Public Lands, Public Debates: A Century of Controversy

Thinking Like a Conservationist

57 Thinking Like a Conservationist Humpty dumpty was as perplexing as anything alice encountered when she melted through the looking glass. Their conversation, although riddled with playful double entendres, was also immensely frustrating for the young girl, who did not always understand what the prickly and precariously perched character meant by the words he uttered. When he said, for instance, that he preferred “un-birthday presents” to birthday presents (for “there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents ... and only one for birthday presents”), he concluded grumpily: “There’s glory for you!” confused by this seeming non sequitur, alice replied: “i don’t know what you mean by ‘glory.’” With a smile of contempt, Humpty dumpty shot back: “Of course you don’t—till i tell you. i meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’” When a puzzled alice objected that “‘glory’ doesn’t mean a “nice knock-down argument,’” Humpty dumpty replied: “When I use a word ... it means just what i choose it to mean— neither more nor less.”1 Humpty dumpty has a point, and nowhere is this more amply confirmed than in the modern applications of a word so dear to the hearts of land-management professionals: conservation. as applied to the names of various contemporary federal, state, and local organizations, it has an elasticity lewis carroll’s egg-like creation would have admired. The oncenamed texas natural Resource conservation commission, for example, had as its goal “clean air, clean water, and safe management of waste”; and as its mission, the protection of the lone star state’s “human and natural resources consistent with sustainable economic development.” its counterpart in the empire state, the new York department of environmental conservation, embraces an even broader mandate and more varied responsibilities. its turf ranges from the management of open space and outdoor recreation to the regulation of the vast bodies of water, notably the Great lakes and the Hudson River; from monitoring the state’s fish, wildlife, and marine species to licensing those who would hunt or trap them. in Maine, the department of conservation is similarly flexible in termsofitsadministrativefocus.itoversees“themanagement,development, and protection of some of Maine’s most special places,” including 17 million acres of forest, 10 million acres of “unorganized territory, 47 parks and historical sites and more than 480,000 acres of public reserved land”; 58 public lands, public debates through its promotion of “balanced use of Maine’s land, forest, water, and mineral resources,” the Maine dOc hopes to benefit the state’s citizens, landowners, and users.2 in these disparate cases, the word conservation is used to identify and reflect these agencies’ attempts—whatever their success—to balance economic development with environmental protection. striking a similar balance is perhaps more difficult to maintain for those organizations with a more explicit, resource-exploitative agenda. The mission statement of the nebraska Oil and Gas conservation commission, whose motto is “Oil serves You every Minute of the day,” seems at pains to link pumping to protection. While its goal is to “foster, encourage, and promote the development, production, and utilization” of the state’s oil and gas reserves, this must be accomplished so that their “greatest ultimate recovery” would allow “landowners, producers, and the general public [to] realize and enjoy the greatest possible good from these vital, irreplaceable natural resources.” More succinct is the guiding language of the neighboring colorado Oil and Gas conservation commission: “promoting the responsible development of colorado’s oil and gas.”3 not all conservationist organizations are squarely fixed on the development of nature’s material riches. specialists in Florida’s department of Wildlife ecology and conservation, a division of the state’s Wildlife extension service, serve a critical educational function—developing programming and information that “will contribute to the solution of natural resource problems of concern to the people of Florida.” The same can be said for the conservation education division of the colorado state Forest service, which “approaches environmental education from a holistic perspective that stresses the interconnectedness of all living and non-living things.” among its programs is Project Redirect, in which some of the state’s “most difficult juveniles” are set to work restoring battered landscapes as they rehabilitate themselves. This twining of environmental outcomes and social ends is also consistent with the activities of the california conservation corps and the Wisconsin conservation corps; the latter was established in 1983 “as a means to simultaneously provide...