Page 192 - Environment: The Science Behind the Stories

Early U.S. environmental policy promoted European powers for control of the continent. It also wholly
development displaced the millions of Native Americans who had long
inhabited these lands. U.S. environmental policy of this era
U.S. environmental policy was created in three periods. reflected the perception that Western lands were vast and inex-
Laws enacted during the first period, from the 1780s to the haustible in natural resources. The following are a few laws
late 1800s, accompanied the westward expansion of the typical of this era:
nation and were intended mainly to promote settlement and • The Homestead Act of 1862 allowed any citizen to claim,
the extraction and use of the continent’s abundant natural for a $16 fee, 65 ha (160 acres) of public land by liv-
resources. Among these early laws were the General Land ing there for 5 years and cultivating the land or building
Ordinances of 1785 and 1787, which gave the federal gov- a home (Figure 7.7a). Those who could pay $176 were
ernment the right to manage unsettled lands and created a granted a waiting period of only 14 months.
grid system for surveying them and readying them for pri-
vate ownership. From 1785 to the 1870s, the government • The General Mining Act of 1872 legalized and promoted
promoted settlement in the Midwest and West and doled mining by private individuals on public lands for just $5
out to its citizens the lands it had expropriated from Native per acre, subject to local customs, with no government
Americans. oversight (Figure 7.7b). This law is still on the books today
Western settlement provided U.S. citizens with means to (pp. 200, 664).
achieve prosperity and also served to relieve crowding in East- • The Timber Culture Act of 1873 granted 65 ha (160 acres)
ern cities. It expanded the geographical reach of the United to any citizen promising to cultivate trees on one-quarter
States at a time when the young nation was still jostling with of that area (Figure 7.7c).

Figure 7.7 Early U.S. environmental policy promoted settlement and natural resource extraction.
Settlers (a) moved west with the help of land policies such as the Homestead Act of 1862. Mining activi-
ties (b) on public lands were largely unregulated under laws such as the General Mining Act of 1872. The
nation’s ancient forests were cut (c), even as the Timber Culture Act of 1873 promoted tree planting on
settled agricultural lands.
(a) Settlers in Nebraska, circa 1860 (b) Nineteenth-century mining operation, Alaska

(c) Loggers felling an old-growth tree, Washington CHAPTER 7 • Envi R onm E n TA l Poli C y : mA king D EC i si ons A n D s olving P R obl E m s

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