Roosevelt and Pinchot
Conservationist Roosevelt
worked closely with early conservationists such as Gifford Pinchot, pictured
above, with whom he organized the first National Governors Conservation
Conference at the White House in 1908Roosevelt was the first American president to
consider the long-term needs for efficient conservation of national resources,
winning the support of fellow hunters and fishermen to bolster his
political base. Roosevelt was the last trained observer to ever see a passenger pigeon, and on March 14, 1903, Roosevelt
created the first National Bird Preserve, (the beginning of the Wildlife Refuge
system) on Pelican Island, Florida. Roosevelt
worked with the major figures of the conservation movement, especially
his chief adviser on the matter Gifford Pinchot. Roosevelt
urged Congress to establish the United States Forest Service (1905), to
manage government forest lands, and he appointed Gifford Pinchot to head the service.
Roosevelt set aside more land for national parks and nature preserves than all of
his predecessors combined, 194 million acres (785,000 km2). In
all, by 1909, the Roosevelt administration had
created an unprecedented 42 million acres (170,000 km2) of national forests, 53 national wildlife refuges and 18 areas of "special interest", including the Grand Canyon. The Theodore Roosevelt
National Park in the Badlands commemorates his conservationist philosophy. In 1903,
Roosevelt toured the Yosemite Valley with John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, but Roosevelt believed in
the more efficient use of natural resources by corporations like lumber companies unlike Muir. In 1907, with Congress about to block him,
Roosevelt hurried to designate 16 million acres (65,000 km2) of new
national forests. In May 1908, he sponsored the Conference of Governors held in the White House, with a focus on the most efficient planning,
analysis and use of water, forests and other natural
resources. Roosevelt explained, "There is an intimate relation between our streams and the development and conservation of all the other great
permanent sources of wealth." During his presidency,
Roosevelt promoted the nascent conservation movement in essays for Outdoor Life magazine. To Roosevelt, conservation meant more and better usage and
less waste, and a long-term perspective.