Conservation

B

Forest Conservation

Forests provide many social, economic, and environmental benefits. In addition to timber and paper products, forests provide wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities, prevent soil erosion and flooding, help provide clean air and water, and contain tremendous biodiversity. Forests are also an important defense against global climate change. Through the process of photosynthesis, forests produce life-giving oxygen and consume huge amounts of carbon dioxide, the atmospheric chemical most responsible for global warming. By decreasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, forests may reduce the effects of global warming.

However, huge areas of the richest forests in the world have been cleared for wood fuel, timber products, agriculture, and livestock. These forests are rapidly disappearing. The tropical rain forests of the Brazilian Amazon River basin were cut down at an estimated rate of 14 million hectares (35 million acres) each year—an area about the size of the state of Wisconsin—in the 1990s. The countries with the most tropical forests tend to be developing and overpopulated nations in the southern hemisphere. Due to poor economies, people resort to clearing the forest and planting crops in order to survive. While there have been effective efforts to stop deforestation directly through boycotts of multinational corporations responsible for exploitative logging, the most effective conservation policies in these countries have been efforts to relieve poverty and expand access to education and health care.

In 2005 the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations issued a major report, titled “Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005,” on the status of the world’s forests. Based on a five-year study, the report found that forested areas throughout the world were continuing to decline at a rate of about 7.3 million hectares (18 million acres) per year, an area equivalent in size to Panama or Sierra Leone. However, the rate of decline had slowed in comparison with the period from 1990 to 2000, when the world lost about 8.9 million hectares (22 million acres) of forested area per year. Africa and South America continued to have the largest net loss of forests, while forest loss also continued in North and Central America and the Pacific Islands. Only Europe and Asia showed a net gain in forested areas due to forest planting, landscape restoration, and expansion of natural forests. China, in particular, reported a large-scale afforestation effort. In 2005 the world’s total forest area was just under 4 billion hectares (10 billion acres).

In the United States and Canada, forests are threatened by extensive logging, called clear-cutting, which destroys plant and animal habitat and leaves the landscape bare and unproductive if not properly reforested. Small pockets of ancient forests from 200 to 1,200 years old still exist but are threatened by logging interests. Until the 1990s, the U.S. Forest Service was directed by Congress to maximize the harvest of timber in order to provide jobs. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, however, environmentalists sued the government for violating the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and heavy logging was deemed nonsustainable. As a result, the timber harvest was reduced and foresters were directed to follow a more sustainable policy called ecosystem management. This policy required foresters to focus on conserving natural habitats rather than maximizing tree harvest. Despite this change, many ancient forests remain unprotected.

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C

Soil Conservation

Soil, a mixture of mineral, plant, and animal materials, is essential for most plant growth and is the basic resource for agricultural production. Soil-forming processes may take thousands of years, and are slowed by natural erosion forces such as wind and rain. Humans have accelerated these erosion processes by developing the land and clearing away the vegetation that holds water and soil in place. The rapid deforestation taking place in the tropics is especially damaging because the thin layer of soil that remains is fragile and quickly washes away when exposed to the heavy tropical rains (see Desertification). Globally, agriculture accounts for 28 percent of the nearly 2 billion hectares (5 billion acres) of soil that have been degraded by human activities; overgrazing is responsible for 34 percent; and deforestation is responsible for 29 percent.

In addition to reducing deforestation and overgrazing, soil conservation involves reforming agricultural soil management methods. Some of the most effective methods include strip-cropping, alternating strips of crop and uncultivated land to minimize erosion and water runoff; contour farming, planting crops along the contours of sloping lands to minimize erosion and runoff; terracing, which also reduces erosion and runoff on slopes; growing legumes, such as clover or soybeans, to restore essential nitrogen in the soil (see Nitrogen Fixation); and minimizing tillage, or plowing, to reduce erosion.

D

Water Conservation

Clean freshwater resources are essential for drinking, bathing, cooking, irrigation, industry, and for plant and animal survival. Unfortunately, the global supply of freshwater is distributed unevenly. Chronic water shortages exist in most of Africa and drought is common over much of the globe. The sources of most freshwater supplies—groundwater (water located below the soil surface), reservoirs, and rivers—are under severe and increasing environmental stress because of overuse, water pollution, and ecosystem degradation. Over 95 percent of urban sewage in developing countries is discharged untreated into surface waters such as rivers and harbors.

About 65 percent of the global freshwater supply is used in agriculture and 25 percent is used in industry. Freshwater conservation therefore requires a reduction in wasteful practices like inefficient irrigation, reforms in agriculture and industry, and strict pollution controls worldwide.

In addition, water supplies can be increased through effective management of watersheds (areas that drain into one shared waterway). By restoring natural vegetation to forests or fields, communities can increase the storage and filtering capacity of these watersheds and minimize wasteful flooding and erosion. Restoration and protection of wetlands is crucial to water conservation. Like giant sponges, wetlands stabilize groundwater supplies by holding rainfall and discharging the water slowly, acting as natural flood-control reservoirs.

E

Energy Conservation

All human cultures require the production and use of energy—that is, resources with the capacity to produce work or power. Energy is used for transportation, heating, cooling, cooking, lighting, and industrial production. The world energy supply depends on many different resources including traditional fuels such as firewood and animal waste, which are significant energy sources in many developing countries. Fossil fuels account for more than 90 percent of global energy production but are considered problematic resources. They are nonrenewable—that is, they can be depleted, and their use causes air pollution. In particular, coal plants have been one of the worst industrial polluters since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. Moreover, mining or drilling for fossil fuels has caused extensive environmental damage.

There is a global need to increase energy conservation and the use of renewable energy resources. Renewable alternatives such as waterpower (using the energy of moving water, such as rivers), solar energy (using the energy from the sun), wind energy (using the energy of the wind or air currents), and geothermal energy (using energy contained in hot-water deposits within the Earth’s crust) are efficient and practical but largely underutilized because of the ready availability of inexpensive, nonrenewable fossil fuels in industrial countries.

While some countries, such as France and Japan, depend heavily on nuclear energy (energy produced by atomic fission, or splitting of the atom), it is still not a major energy source. Excessive production costs, serious safety concerns, and problems with the handling of the dangerous radioactive wastes have virtually eliminated it as a viable energy source in the United States.

In addition to using alternative energy resources such as solar and wind power, energy conservation measures include improving energy efficiency. For instance, transportation accounts for most of the oil consumption in the United States. Encouraging the expansion and use of public transportation systems and carpooling dramatically increases energy efficiency. In the household, energy can be conserved by turning down thermostats, switching off unnecessary lights, insulating homes, and using less hot water.

IV

History of Conservation

Until the advent and spread of Christianity and Islam in the 4th and 5th centuries, there were many religions based on animism, the belief that all objects have a spiritual being. This belief led to careful stewardship, or protection, of natural resources out of fear or respect for these spiritual beings. Moreover, early agricultural lifestyles, dependent on nature to provide good crops and growing conditions, also encouraged sound land-use practices. Ancient Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans developed irrigation, crop rotation, and terraced hillsides as early methods of water, nutrient, and soil conservation.

In Europe, the relationship between humanity and nature became strained with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Industrialization stifled traditional agricultural lifestyles and encouraged urbanization and the marriage of science and technology to control nature and extract resources. The Industrial Revolution led to environmental damage on a grand scale as European technology spread around the globe. Coal-burning and iron-smelting produced waste that contaminated air and water, the concentrated populations in urban areas produced huge amounts of unconfined raw sewage that contaminated drinking water, and vast forests and plains were cleared for agriculture.

The modern conservation movement of the United States began in the mid-19th century when resource depletion and pollution were first becoming serious problems. Westward expansion was encouraged by the government—the Homestead Act of 1862 provided free land to settlers willing to clear it. Because land ownership required land-clearing, the rapid migration often resulted in barren landscapes. The extensive land-clearing and the rapid depletion of wildlife resources such as buffalo and beaver heralded a public outcry. This concern was reflected in the writings of public figures such as American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson and naturalist author Henry David Thoreau.

As conservation ideas gained support, a wave of conservation activity swept the country. The world’s first national park, Yellowstone National Park, was established in Wyoming in 1872 to protect an area of incredible natural beauty. In 1873, the American Association for the Advancement of Science petitioned Congress to halt unwise use of natural resources, the Forest Reserve Act of 1891 authorized what would become known as National Forests, and the Lacey Act of 1900 established the first wildlife protection measures by restricting commercial hunting and the trade of illegally killed animals.

The administration of President Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) was noted for its conservation achievements. Roosevelt set aside a total of almost 94 million hectares (235 million acres) of public lands to protect them from exploitation by private interests. He installed forestry expert Gifford Pinchot as the head of the new U.S. Forest Service in 1905 and adopted Pinchot’s principle of multiple use, the nation’s first formal natural-resource policy. The multiple-use policy advocated scientific management of public lands for a variety of uses, including commercial development.

This conservation policy was not popular among many Americans who backed full preservation of natural areas. Naturalist and author John Muir believed that any commercial development of natural areas was inappropriate. A powerful rift soon developed between multiple-use advocates and preservationists. This rift came to a climax during the 12-year battle over a plan to dam the Tuolumne River in Hetch Hetchy Valley in California, and the controversy still exists today.

A renewed surge of public conservation activity occurred during the Great Depression of the 1930s. In an attempt to encourage conservation and stimulate the economy, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corp in 1933, which provided two million jobs planting trees, building dams and irrigation systems, and establishing soil conservation and wildlife protection programs.

The conservation movement rose into the spotlight again in the 1960s as publications such as Silent Spring (1962) by American biologist Rachel Carson raised public concerns about the health and environmental hazards of pesticides and other toxic chemicals used by industry. Several catastrophic events in 1969, including the toxic waste fires on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio and a coastal oil spill in Santa Barbara, California focused media attention on the need for environmental conservation. The estimated 20 million people across the United States who attended the first national Earth Day, a day for recognizing environmental concerns, on April 22, 1970, demonstrated massive public support for conservation issues. Conservation legislation passed in the 1970s included the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Toxic Substance Control Act.

The 1980s experienced a slowdown of the conservation momentum of the 1970s. Resource conservation concerns remained in the public mind, however, due to continued scientific discoveries concerning global warming, acid rain (a harmful mix of precipitation and damaging pollutants), and depletion of the ozone layer (a gaseous layer in the atmosphere that protects Earth from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays). Ecological disasters such as the nuclear reactor explosion near the Ukrainian town of Chernobyl’ in 1986 (see Chernobyl’ Accident) and the tanker Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska in 1989, served as catastrophic reminders of the effects of human carelessness.

The European conservation movement began to grow as the effects of industrialization worsened in the mid-20th century. Clean air legislation was enacted in the United Kingdom in 1956 in reaction to London’s industrial smog, which killed more than 2,000 people in early December 1952. Political parties with environmental or conservation agendas sprang up in New Zealand, Australia, and Europe by the 1970s, and became known as Green Parties in the 1980s. In the 1970s and 1980s, courageous grassroots organizations such as the Chipko movement in India (a coalition of villagers, mostly women) and the Brazilian rubber tappers (workers who extract chicle, the tree sap used to make rubber) fought for preservation of the forests that provided their livelihood.

In 1972 the United Nations Environment Program was formed to encourage international cooperation in conservation and development strategies. Collaboration on environmental conservation issues included the 1987 Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer, the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the 1994 United Nations Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt. The participation of the United States in this international movement was weak, while Canadian and European support and participation were strong.

The 1992 UNCED Conference, commonly referred to as the Earth Summit, was the largest international meeting ever held with 178 nations participating. Its proceedings noted the economic and environmental gulf between the northern and southern hemispheres and emphasized a sustainable growth, utilitarian approach to conservation. In the same year an appeal entitled World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity was released. This paper was signed by 1,700 of the world’s leading scientists (including 104 Nobel laureate scientists), 19 national academies of science, and the director general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). It stated that at the current rate of consumption, the Earth’s resources may soon be reduced to the point at which the living world would be “unable to sustain life in the manner that we know.” In several publications, ecologists and economists agree that despite the immediate benefits of economic growth, infinite growth in material and energy consumption is not compatible with the finite resources of the Earth and will undermine the well-being of both economic and ecological systems. For these reasons, natural resource conservation has become one of the most important challenges to face the human race.