The History of Private Land Conservation Special Collection

A Collaboration by:

In recent years the conservation community has begun to grapple with the sometimes exclusionary nature of the legacies of public and private land conservation history. In this Special Collection, available through the FHS database, users can search to find materials (books, articles, oral histories, film, etc.) related to the history of land conservation throughout the United States, with emphasis on communities that have been historically under-represented or excluded from the land conservation movement. The Special Collection contains over 800 entries, including a unique collection of over 300 photographs depicting individuals, organizations, and topics related to conservation. It features enhanced search options and display/printing features, and will be continually added to in the future.

Who Should Use: Intended for leadership of land trust organizations but also for anyone interested in the history of private land conservation such as environmental historians, students, teachers, researchers, scholars, and journalists. Tribal members, minority landowners, and many other demographic groups will also find the database useful.

Origin: The “Special Collection” is a subset of a resource catalogue developed by the Forest History Society in collaboration with the Land Trust Alliance.

For more detailed information on the Collection, please read the sections below.

About the Special Collection

To access the Special Collection, click here.

Users can search the Special Collection to find desired content on the history of land conservation. The Special Collection features enhanced search return and display/printing features, as well as a unique collection of photographs.

The Special Collection is organized into four categories: Resource Type, Region, Demographic Group, and Pillars of Land Conservation History.

Under Resource Type, you will find archival collections, articles (peer-reviewed and popular), books, blogs, dissertations & theses, film & video, maps, oral history interviews, pamphlets, and reports. The Special Collection also includes a unique assortment of photographs not listed in the Educational Resources Catalogue. These images depict individuals, organizations, and topics related to conservation.

Materials are also divided into nine Regions: Mid-Atlantic (DE, MD, PA, NJ, VA, WV, DC); Midwest (IL, IN, IA, KS, MI, MN, MO, NE, OH, WI); Mountain West (CO, ID, MT, ND, SD, WY); Northeast (CT, ME, MA, NH, NY, RI, VT); Pacific West (CA, OR, WA); Southeast (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN); Southwest (AZ, NV, NM, OK, TX, UT); Outside Contigious United States (OCONUS) (AL, HI, Pacific Territories, PR, VI); and National (resources that consider the United States as a whole).

This collection emphasizes communities that have been historically under-represented or excluded from the land conservation movement. These communities are represented under Demographic Groups: African Americans; Asian Americans; Hispanic Americans; Indigenous Peoples; Latin Americans; LGBTQIA+; People with Disabilities; Women; and Other.

Figure 1. The five Pillars of Land Conservation History provide four different lenses to examine and communicate critical land conservation history outcomes.

The Pillars of Conservation History are another way to understand and communicate conservation history through various lenses. The five Pillars of Land Conservation History include:

Pillar 1: Policy, Legal, and Treaty History
Pillar 2: Property-related Financial, Legal, and Technical Tools
Pillar 3: Culture
Pillar 4: Individuals, Organizations, and Movements
Pillar 5: Conservation History Outcomes - land ownership, access, and management

How to Use the Special Collection

The special collection can be accessed through this link, and can also be found on our Research Portal Homepage.

From the Research Portal Homepage, hover over "Browse" in the top left and click on “Special Collection: History of Land Conservation.”

Within Special Collection page, you will see a menu on the left-hand side of drop down lists. Click on any category to expand the content and begin browsing for materials.

You can limit the scope of your search further by using the Filter Results bar on the top right-hand side. Simply enter a term/keyword.

One unique feature of the Special Collection is that is allows you to easily select records which can then be saved or printed. To select a record, click the checkbox next to your chosen resource.

After you have made all of your selections, click on the printer icon located on the top left side of the screen.

A new window will pop up with your selections. Click the Click here to print this window.

From the print screen, you should also be able to save your list as a PDF.

Sample Image Gallery

: [1956] [Boy Scouts of America.] [Three men and two boy scouts stand in front of a “Conservation Progress Chart” that lists various merit badges earned by individual scouts and the conservation activities completed by scout troop 307 from Cicero, Illinois.][James F. Kohout (far right), yard manager of Edward Hines Lumber Company in Cicero, presented a number of conservation awards to troop 307 on behalf of American Forest Products Industries, Washington, D.C.]

: [no date] [Girl Scouts learning about forest conservation in Mississippi.]

: George Steig demonstrates proper tree planting procedure to an Explorer Unit of the Boy Scouts of America at Longview [Washington], May 1945.

: [Four women (Margaret March-Mount on left) stand in front of Minnesota Greyhound bus parked on city street. The 1940 Conservation Caravan was scheduled to begin from the Curtis Hotel in Minneapolis on June 17th. Scheduled caravan stops were to include Gooseberry State Park, George Washington Memorial Forest, Ely, Clef Camp on Lake Pokegama, the CCC camp at Garrison, and other locations.]

: Quinault Reservation boundary. Taken October 19, 1930.

: [Quinault Reservation boundary.] Same view. Taken September, 1944.

: [Quinault Reservation boundary.] Reservation boundary taken April 19, 1972.

: [1934 Douglas-fir plantation in Olympic National Forest.] [1962]

: August 1944. Upper Beaver Creek, Clearwater National Forest, Idaho.

: August 1969. [Upper Beaver Creek area.] Cutover areas, repeat. Clearwater National Forest, Idaho.

: In 1956 when Georgia-Pacific Corp. bought this Oregon timberland it looked like this, the desolate victim of lightning fires and old-time logging, now outmoded. Part of a 62,000-acre Coquille, Oregon, certified tree farm, it was salvage logged by G-P to remove debris, then both aerially reseeded and hand-planted with Douglas fir between 1958 and 1960. The company set up marked camera points to record rehabilitation growth from year to year.

: View from exactly the same point today, only 16 years of regrowth later, shows beautiful fir forest with trees large enough for first thinning to speed new growth, and younger trees still coming in beside fire protection road. Trees at left will be ready to harvest for homes and paper products in barely 15 years under modern continuous-growth forestry. Area now is full of wildlife again, including one of Oregon’s famed Roosevelt elk herds.

: Beyond the clear-cut setting, logged in 1957, appears an even aged stand of hemlock poles, on right-hand slope, that originated as a result of the 1922 blowdown. Dick Sterling, Forester of the Aloha Lumber Co. states that the larger even-aged hemlock stand, in background, apparently followed an extensive blowdown in the year 1840. March 3, 1959.

: [Beyond the clear-cut setting, logged in 1957 , appears an even aged stand of hemlock poles, on right-hand slope, that originated as a result of the 1922 blowdown. Dick Sterling, Forester of the Aloha Lumber Co. states that the larger even-aged hemlock stand, in background, apparently followed an extensive blowdown in the year 1840. March 3, 1959.] Same location April 18, 1972.

: Onnie E. Paakonen, Forester, of the Hoquiam Subagency staff, in Douglas-fir plantation on a cutting on a portion of the State of Washington’s sustained yield unit, in the Salmon River’s drainage north of Quinault Reservation. This photo taken on September 24, 1964.

: [Onnie E. Paakonen, Forester, of the Hoquiam Subagency staff, in Douglas-fir plantation on a cutting on a portion of the State of Washington’s sustained yield unit, in the Salmon River’s drainage north of Quinault Reservation. Same stump. Onnie Paakonen looking at the same tree. Taken April 20, 1972

: [1932] Western White Pine photographed from same camera point each year from 1931 to 1948. located six miles west of Elk River, Idaho.

: [1937] Western White Pine photographed from same camera point each year from 1931 to 1948. located six miles west of Elk River, Idaho.

: [1942] Western White Pine photographed from same camera point each year from 1931 to 1948. located six miles west of Elk River, Idaho.

: [1947] Western White Pine photographed from same camera point each year from 1931 to 1948. located six miles west of Elk River, Idaho.

: [Mountainside landscape change.] [no date]

: [Mountainside landscape change.] [no date]

: Taken in an unburned part of the south end of the Cook Creek Unit, Quinault Indian Reservation. These areas were logged in 1927 and 1930, under the high-lead system. [1937]