The River of the Mother of God: and other Essays by Aldo Leopold

Standards of Conservation [1922]

Standards of Conservation [1922] Leopold's frequent inspections Df forest resources and the effectiveness of field personnel performed in his capacity as assistant district forester led him to puzzle over the problem of setting meaningful objectives for managing the forests. This unfinished penciled essay contains a blank space for a number to be added later and ends in midsentence. It was probably drafted while Leopold was on an inspection of the Prescott National Forest in Arizona in 1922. Here Leopold gropes toward measures of what should be accomplished on the ground, in contrast to the usual "machinery" standards of the service. This concern had troubled him nearly a decade earlier in his letter to the forest officers of the Carson and is still being debated by land managers today. The setting of standards to correlate methods and practices has now become a familiar and successful feature of administration on the National Forests. Such standards have proven a simple and effective means of detecting and ironing out the discrepancies in the intensiveness with which similar work is done in separate places, and the relative emphasis given various lines of work. So far, however, standards have been applied principally to the machinery of administration. What would be the probable result if they were applied to the objectives of administration, as distinguished from the machinery with which those objectives are to be attained? It is believed such an application of standards would result in certain fundamental and beneficial changes, the nature of which it is the purpose of this paper to discuss. At the outset, it may be well to give examples of the two classes of standards. When an administrative officer is directed to spend at least 40 days a year on grazing work or to make at least two general inspections per year of each unit of range, there is set up a machinery standard (heretofore vaguely called administrative standard, or standard of performance). On the other hand when there is set up as an objective of administration that a 82 Standards of Conservation 83 certain unit of range shall be brought to an .8 density ofgrama grass capable of carrying 1 head per 20 acres, there is established a standard ofconservation for that unit. Before discussing the possible effects of standards of conservation, it may be well to answer the question of why they need be set. Is it not axiomatic that every resource should be conserved as far as possible? To be sure, but natural resources are a complex affair, and few men agree on what is possible. For example: three administrators were examining a piece of range, having about .5 oak brush and .1 grama grass, with a very few old fire killed Junipers. It developed that one was looking forward to a .5 oak brush and .3 grass objective, another to a .5 oak and .9 grass objective, and the third to a stand ofJuniper and Pinon woodland with a little brush and grass mixed in. Each objective was probably obtainable, but the method ofsetting about it radically different in each case. How could any man administer this area intelligently without knowing which of the three he was to work toward? Another example: A certain area was withdrawn for protection of a reclamation project watershed. Previous overgrazing had thinned the grass and begun to let in a little Juniper reproduction, whereas previous to the grazing Juniper had been kept out by grass fires, as evidenced by charred stumps. One man examining the area wanted to reduce the grazing and restore the grass as watershed cover. Another wanted to increase the grazing to fill out the catch ofJuniper reproduction as watershed cover. How could either administer the area intelligently without knowing which kind ofcover he was to work toward? Another example: A certain area on a "watershed" Forest was covered with vigorous even aged pine saplings, with a scattering ground cover of non-palatable Ceanothus brush and a few weeds. In the course of an inspection it developed that the ranger had striven for years to stock the area as heavily as possible with cattle, with a view to forcing them to browse the Ceanothus and thus reduce the fire hazard. The inspector noticed that this heavy grazing was destroying all the willows in the water-courses, causing heavy silting by tearing out of banks, in spite of the excellent protection of the watershed by the young pines. He wanted to risk the fire hazard and prevent the...