1. Two of Gifford Pinchots achievements that started the philosophy and practice of conservation was the degree he received in Europe. When he came back to the United States, he brought back the things he had learned and started the nation wide effort to preserve our forests. After successfully instituting the first systematic forest program in the United States on the Vanderbilt estate in North Carolina, Pinchots gained backing from Theodore Roosevelt, the president at that time. Pinchot went on to establish a two-year graduate school for forestry at Yale University. Pinchots greatest achievement was the create of the National Forest Service and with the help of the Roosevelt administration preserved millions of forests acres that were put under the control of the federal government.

2. John Muir was an active conservationist who founded the Sierra Club and several national parks. John Muir believed that the forests should be preserved and not used as a long term commercial asset. This clashed with Pinchots beliefs because Pinchots also believed the forests should be preserved but used as a renewable resource and that they should be harvested at a rate that could be sustained. This lead to Pinchot leading a group of people calling themselves the “conservationists” and Muir leading a group called the “preservationists.”

3. As the first federal land managers, the Forest Service faced many conflicting interests: cattle ranchers, shepherds, miners, loggers, homesteaders, developers of water for drinking, irrigation and hydropower, as well as those who favored no use of the national forests. Forest officers, given broad authority to make local decisions,