2007/07/01 by Joel Orth, Joel J. Orth
Environmental Science · #Forest Management and Policy #Rangeland and Wildlife Management #American Environmental and Regional History
paper · doi:10.3098/ah.2007.81.3.333
During the Shelterbelt Project of the 1930s, foresters trained and instilled with Progressive-era values confronted an uncooperative public and nature on the Great Plains. Foresters assumed planting trees in shelterbelts was primarily a scientific and technical task. However, they quickly compro mised technical guidelines in the face of bureaucratic pressure and local desire. Foresters assumed compromise undermined technical success, but this was too simple an explanation. In some cases, such as the overuse of cottonwood, public pressure undermined long-term success, but in other cases, such as the narrowing of belt width, public pressure improved long term prospects. Public unwillingness to engage in drawn-out and uncertain solutions and a bureaucratic refusal to open up the planning process con sistently undermined the overall success of the project. Conservation plan ning in a democratic state is inherently multifaceted: political and social realities demand equal billing with technical ones, and natural and scientific uncertainties require that conservation planning be a process, rather than an immediate solution. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S FIRST major experiments in cooperative conservation began during the early years of the Dust Bowl. In 1933 the newly elected president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, set about searching for solutions-or at least palliatives-to the growing economic and envi ronmental disaster on the Great Plains. Typically, President Roosevelt encouraged a multitude of competing plans, including new agencies like the Soil Conservation Service and Agricultural Adjustment Administra tion, and new projects within old agencies like the Shelterbelt Project of the Forest Service. As the largest agency with the longest history of JOEL ORTH teaches history and is the social sciences teaching credential advisor at Cal Poly State University-San Luis Obispo. He received his MA and PhD from the Agricul tural History and Rural Studies Program at Iowa State University. This article is based on material from his dissertation The Conservation Landscape: Trees and Nature on the Great Plains, which won the 2004 Fite Award for the best dissertation on rural and agricultural history.