The Birth of Public Lands | American Forest Fires Clip | EarthX - video Dailymotion

EarthxMedia

EarthX Website: https://earthxmedia.com/    How Gifford Pinchot and Theodore Roosevelt's plan to create and protect public lands kickstarted the fire industrial complex.    About American Forest Fires:  Are government policies and bureaucracy the REAL fire starters in America? Are answers to a major crisis staring us in the face? Learn what brought us to this point, and the innovative solutions which could keep disaster from setting nature ablaze.    This clip comes from Season 1, Episode 1: "Burning Down the House"    EarthX  Love Our Planet.  The Official Network of Earth Day.    About Us:      At EarthX, we believe our planet is a pretty special place. The people, landscapes, and critters are likely unique to the entire universe, so we consider ourselves lucky to be here. We are committed to protecting the environment by inspiring conservation and sustainability, and our programming along with our range of expert hosts support this mission. We’re glad you’re with us.     EarthX is a media company dedicated to inspiring people to care about the planet. We take an omni channel approach to reach audiences of every age through its robust 24/7 linear channel distributed across cable and FAST outlets, along with dynamic, solution oriented short form content on social and digital platforms. EarthX is home to original series, documentaries and snackable content that offer sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. EarthX is the only network that delivers entertaining and inspiring topics that impact and inspire our lives on climate and sustainability.      EarthX Website: https://earthxmedia.com/    Follow Us:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earthxtv/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/earthxtv  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/earthxtv    How to watch:   United States:   - Spectrum  - AT&T U-verse (1267)  - DIRECTV (267)  - Philo  - FuboTV  - Plex  - Fire TV       #EarthDay #Environment #Sustainability #Eco-friendly #Conservation #EarthxTV #EarthX

Transcript

00:00If you go back to the late 1800s, you had an explosion in populations and cities in

00:13the Midwest.

00:14And those cities were basically built of wood.

00:18Almost all of New England was clear-cut.

00:22The Forest Service was established in roughly 1905, during the Roosevelt administration.

00:29And Gilbert Pinchot was his right arm for conservation.

00:33It was the over-cutting, the clear-cutting, the massive forestry use in the late 1800s

00:42that created the impetus for Pinchot and Roosevelt protecting our forests, particularly in the

00:47West.

00:50At the time, unclaimed federal land, called the public domain, was auctioned off to fund

00:55the government.

00:56But Pinchot and Roosevelt realized, if these valuable forests were auctioned, they'd quickly

01:01be clear-cut and destroyed by the lumber barons.

01:05These fears weren't misguided.

01:07At that time, the rate of logging was so great that it was predicted only 60 years of timber

01:12supply were left.

01:14So Pinchot proposed something new, establishing government forests that would be both protected

01:20and productive, through careful scientific management.

01:25In the wake of the devastation of our forests, you had the conservation movement come in

01:30and propose this radical concept called public land.

01:33And the Forest Service was established to protect this public land and to police it,

01:39to ensure that people were not extracting the resources from it at a high scale.

01:44In 1905, the Forest Service was established to sustain healthy, diverse, and productive

01:49forests and grasslands for present and future generations.

01:53But soon, a catastrophe would rock the West that would make Pinchot's case for active

01:58management much stronger.

02:02Fire

02:08The Great Fire of 1910 raged for two days, August 20 and 21.

02:14It was started when coal-fired locomotives traveling through a previously logged forest

02:19shot sparks onto the logging waste, called slash, left behind.

02:24The slash left on the ground to dry all summer was a tinder time bomb.

02:32In that particular conflagration, Gifford Pinchot found an opportunity to explain how

02:40and why sustainable forestry could work.

02:45Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, they made a political decision to present the Forest

02:51Service as a fire suppression entity.

02:55They understood the role of natural fire on the ecosystem, but they also understood the

03:01fear that the American public, and therefore Congress, had of catastrophic wildfire.

03:07The Forest Service set up a military-style system, building a network of lookouts and

03:11ranger stations to catch fires as soon as they started.

The Birth of Public Lands | American Forest Fires Clip | EarthX

Category

Transcript

Recommended