Forest Reserve Act of 1891

Prior to passing the 1891 act, Congress had been debating public land policy for more than two decades. Major concerns centered around the general theft of public natural resources, as well as the blatant fraud that was occurring under existing homesteading policy.[3] In 1873, Congress had passed the Timber Culture Act, which granted 160 acres (65 ha; 0.65 km²) of public land at no cost to anyone who agreed to plant and care for 40 acres of trees for a period of ten years. However, the new law had numerous loopholes that allowed non-residents to claim land for speculation purposes, and family members to give land to other family members to circumvent formal ownership and avoid taxation.[4] In addition, there was concern for the preservation of watersheds, protection of the forests from fires, and the desire to regulate timber sales.[3]

Early advocates of federal forest reserves included Franklin B. Hough, later the first chief of the United States Division of Forestry, and Harvard botanist George Barrell Emerson, along with other members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The AAAS advocated for the commission of a forest protection study, which Minnesota Congressman Mark H. Dunnell proposed in an 1874 bill. Although that bill failed to pass Congress, Dunnell was successful two years later by adding a rider to an existing agriculture appropriations bill.[3] This legislation created the Office of Special Agent for forest research within the U.S. Department of Agriculture.[5]

Wildfires were considered a primary threat to forests, as large expanses of timber had recently burned in fires such as Wisconsin's Peshtigo fire in 1871. Watershed protection was also a major concern, especially in the Adirondacks; supporters of watershed conservation pointed to the creation of the Adirondack and Catskill Preserve in 1885 as a potential model for future forest preserves. However, over 200 congressional forestry bills introduced from 1871 to 1891 failed to pass;[6] according to historian Harold K. Steen, these failures were "not because of opposition but because there [were] too few advocates to sustain [them] through the legislative process."[3]

Dunnell continued to press for action, however, and intended to repeal the earlier Timber Culture Act, which had resulted in substantial land and timber fraud masquerading as homesteading, and replace it with an improved forest management law. Both provisions ended up in the final bill. The last section of the act signaled a shift in public land policy from disposal to retention by authorizing the president to set aside timber reserves:[3]

Sec. 24. That the President of the United States may, from time to time, set apart and reserve, in any State or Territory having public land bearing forests, in any part of the public lands wholly or in part covered with timber or undergrowth, whether of commercial value or not, as public reservations; and the President shall, by public proclamation, declare the establishment of such reservations and the limits thereof.[6]

The original section 24 was a rider added at the last minute to "An act to repeal timber culture laws, and for other purposes," a massive bill intended to reform public land law. It was added by a joint House-Senate conference committee, but was not referred back to the originating Public Lands Committee of either chamber (an illegal procedure), and instead went straight to a floor vote. According to most historians, neither chamber was made aware of the existence of Section 24 before it being announced for consideration on the House and Senate floors.[6]

The newly added section caused heated debate during deliberations. When it was being read aloud in the Senate, Senator Wilkinson Call of Florida interrupted the proceeding, saying "I shall not willingly vote or consent ... to any proposition which prevents a single acre of the public domain from being set apart and reserved for homes for the people of the United States who shall live upon and cultivate them." Other concerns were raised about the act's "extraordinary and dangerous" granting of power over public lands to the executive branch. In the House, Representative Dunnell (author of the Timber Culture Act that the new bill sought to repeal) argued that the added section was significant enough to warrant consideration on its own as a separate bill. Nevertheless, the act was ultimately passed by both chambers and subsequently signed into law by President Benjamin Harrison on March 3, 1891.[6]

On March 30, less than a month after the act was passed, President Harrison established the Yellowstone Park Timberland Reserve to create a protective boundary around Yellowstone National Park.[7] Harrison would go on to set aside more than 13 million acres (53,000 km²; 20,000 sq mi) as forest reserves, in addition to creating Sequoia, General Grant, and Yosemite National Parks.[8]

President Cleveland continued Harrison's conservation policies by creating more than 25 million acres (100,000 km²; 39,000 sq mi) of forest reserves. 21 million acres (85,000 km²; 33,000 sq mi) of these were designated in a single day: Cleveland issued 13 separate proclamations on February 22, 1897, just two weeks before the end of his final term. This action generated a great deal of controversy in the affected states, mainly in the west; the Seattle Chamber of Commerce noted that even "King George had never attempted so high-handed an invasion upon the rights" of American citizens. The Republican-controlled Congress attempted to invalidate Cleveland's actions by passing an amendment to the Sundry Civil Appropriations Act, a critical funding bill, forcing the Democratic president to choose "between funding the federal government or preserving his forest reserves". Cleveland decided in favor of the government shutdown and pocket-vetoed the bill on his last day in office.[9]

Congress made no further attempt to reverse Cleveland's actions or restrict the president from creating new reserves after Republican William McKinley took office on March 4. In fact, Congress reaffirmed executive authority to designate forest reserves, though the act they passed in June 1897 added language that required that any new reserves must protect forest or watersheds and "furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens of the United States". Although McKinley did reduce the size of a few of his predecessor's reserves, he ultimately expanded the nation's protected forest by over 7 million acres (28,000 km²; 11,000 sq mi).[9]

In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt created the United States Forest Service, naming Gifford Pinchot the first agency chief. Pinchot was put in charge of the forest reserves to manage them "for the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run".[7] In support of this directive, Congress changed the jurisdiction of the reserves from the General Land Office in the Department of the Interior to the new Division of Forestry within the Department of Agriculture.[2]

Two years later in 1907, Congress renamed forest reserves to national forests through provisions of an agriculture appropriations bill. In addition, the provisions prohibited the creation or enlargement of national forests in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, except by act of Congress. After the bill's passage by Congress on February 25, Chief Forester Pinchot and his staff raced to identify an additional 16 million acres (65,000 km²; 25,000 sq mi) of forest in those states, which President Roosevelt designated as forest reserves prior to signing the act into law on March 4.[10] In total, Roosevelt would quadruple the nation's forest reserves from 50 million acres (200,000 km²; 78,000 sq mi) to nearly 200 million acres (810,000 km²; 310,000 sq mi).[9]

Initially section 24 caused substantial confusion as to what the law specifically was intended to allow. The main issue was that the act only authorized the president to set aside forest reserves but not to administer them, nor designate any funding for their management. It also did not establish the purpose for these reserves. As a result, the first such reserves and the natural resources they contained were simply considered off-limits: activities such as logging and livestock grazing were forbidden, prohibitions were placed on hunting and fishing, and even setting foot inside the reserve boundaries was considered illegal. It was not until 1897, after many complaints and near-rebellion in the West, that Congress passed a new law (as an emergency rider to the Sundry Civil Appropriations Act of 1897) setting out guidelines and funding for the administration of the forest reserves.[6]

The passage of the Forest Reserve Act, along with recent establishments of national parks and monuments, signaled a shift in public land policy, from disposal to homesteaders to retention for the public good. The natural resources these reserves contained were to be managed for future generations rather than exploited by private citizens.[3] The act and subsequent environmental policies ultimately resulted in the establishment of 155 national forests, 20 national grasslands, and 20 research and experimental forests; these, plus additional special reservations, total 191 million acres (770,000 km²; 298,000 sq mi) of public land.[11]

• Land Revision Act of 1891
• National Forest Management Act of 1976
• National Forest Service
• Steen, Harold K. (1991). The beginning of the National Forest System. Washington, DC: USDA Forest Service.

• How America started saving national forests
• USDA Forest Service
• National Park Service