Gifford Pinchot’s “The Fight for Conservation” as it Relates to Modern Ecological Practices

   A blog on an outside reading 

In “The Fight for Conservation,” Pinchot holds a focus on homesteading. His chronicling of the management and usage of extra-human through a resource and conservation lens is quite intriguing. Pinchot’s first four points of resource management evils are not fully harvesting materials, waste in use, waste in soil, and overgrazing. Pinchot takes a stance opposite John Muir in that he believes the best way to combat these evils is through the individual. Pinchot emphasizes homesteading and a direct transaction between the government and an individual. Pinchot’s focus away from the corporate and on the individual mirrors a main theme of transcendentalism. This concept is made  further evident when he says that “Of all forms of conservation there is none more important than the individual” (page 5). This individualism is a big theme in the idealized vision manifest destiny and the early American identity. His individualism may have stemmed from a push back against further industrialization and increasing cooperate power.

Pinchot’s emphasis on the individual relationship with extra-humans is an interesting point for his time. I believe that deep personal experience with extra-humans in the ecology surround oneself is important, but at this point widespread changes have to be made to our societal systems and views. The extra-human is now a groomed resource to be industrially produced and viewed. While shrinking populations of small farmers, industry’s ecological views are becoming more apparent and detrimental. At least as it related to food production, industry’s growth has exceeded Pinchot’s dreams of individual action.