Wise use
Encyclopedia
The wise use movement in the United States
is a loose-knit coalition of groups promoting the expansion of private property rights and reduction of government regulation
of publicly held property
. This includes advocacy of expanded use by commercial and public interests, seeking increased access to public lands, and often opposition to government intervention. Wise use proponents describes human use of the environment as "stewardship
of the land, the water and the air" for the benefit of human beings. The wise use movement arose from opposition to the environmental movement, and critics see it as anti-environmentalist
.
Some organized opposition efforts have included environmental legislation such as wetland protection, and the Endangered Species Act
. The group critiques most environmentalist ideology
as radical
, and argues that most such ideology aims to make fundamental changes to the mainstream
political order.
, populists
, and religious and political conservatives
. The movement became known as "wise use" after the 1988 Multiple Use Strategy Conference in Reno, Nevada
. The movement includes or is supported by most anti-environmentalist groups, by companies in the resource extraction
industry, by land development
companies, and by libertarian and minarchist
organizations. The movement was most active in the Western United States in the late 1980s and 1990s.
, to industry-backed public relations
groups and mainstream think tank
s, to some militia
groups and fundamentalist
religious groups. Major organizations promoting wise use ideas include Alliance for America, the American Land Rights Association
, the Cato Institute
, the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise
, People for the West, the Blue Ribbon Coalition, and the Heartland Institute
.
Most members of the wise use movement, including the related County Movement, share a belief in individual rights, as opposed to the authority of the federal government, in particular with regard to the rights of land use. They argue that the environmental movement is both anti-private property and anti-people. While some in the wise use movement have strongly anti-environmental views, others believe that the free market, rather than government regulation, will better protect the environment.
residents suffer a disproportionate impact from environmental regulations, and that the environmental movement is biased toward the attitudes of urban
elite
s, ignoring the rural perspective. Opponents observe that the extractive forces behind the wise use movement harm rural residents more and prey on the independence of rural residents - preaching the "right to ride" when behind that is the desire to strip mine and clearcut
using unsustainable methods. Some environmentalists disagree with the Sierra Club's "no-cut forest" policy. Steve Thompson wrote the goal of the policy should be to "provide greater flexibility to achieve true forest restoration. A blanket, one-size-fits-all 'zero cut' policy severely restricts the Sierra Club's ability to provide solutions to complex forest mismanagement problems.".
helped organize a Multiple Use Strategy Conference in Reno, Nevada
in 1988. Arnold, a vice-president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise
and advocate of the "right to own property and use nature's resources for the benefit of mankind" helped produce a 25-point Wise Use Agenda.
The 25-point Agenda included initiatives seeking to ban commercial use of public lands for timber, mining, and oil, and to open recreational wilderness areas for easier access by the general public. Critics point out that Ron Arnold has been quoted as saying his goal is to "destroy the environmental movement".
According to Arnold, many in the wise use movement believe the possibility of unlimited economic growth
, in which environmental and social problems can be mitigated by market economy
and the use of technology. In his book Ecology Wars, which has been called the "Bible" of the wise use movement, Arnold writes: "Environmentalism is an institutionalized movement of certain people with a certain ideology about man and nature" and that "the goal of our ecology wars should be to defeat environmentalism." Arnold claims that environmentalism is "the excess baggage of anti-technology, of anti-civilization, of anti-humanity, and of institutionalized lust for political power."
.
to ecological goals such as improvement of habitat, largely as a response to the environmental movement. The resultant reduction in timber harvest contributed to the closure of sawmills and the layoff of loggers and other workers. Some members of the wise use movement objected to what they saw as a shifting of control of federal land resources from local to outside, urban interests. They argued that the National Forests were established for the benefit of the local community. They cite Gifford Pinchot
, who wrote "It is the duty of the Forest Service to see to it that the timber, water-powers, mines, and every other resource of the forests is used for the benefit of the people who live in the neighborhood or who may have a share in the welfare of each locality." Wise use members have also argued that continued access to public lands is necessary to maintain the health, culture and traditions of local communities.
Similarly Jill M. Belsky wrote:
Some critics of the wise use movement claim that the strong rhetoric used has deepened divisions between opposing interest groups, and has indirectly increased violence and threats of violence against environmental groups and public employees. "Many observers noted that Wise Use activity in some areas overlapped heavily with the 1990s formation and growth of militias, self-styled volunteer paramilitary organizations presciently committed to their own version of homeland security."
Environmental historian Richard White has criticized Wise Use for upholding the rights of large landowners at the expense of working rural people in his essay, "'Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?': Work and Nature."
Stephenie Hendricks claimed in her book Divine Destruction that wise use is in part "being driven by biblical fundamentalists who believe exhausting natural resources will hasten the Second Coming of Jesus Christ."
's book The War Against the Greens contends that the wise use movement is not a collection of grassroots uprisings, but a set of astroturfing
movements created by big business. Carl Deal
, author of The Greenpeace
Guide to Anti-Environmental Organizations also makes the same claim: that wise use groups give the appearance of being popular grassroots
movements, but are actually front organization
s for industry groups with a financial interest in the movement's agenda. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
also described this conspiracy against the environment by wise use organizations in his 2004 book Crimes Against Nature.
These critics have largely portrayed so-called "grassroots" groups as being front groups and rural Westerners as serving as dupes for extractive industries and their interests. However, while corporate power played an important role in the wise use movement, the relationship between rural westerners and extractive industries was not a result of individual citizens blindly accepting corporate narratives; instead, wise use was an alliance between groups with similar goals regarding private property rights and access to public lands. Corporations also were better able to connect with rural residents because, according to James McCarthy, "[c]orporations were in fact often more sensitive to the region's cultural politics than many environmentalists and so were better able to engage culture for instrumental purposes."
and Jeffrey St. Clair
wrote: “The Wise Use movement, led by former Sierra Clubber Ron Arnold and staked (like the big Greens) by oil companies, was able to score many hits and rally populist opposition precisely because so many of the charges rang true. The mainstream environmental movement was elitist, highly paid, detached from the people, indifferent to the working class, and a firm ally of big government.... The environmental movement is now accurately perceived as just another well-financed and cynical special interest group, its rancid infrastructure supported by Democratic Party operatives and millions in grants from corporate foundations.”
, to describe his concept of sustainable harvest of natural resources.
Today's wise use coalition has appropriated a nineteenth-century term. According to historian Douglas McCleery, the idea of "conservation as wise use" of natural resources began with conservation leader Gifford Pinchot in the late nineteenth century. The original "wise use" movement was a product of the Progressive Era
, and included the concept of multiple use—public land can be used simultaneously for recreation, for timber, for mining, and for wildlife habitat. The multiple-use and wise use concepts advocated by Pinchot reflected the view that nature's resources should be scientifically managed so as "to protect the basic productivity of the land and its ability to serve future generations."
The modern use of the term "wise use" to refer to opposition to the environmental movement dates to the publication of Ron Arnold's book Wise Use Agenda in 1989. The wise use movement has it roots in both the earlier "Sagebrush Rebellion
" in the western United States during the late 1970s and to the earlier opposition to the formation of the national forests.
However, unlike the Sagebrush Rebellion, which consisted largely of the formation of industry public relations groups by resource extraction
industries and corporations such as Coors and Co, wise use included grass-roots groups. Ron Arnold argued that the inclusion of citizen groups would make the movement more effective In 1979 in Logging Management magazine Arnold wrote: “Citizen activist groups, allied to the forest industry, are vital to our future survival. They can speak for us in the public interest where we ourselves cannot. They are not limited by liability, contract law or ethical codes... industry must come to support citizen activist groups, providing funds, materials, transportation, and most of all, hard facts.”
McCarthy wrote:
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
is a loose-knit coalition of groups promoting the expansion of private property rights and reduction of government regulation
Regulation
Regulation is administrative legislation that constitutes or constrains rights and allocates responsibilities. It can be distinguished from primary legislation on the one hand and judge-made law on the other...
of publicly held property
Public property
Public property is property, which is dedicated to the use of the public. It is a subset of state property. The term may be used either to describe the use to which the property is put, or to describe the character of its ownership...
. This includes advocacy of expanded use by commercial and public interests, seeking increased access to public lands, and often opposition to government intervention. Wise use proponents describes human use of the environment as "stewardship
Stewardship
Stewardship is an ethic that embodies responsible planning and management of resources. The concept of stewardship has been applied in diverse realms, including with respect to environment, economics, health, property, information, and religion, and is linked to the concept of sustainability...
of the land, the water and the air" for the benefit of human beings. The wise use movement arose from opposition to the environmental movement, and critics see it as anti-environmentalist
Anti-environmentalism
Anti-environmentalism is a backlash against the environmental movement. Anti-environmentalists believe that the Earth is not as fragile as environmentalists maintain, citing its 5 billion year existence...
.
Some organized opposition efforts have included environmental legislation such as wetland protection, and the Endangered Species Act
Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973, it was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and...
. The group critiques most environmentalist ideology
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
as radical
Radical environmentalism
Radical environmentalism, is a grassroots branch of the larger environmental movement that emerged out of an ecocentrism-based frustration with the co-option of mainstream environmentalism...
, and argues that most such ideology aims to make fundamental changes to the mainstream
Mainstream
Mainstream is, generally, the common current thought of the majority. However, the mainstream is far from cohesive; rather the concept is often considered a cultural construct....
political order.
Background to the "movement"
A range of groups belong to the wise use movement, including industry, grass-roots organizations of loggers, mill workers, ranchers, farmers, miners, off-road vehicle users, and property owners. It also includes libertariansLibertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
, populists
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...
, and religious and political conservatives
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
. The movement became known as "wise use" after the 1988 Multiple Use Strategy Conference in Reno, Nevada
Reno, Nevada
Reno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area...
. The movement includes or is supported by most anti-environmentalist groups, by companies in the resource extraction
Resource extraction
The related terms natural resource extraction both refer to the practice of locating, acquiring and selling natural resources....
industry, by land development
Land development
Land development refers to altering the landscape in any number of ways such as:* changing landforms from a natural or semi-natural state for a purpose such as agriculture or housing...
companies, and by libertarian and minarchist
Minarchism
Minarchism has been variously defined by sources. It is a libertarian capitalist political philosophy. In the strictest sense, it maintains that the state is necessary and that its only legitimate function is the protection of individuals from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud, and...
organizations. The movement was most active in the Western United States in the late 1980s and 1990s.
Major organizations
According to McCarthy (2002), the most prominent wise use groups receive most of their support from resource extraction industries. The policies and political orientations of groups in the wise use movement range from some who self-identify as free-market environmentalistsFree-market environmentalism
Free-market environmentalism is a position that argues that the free market, property rights, and tort law provide the best tools to preserve the health and sustainability of the environment...
, to industry-backed public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
groups and mainstream think tank
Think tank
A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
s, to some militia
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
groups and fundamentalist
Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism is strict adherence to specific theological doctrines usually understood as a reaction against Modernist theology. The term "fundamentalism" was originally coined by its supporters to describe a specific package of theological beliefs that developed into a movement within the...
religious groups. Major organizations promoting wise use ideas include Alliance for America, the American Land Rights Association
American Land Rights Association
The American Land Rights Association is a Wise Use organization based in Battle Ground, Washington. The group describes itself as "dedicated to the wise-use of our resources, access to our Federal lands and the protection of our private property rights."...
, the Cato Institute
Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the largest privately held...
, the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise
The Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise or CDFE is a wise use think tank which describes itself as "an educational foundation for individual liberty, free markets, property rights and limited government".CDFE was founded in 1974 by Alan Gottlieb....
, People for the West, the Blue Ribbon Coalition, and the Heartland Institute
Heartland Institute
The Heartland Institute is a libertarian, American public policy think tank based in Chicago, Illinois which advocates free market policies. The Institute is designated as a 501 non-profit by the Internal Revenue Service and advised by a 15 member board of directors, which meets quarterly. As of...
.
Most members of the wise use movement, including the related County Movement, share a belief in individual rights, as opposed to the authority of the federal government, in particular with regard to the rights of land use. They argue that the environmental movement is both anti-private property and anti-people. While some in the wise use movement have strongly anti-environmental views, others believe that the free market, rather than government regulation, will better protect the environment.
Wise use agenda
Many wise use groups argue that ruralRural
Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...
residents suffer a disproportionate impact from environmental regulations, and that the environmental movement is biased toward the attitudes of urban
Urban area
An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...
elite
Elite
Elite refers to an exceptional or privileged group that wields considerable power within its sphere of influence...
s, ignoring the rural perspective. Opponents observe that the extractive forces behind the wise use movement harm rural residents more and prey on the independence of rural residents - preaching the "right to ride" when behind that is the desire to strip mine and clearcut
Clearcutting
Clearcutting, or clearfelling, is a controversial forestry/logging practice in which most or all trees in an area are uniformly cut down. Clearcutting, along with shelterwood and seed tree harvests, is used by foresters to create certain types of forest ecosystems and to promote select species that...
using unsustainable methods. Some environmentalists disagree with the Sierra Club's "no-cut forest" policy. Steve Thompson wrote the goal of the policy should be to "provide greater flexibility to achieve true forest restoration. A blanket, one-size-fits-all 'zero cut' policy severely restricts the Sierra Club's ability to provide solutions to complex forest mismanagement problems.".
Wise use strategies
Wise use groups depict themselves as (and seek to promote themselves as) true environmentalists with close ties to the land, and cast environmental groups as advocating radical environmentalism. Wise use groups also downplay threats to the environment, and highlight uncertainties in environmental science that they argue environmental groups ignore or conceal. Wise use groups also portray the environmentalist movement as having a hidden agenda to control land.Ron Arnold and wise use
The Wise Use movement first gained prominence when Ron ArnoldRon Arnold
Ron Arnold has been the Executive Vice-President of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise since 1984. He is a prolific writer on natural resource issues and one of the most effective adversaries of the environmental movement, according to the Environmental Grantmakers Association, which...
helped organize a Multiple Use Strategy Conference in Reno, Nevada
Reno, Nevada
Reno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area...
in 1988. Arnold, a vice-president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise
The Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise or CDFE is a wise use think tank which describes itself as "an educational foundation for individual liberty, free markets, property rights and limited government".CDFE was founded in 1974 by Alan Gottlieb....
and advocate of the "right to own property and use nature's resources for the benefit of mankind" helped produce a 25-point Wise Use Agenda.
The 25-point Agenda included initiatives seeking to ban commercial use of public lands for timber, mining, and oil, and to open recreational wilderness areas for easier access by the general public. Critics point out that Ron Arnold has been quoted as saying his goal is to "destroy the environmental movement".
According to Arnold, many in the wise use movement believe the possibility of unlimited economic growth
Economic growth
In economics, economic growth is defined as the increasing capacity of the economy to satisfy the wants of goods and services of the members of society. Economic growth is enabled by increases in productivity, which lowers the inputs for a given amount of output. Lowered costs increase demand...
, in which environmental and social problems can be mitigated by market economy
Market economy
A market economy is an economy in which the prices of goods and services are determined in a free price system. This is often contrasted with a state-directed or planned economy. Market economies can range from hypothetically pure laissez-faire variants to an assortment of real-world mixed...
and the use of technology. In his book Ecology Wars, which has been called the "Bible" of the wise use movement, Arnold writes: "Environmentalism is an institutionalized movement of certain people with a certain ideology about man and nature" and that "the goal of our ecology wars should be to defeat environmentalism." Arnold claims that environmentalism is "the excess baggage of anti-technology, of anti-civilization, of anti-humanity, and of institutionalized lust for political power."
Wise use and political ecology
James McCarthy has contrasted the environmental movement's treatment of claims made by the organized wise use movement with the approach taken when local resources users conflict with conservationists in developing countries. According to McCarthy "academics, leftists, and environmentalists who had been broadly sympathetic to movements elsewhere" dismissed as a corporate front similar claims when made by groups in the United States. McCarthy argues that the wise use movement could be studied as political ecologyPolitical ecology
Political ecology is the study of the relationships between political, economic and social factors with environmental issues and changes. Political ecology differs from apolitical ecological studies by politicizing environmental issues and phenomena....
.
Access to public lands
In the 1980s and 1990s, the management focus on public lands shifted from the harvest of timberTimber
Timber may refer to:* Timber, a term common in the United Kingdom and Australia for wood materials * Timber, Oregon, an unincorporated community in the U.S...
to ecological goals such as improvement of habitat, largely as a response to the environmental movement. The resultant reduction in timber harvest contributed to the closure of sawmills and the layoff of loggers and other workers. Some members of the wise use movement objected to what they saw as a shifting of control of federal land resources from local to outside, urban interests. They argued that the National Forests were established for the benefit of the local community. They cite Gifford Pinchot
Gifford Pinchot
Gifford Pinchot was the first Chief of the United States Forest Service and the 28th Governor of Pennsylvania...
, who wrote "It is the duty of the Forest Service to see to it that the timber, water-powers, mines, and every other resource of the forests is used for the benefit of the people who live in the neighborhood or who may have a share in the welfare of each locality." Wise use members have also argued that continued access to public lands is necessary to maintain the health, culture and traditions of local communities.
Similarly Jill M. Belsky wrote:
- "there is a pattern for rural peoples and communities to be viewed as destroyers of nature in the United States, given their reliance on extractive industries such as mining, logging, grazing and commercial, petrochemical based-farming; and they provided political action in support of these industries. Given this history, it is not surprising that there has been a reluctance on the part of conservationists to envision how rural peoples and rural livelihoods could have played any significant role in the formation of wildlands or in any potential role they could play in the restoration and protection of large wildlands in the future. In the United States policy emphasizes ecosystems and ecosystem management. But while I understand this logic, I think it underestimates the importance of rural places, peoples and livelihoods in the management of large wildlands."
Critics and criticism
Academics Ralph Maughan and Douglas Nilsona write that wise use is a "desperate effort to defend the hegemony of the cultural and economic values of the agricultural and extractive industries of the rural West", and have "argued that the Wise Use agenda stemmed from an ideology that combined laissez-faire capitalism with cultural characteristics of an imagined Old West"Some critics of the wise use movement claim that the strong rhetoric used has deepened divisions between opposing interest groups, and has indirectly increased violence and threats of violence against environmental groups and public employees. "Many observers noted that Wise Use activity in some areas overlapped heavily with the 1990s formation and growth of militias, self-styled volunteer paramilitary organizations presciently committed to their own version of homeland security."
Environmental historian Richard White has criticized Wise Use for upholding the rights of large landowners at the expense of working rural people in his essay, "'Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?': Work and Nature."
Stephenie Hendricks claimed in her book Divine Destruction that wise use is in part "being driven by biblical fundamentalists who believe exhausting natural resources will hasten the Second Coming of Jesus Christ."
Grassroots or front groups
Environmental activists have argued that the wise use movement is orchestrated largely or entirely by industry. David HelvargDavid Helvarg
David Helvarg is an American journalist and environmental activist. He is the founder and president of the marine conservation lobbying organization Blue Frontier Campaign, a part of the Seaweed rebellion, which arose from his second book Blue Frontier...
's book The War Against the Greens contends that the wise use movement is not a collection of grassroots uprisings, but a set of astroturfing
Astroturfing
Astroturfing is a form of advocacy in support of a political, organizational, or corporate agenda, designed to give the appearance of a "grassroots" movement. The goal of such campaigns is to disguise the efforts of a political and/or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some...
movements created by big business. Carl Deal
Carl Deal
Carl Deal is a New York–based documentary filmmaker. He is producer and director of the film Trouble the Water as well as producer for several of Michael Moore's films including Capitalism: A Love Story, Bowling for Columbine, and Fahrenheit 9/11.-Career:...
, author of The Greenpeace
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
Guide to Anti-Environmental Organizations also makes the same claim: that wise use groups give the appearance of being popular grassroots
Grassroots
A grassroots movement is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures...
movements, but are actually front organization
Front organization
A front organization is any entity set up by and controlled by another organization, such as intelligence agencies, organized crime groups, banned organizations, religious or political groups, advocacy groups, or corporations...
s for industry groups with a financial interest in the movement's agenda. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr. is an American radio host, activist, and attorney specializing in environmental law. He is the third of eleven children born to Ethel Skakel Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy and is the nephew of John F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy...
also described this conspiracy against the environment by wise use organizations in his 2004 book Crimes Against Nature.
These critics have largely portrayed so-called "grassroots" groups as being front groups and rural Westerners as serving as dupes for extractive industries and their interests. However, while corporate power played an important role in the wise use movement, the relationship between rural westerners and extractive industries was not a result of individual citizens blindly accepting corporate narratives; instead, wise use was an alliance between groups with similar goals regarding private property rights and access to public lands. Corporations also were better able to connect with rural residents because, according to James McCarthy, "[c]orporations were in fact often more sensitive to the region's cultural politics than many environmentalists and so were better able to engage culture for instrumental purposes."
Response to criticism
Alexander CockburnAlexander Cockburn
Alexander Claud Cockburn is an American political journalist. Cockburn was brought up in Ireland but has lived and worked in the United States since 1972. Together with Jeffrey St. Clair, he edits the political newsletter CounterPunch...
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Jeffrey St. Clair
Jeffrey St. Clair is an investigative journalist, writer and editor. He is the co-editor, with Alexander Cockburn, of the political newsletter CounterPunch, and a contributing editor to the monthly magazine In These Times. He has also written for The Washington Post, San Francisco Examiner, The...
wrote: “The Wise Use movement, led by former Sierra Clubber Ron Arnold and staked (like the big Greens) by oil companies, was able to score many hits and rally populist opposition precisely because so many of the charges rang true. The mainstream environmental movement was elitist, highly paid, detached from the people, indifferent to the working class, and a firm ally of big government.... The environmental movement is now accurately perceived as just another well-financed and cynical special interest group, its rancid infrastructure supported by Democratic Party operatives and millions in grants from corporate foundations.”
History
The term "wise use" was coined in 1910 by U.S. Forest Service leader and political Progressive, Gifford PinchotGifford Pinchot
Gifford Pinchot was the first Chief of the United States Forest Service and the 28th Governor of Pennsylvania...
, to describe his concept of sustainable harvest of natural resources.
Today's wise use coalition has appropriated a nineteenth-century term. According to historian Douglas McCleery, the idea of "conservation as wise use" of natural resources began with conservation leader Gifford Pinchot in the late nineteenth century. The original "wise use" movement was a product of the Progressive Era
Progressive Era
The Progressive Era in the United States was a period of social activism and political reform that flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s. One main goal of the Progressive movement was purification of government, as Progressives tried to eliminate corruption by exposing and undercutting political...
, and included the concept of multiple use—public land can be used simultaneously for recreation, for timber, for mining, and for wildlife habitat. The multiple-use and wise use concepts advocated by Pinchot reflected the view that nature's resources should be scientifically managed so as "to protect the basic productivity of the land and its ability to serve future generations."
The modern use of the term "wise use" to refer to opposition to the environmental movement dates to the publication of Ron Arnold's book Wise Use Agenda in 1989. The wise use movement has it roots in both the earlier "Sagebrush Rebellion
Sagebrush rebels
Sagebrush rebels is a group that attempted to influence environmental policy in the American West during the 1970s and 1980s, surviving into the 21st century in public lands states , and surviving in organized groups pressuring public lands policy makers, especially for grazing of...
" in the western United States during the late 1970s and to the earlier opposition to the formation of the national forests.
However, unlike the Sagebrush Rebellion, which consisted largely of the formation of industry public relations groups by resource extraction
Resource extraction
The related terms natural resource extraction both refer to the practice of locating, acquiring and selling natural resources....
industries and corporations such as Coors and Co, wise use included grass-roots groups. Ron Arnold argued that the inclusion of citizen groups would make the movement more effective In 1979 in Logging Management magazine Arnold wrote: “Citizen activist groups, allied to the forest industry, are vital to our future survival. They can speak for us in the public interest where we ourselves cannot. They are not limited by liability, contract law or ethical codes... industry must come to support citizen activist groups, providing funds, materials, transportation, and most of all, hard facts.”
McCarthy wrote:
The Wise Use movement is a broad coalition of over a thousand national, state, and local groups. Its existence by this name dates from a 1988 ‘Multiple-Use Strategy Conference’ attended by nearly 200 organizations, mainly Western-based, including natural resource industry corporations and trade associations, law firms specializing in combating environmental regulations, and recreational groups. The conference produced a legislative agenda intended to ‘destroy environmentalism’ and promote the ‘wise use’ of natural resources - an intentionally ambiguous phrase strategically appropriated from the early conservation movement.
Further reading
- Ron Arnold, Ecology Wars: Environmentalism as if People Mattered (Bellevue, WA: The Free Enterprise Press, 1987). ISBN 0-939571-00-5
- Alan M. Gottlieb, The Wise Use Agenda (Bellevue, WA: The Free Enterprise Press, 1989). ISBN 0-939571-05-4
- Ron Arnold and Alan Gottlieb, Trashing the Economy: How Runaway Environmentalism is Wrecking America (Bellevue, WA: Free Enterprise Press, 1993). ISBN 0-939571-13-7
- David HelvargDavid HelvargDavid Helvarg is an American journalist and environmental activist. He is the founder and president of the marine conservation lobbying organization Blue Frontier Campaign, a part of the Seaweed rebellion, which arose from his second book Blue Frontier...
, The War Against the Greens (San Francisco: Sierra Club BooksSierra Club BooksSierra Club Books is the publishing division of the Sierra Club, founded in 1960 by then Sierra Club President David Brower. Volumes intended for club members had been published prior to 1960. In addition, books under their name had been published before 1960, but done through already established...
, 1994). ISBN 0-87156-459-9 - Carl Deal, The Greenpeace Guide to Anti-Environmental Organizations (Berkeley, CA: Odonian Press, 1993). ISBN 1-878825-05-4
- Daniel KemmisDaniel KemmisDaniel Kemmis is an American attorney and the author of several books including:*Community and the Politics of Place, University of Oklahoma Press, 1990. ISBN 0-8061-2227-7...
, This Sovereign Land: A New Vision for Governing the West (Washington: Island Press, 2001). ISBN 1-55963-842-7 - Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr. is an American radio host, activist, and attorney specializing in environmental law. He is the third of eleven children born to Ethel Skakel Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy and is the nephew of John F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy...
, Crimes Against Nature (2004). - Pat RobertsonPat RobertsonMarion Gordon "Pat" Robertson is a media mogul, television evangelist, ex-Baptist minister and businessman who is politically aligned with the Christian Right in the United States....
, The New World Order (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1991). ISBN 0-8499-3394-3 - William CrononWilliam CrononWilliam 'Bill' Cronon is the Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison...
(ed.), Uncommon Ground: Rethinking Human Place in Nature (W. W. Norton & Company, 1996). - Jacqueline Vaughn Switzer, Green Backlash (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner PublishersLynne Rienner PublishersLynne Rienner Publishers is an independent scholarly and textbook publishing firm. It was founded in 1984 and publishes in the fields of international studies and comparative world politics. It also publishes books about US politics, sociology and criminology. It also translates foreign books to...
, 1997). ISBN 1-55587-635-8
External links
- A Wise Use manifesto written by Ron Arnold
- A critical view of Ron Arnold and his influence from the Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research (link is to an archived copy of the defunct website at archive.org)
- Wise Use Movement entry in SourceWatch.org, service of the Center for Media & Democracy, publisher of PR Watch.
- Gerald W. Williams The Property-Rights Movement or the Sagebrush Rebellion Revisited USDA Forest Service, 1997.
- The Use of the National Forest Reserves"1905 Use Book"
- Paul de Armond, Wise Use in Northern Puget Sound
- Jeffrey St Clair, 1 January 2010, CounterPunchCounterpunchCounterpunch can refer to:* Counterpunch , a punch in boxing* CounterPunch, a bi-weekly political newsletter* Counterpunch , a type of punch used in traditional typography* Punch-Counterpunch, a Transformers character...
, "Disquiet on the Western Front: The Origins of the Wise Use Movement"