Empire forestry and the origins of conservationism and environmentalism: 1855-193

When and where did the environmental movement begin? I argue that a scientific ecology emerged under the auspices of British imperialism and provided the impetus to most environmental initiatives in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century To understand how a public endued with the principles of laissez-faire reversed in such short order a century-old policy of government land disposal, I examine how public ownership of land came to be celebrated, with a newly defined professional corps of government foresters---such as Dietrich Brandis and Gifford Pinchot---feted as popular heroes. Hard headed environmentalists and legislators found in empire forestry a ready-made model to persuade the public that the reservations of vast areas of the public domain would serve not only environmental, but industrial, settlement, and budgetary purposes. The empire forestry matrix of government reservations, fire protection, and revenue-enhancing forests solved the tension between romantic preservationist notions and laissez-faire. By escaping a romantic sentimentalism (exemplified by Yellowstone park) empire forestry gave the compromise from which modern environmentalism emerged: it posed environmental problems and solutions in stark relief to foresters, legislators and the public. This book traces the international trail of modern environmentalism from India, under Lord Dalhousie's forest charter, to the British colonies in Africa and Australasia where it matured, and finally to Canada, the United States and other parts of the globe where environmentalism permanently entered the pantheon of democratic political creeds.