The United States - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 21

During his presidency, Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass the
Antiquities Act of 1906. The impetus was the plundering of petrified
wood and Pueblo Indian antiques in Arizona and New Mexico. With the
extension of railroads, pillagers would simply go to the Petrified Forest or
historic pueblos and load up their wagons, then ship them east for sale.
No law prevented this. The Antiquities Act gave the president authority to
declare an area to be a National Monument. To protect another aspect of
nature—forests—Roosevelt appointed his friend, Gifford Pinchot, to head
the new Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture. Its purpose was to
manage and protect forests owned by the national government. Most were
under the control of the Department of the Interior, which had a reputation
for not caring much therefore; it needed to be policed by another depart-
ment. Later ownership was transferred to the Forest Service. Pinchot's goal
for the forests was less to preserve, and more to provide lumber for houses.
With a growing population, Americans needed housing.
Pinchot was the first American in the new profession of scientific for-
estry. As a young man, he became interested in the subject but realized
that no US school taught it, so he went to France where he enrolled in a
forestry school. The French and German schools, however, concentrated
on managing the cultivated, private forests of rich landowners, not the
virgin forests found in the United States. Taking the European approach
often put Pinchot into bitter conflict with John Muir. Pinchot's legacy was
that the US Forest Service saw its mission as providing timber, with pro-
tection being only one of several further purposes, along with grazing,
mining, and recreation.
During this period, a conflict developed between the United States and
Canada over an attempt to divert water in the St. Mary's and Milk rivers
that flowed across the border between Montana and Alberta. The solution
was the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, which embodied a compromise,
and went on to establish a framework to mediate future conflicts. It estab-
lished the permanent International Joint Commission with three members
from each country. Two years later the Americans, Canadians, Russians,
and Japanese signed the Fur Seal Treaty to protect seals and otters in
the Pacific.
Protection of migratory birds was another US-Canadian issue. Fashion-
able ladies of the era wanted elaborate hats with big plumes from wild
egrets and herons, threatening them with extinction. To protect at least
some, President Roosevelt proclaimed a bird refuge on Pelican Island in
Florida. A further problem was that hunters shot millions of birds like