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5: “Wealth and Beauty”: John Muir and Forest Conservation
- University of New Mexico Press
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1 105 2 chapter five 1 “Wealth and Beauty” John Muir and Forest Conservation Ronald Eber 2 1 John Muir was a lover of trees and forests. Upon leaving his home in Wisconsin, he “went off strolling into the woods botanizing.”1 By the late 1800s, he was the national spokesman for a new appreciation of the American wilderness and the leading public advocate for the protection of America’s forests from destruction and waste. To Muir, mountain wilderness and forests were places of indispensable natural wealth and beauty. They had both material and spiritual value. Reconciling the emerging conflict between these broad values was difficult for Muir, as it is for conservationists today. Muir’s views about how a“civilized nation”should “care” for the nation’s great forests are the focus of this chapter.2 Muir’s inspirational writings have primarily been used to support the establishment of national parks, monuments, and wilderness areas and more recently to stop commercial logging in national forests. However, Muir recognized logging and timber management as legitimate uses of public forestlands . His ideas about the need to protect forests and the appropriate use and management of forestlands are not as well known as his ideas about the need to establish national parks and other preserves. Muir’s specific role in the establishment of Federal Forest Reserves and the subsequent National Forest System has received some study, but a thorough analysis has not been undertaken and is beyond the scope of this chapter. This chapter will look at the evolution of Muir’s writings about forests and forest management in the context of his time and examine the different reasons Muir uses to explain why and how the nation’s forests should be protected . Specifically, it will examine the early influences on Muir’s ideas about forestry and his shifting views between 1876 and 1898 about (1) the value and importance of forests; (2) the harm caused to forests by various activities, especially grazing and timber cutting; and (3) the need for the preservation and conservation of forests. Finally, it will speculate on what Muir’s views might be on some of today’s forestry issues. Hopefully a careful analysis of Ronald Eber 106 1 fig. 5.1. John Muir poses in front of a tree [August 1902]. John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library,© 1984 Muir-Hanna Trust. [52.91.255.225] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 19:52 GMT) “Wealth and Beauty” his views will emerge that can guide the followers of John Muir involved in today’s crusades concerning the use and management of the public lands in the National Forest System. Preaching God’s Forestry Muir’s writings remained fairly constant about the need to preserve forests, but he clearly shifted his emphasis on why they should be protected. Muir continually preached a new appreciation of nature and the American wilderness . His first essays and articles on the forests of the Sierra were descriptive of the trees and set forth Muir’s great love for his new home in the wilderness .3 To Muir, mountain wilderness was a sacred place—to be revered rather than abused. He recognized that people needed wilderness to escape the pressures of modern life and that the mountains and forests are not only important sources of timber but also “fountains of life.”4 His views were inspired by the leaders of the transcendental movement, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. They popularized a new view of nature that celebrated its beauty as sacred, emphasizing the spiritual rather than material values of wild nature. This view urged the preservation of forests and wild places for the public to use and enjoy for contemplation or recreation. These views are clearly evident in all of Muir’s earliest writings about the Sierra wilderness and the nation’s extensive forestlands.5 As Muir’s exploration of the Sierra continued in the early 1870s, he began to take note of the extensive logging and sheep grazing that was harming Yosemite Valley, the giant sequoia trees, and the beauty of the Sierra. It was in the Sierra Nevada that Muir became alarmed about the increasing harm caused by the indiscriminate grazing and logging to the forests he loved. This angered Muir and motivated him in 1876 to first speak out against the “pure destruction” he witnessed, to urge the protection of these important areas to an increasingly interested public audience.6 At...