Environmental History
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Period of First Significant Use
when humans began to appear in certain areas and significantly use natural resources
What is the most common type of land present day?
seminatural
Myth of Superabundance
resources are inexhaustible
What was the worldview regarding natural resources?
nature is intended for humans to use and exploit
Why did European settlers colonize the east coast in 1800?
they couldn’t cross the Appalachian trail
What were three major effects of timber cutting?
deforestation, soil erosion, biodiversity loss
How did hunting in the frontier era affect the bison population?
it dropped the bison population from approximately 15,000,000 to 3,000 (1865-1885)
Why was the frontier closed?
Resources were depleted, superabundance was proved to be a myth
Which law encouraged people to move west in the 1800s?
the Mining Act of 1872
What were the two dominant ideas of the Progressive Movement?
conservation and preservation
Who headed the conservationist movement?
Gifford Pinchot
Who headed the preservationist movement?
John Muir
What was Gifford Pinchot’s motivation for being a conservationist?
making a sustainable way of sourcing lumber
What was John Muir’s motivation for being a preservationist?
he believed that nature was a gift from God, and it could not be used and destroyed
What were the two primary conservation legislation documents?
Forest Reserves (1891) and the Forest Service Act (1897)
What were the two primary Acts for preservation legislation?
Antiquities Act (1906) and National Park Service Organic Act (1916)
What is the significance of the Pitman-Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937?
it prevented wholesale hunting
What is conservation?
maximizing use of natural resources without completely diminishing their supply for the future
What is preservation?
protecting natural resources by restricting their use for human consumption
Civilian Conservation Corps
Roosevelt needed to give young men jobs, so he hired them to build trails in national parks
Tennessee Valley Authority (1933)
nearby rivers were used to benefit people, dams were built for flood control and electricity. In turn, this made electricity very cheap
Taylor Grazing Act (1934)
in order to prevent overexploitation, farmers were required to rotate out their grazing lands
Soil Conservation Service (1935)
organization that works with farmers in order to preserve soil
Poison Fog in Donora, PA 1948
an inversion layer trapped PA’s pollution which resulted in many deaths by suffocation