Pinchot address on government forestry abroadIn 1890, Gifford Pinchot read a paper comparing how forest management was better developed in other countries than in the U.S. Aged 25, he addressed a joint session of the American Economic Association and the American Forestry Association, at Washington, D.C. After reporting his personal observations of techniques in Germany, France and Switzerland, he also spoke about practices in Australia, India, South Africa and other countries. He ended: “We are surrounded by the calamitous results of the course that we are now pursuing. In fact, it seems as though there were almost no civilized or semi-civilized country in either hemisphere which cannot stand to us as an example or a warning. ... The care of the forests is the duty of the nation.” He became the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service in 1905.« |
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