North America’s Forests: Page 8 Endangered Species Handbook

Forest

North America’s Forests: Page 8

The ancient forests of the West Coast once stretched from northern California nearly unbroken through coastal Canada to southeastern Alaska, covering 70,000 square miles. Logging by Europeans began in the 19th century, and as the forests fell, a few voices were raised in protest. Even Horace Greeley, a promoter of "progress" and settlement of the West, exhorted Americans in 1851 to "spare, preserve and cherish some portion of your primitive forest" (Peck 1990). It was the fiery Scottish wilderness advocate John Muir who finally succeeded in convincing the US government to protect some of these ancient forests. He settled near California's Yosemite wilderness in the 1860s and began passionately denouncing the destroyers of nature, from loggers to livestock operators. Muir pointed to the political influences that allowed destruction to occur. During the 19th century, livestock swarmed in great numbers over wilderness areas. Muir described sheep as "hoofed locusts" and, in trying to get them removed from Yosemite, said, "As sheep advance, flowers, vegetation, grass, soil, plenty, and poetry vanish" (Peck 1990). When he saw the ancient Sequoias being cut, Muir was outraged:

Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries since Christ's time--and long before that--God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but He cannot save them from fools--only Uncle Sam can do that.

Muir proved to be an adept politician, making friends with influential magazine editors and railroad magnates; President Theodore Roosevelt camped out with Muir in Yosemite in 1903 (Peck 1990). Through Muir’s influence, Yosemite became a national park in 1906, followed by Sequoia, Mt. Rainier, Crater Lake, Glacier and Mesa Verde National Parks (Peck 1990). In 1892, Muir established The Sierra Club conservation organization. If not for Muir's courageous and effective work on behalf of these forests, it is likely that very little old-growth forest land would remain today.