia). Research was way behind. The knowledge from Europe didn’t always work with the different species and conditions in America, so research programs by the states and the U.S. Forest Service were greatly needed. Over time, foresters were produced, nurseries established, laws written, land protected, and eyes opened. By the 1950’s things had greatly improved, but knowledge is not static. Today we still educate, research, and make new policy to better protect our forests while using all the natural resources they provide. Even in the last 60 years, major shifts have occurred in the focus of forests for more recreation and wildlife protection and less for timber production. Laws such as the Wilderness Act of 1964 or the Endangered Species Act of 1973 caused major impacts on how foresters had to manage the land. Changes will continue.
Nature Opportunities:
This little history lesson might be interesting to scouts. Some folks are more attracted to history than science. As I said earlier, scouts have never thought much about our forests. Our job as scout leaders is to produce better citizens for the future. Do what you can, however you can, to make them more aware of how so much of this all fits together to form our current world. Schools probably won’t do this. And make sure you remind them it won’t stay this way. In their short lives they have not seen a lot of change. Some of us have, and we know that more change – in knowledge, attitudes, economies, nature – is down the road. Talk to them. Use this little history lesson about how we learned for the need for forestry.
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