Encyclopedia of Global Resources part 111 ppsx

Wikle Web Sites Resources for the Future http://www.rff.org/Pages/default.aspx Weathervane: A Climate Blog from Resources for the Future http://www.weathervane.rff.org/ See also: Biodive

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RFF’s mission has expanded to include hazardous

waste mitigation, climate change, biodiversity, and

ecosystem management RFF researchers have been

influential members of the Intergovernmental Panel

on Climate Change (IPCC) and have helped in the

formulation of U.S climate policy

Thomas A Wikle

Web Sites

Resources for the Future

http://www.rff.org/Pages/default.aspx

Weathervane: A Climate Blog from Resources

for the Future

http://www.weathervane.rff.org/

See also: Biodiversity; Climate and resources;

Ecosys-tem services; EcosysEcosys-tems; Greenhouse gases and global

climate change; Hazardous waste disposal; Resources

as a medium of economic exchange; Sustainable

de-velopment

Rhenium

Category: Mineral and other nonliving resources

Where Found

Rhenium is widely distributed in the Earth’s crust in

small amounts In the United States, the richest

con-centrations of rhenium are found in molybdenum

ores in Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico The major

world producer is Chile, followed by Kazakhstan, the

United States, and Peru

Primary Uses

Rhenium is mostly used for applications in which a

high melting point and strength at high temperatures

are important, as in high-temperature

thermocou-ples It has also found use as a catalyst and in

elec-tronic components

Technical Definition

Rhenium (abbreviated Re), atomic number 75,

be-longs to Group VIIB of the periodic table of the

ele-ments and resembles manganese in its chemical and

physical properties It has two naturally occurring

iso-topes and an average atomic weight of 186.2 Pure

rhenium is a hard, dense, silvery-white metal Its

den-sity is 21.04 grams per cubic centimeter; it has a melt-ing point of 3,170° Celsius and a boilmelt-ing point of 5,630° Celsius

Description, Distribution, and Forms Rhenium is a rare but widely distributed element resembling manganese It usually occurs in a con-centration of about 1 part per billion, but in molybde-num ores it may be found in a concentration as high

as 20 parts per million It is used with tungsten, irid-ium, molybdenum, or platinum to manufacture high-temperature thermocouples that can measure and control temperatures up to about 2,500° Celsius

History Rhenium was discovered in 1925 by the German chemists Ida Tacke, Walter Noddack, and Otto Berg

It was not produced in a free form until 1929, when Tacke and Noddack produced a gram of it from 600 kilograms of molybdenum ore

Obtaining Rhenium Rhenium is produced as a by-product of molybdenum production When molybdenum ore is heated it re-leases dust and gas containing rhenium These sub-stances are treated with water to dissolve the rhenium oxide present This solution is treated with potassium chloride to form potassium perrhenate or with am-monia to form ammonium perrhenate These com-pounds are purified by repeated crystallization The perrhenate is treated with hydrogen to pro-duce free rhenium Ammonium perrhenate is usually used because it produces a purer rhenium The rhe-nium is produced in the form of a black powder It may then be compressed and heated with hydrogen to produce bars of metallic rhenium This metal may be cold-worked and annealed into wire or foil

Uses of Rhenium About 70 percent of rhenium is used in superalloys built to withstand high temperatures, such as those for turbine engines and their components About

20 percent is used in petroleum-reforming catalysts Rhenium is also used as a catalyst in various other chemical reactions; in petroleum refining, to pro-duce lead-free gasoline; in electronic components, because of its resistance to electrical erosion; in boat engines, because of its resistance to seawater; and in fountain pen points

An important use of rhenium is in producing

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mocouples that operate at high temperatures A

ther-mocouple is a device consisting of two wires of

differ-ent metals connected at both ends One end of the

thermocouple is placed in a sample, and the other is

kept at a constant, cooler temperature An electric

current produced in the thermocouple is used to

measure the temperature of the sample A

thermo-couple can also be used to control temperatures like a

thermostat

Rose Secrest

Web Sites

Natural Resources Canada

Canadian Minerals Yearbook, 2005: Rhenium

http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/smm-mms/busi-indu/cmy-amc/content/2005/rhenium.pdf

U.S Geological Survey

Mineral Information: Rhenium Statistics and

Information

http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/

commodity/rhenium/

See also: Manganese; Molybdenum; Platinum and

the platinum group metals; Tungsten

Rhodes, Cecil

Category: People

Born: July 5, 1853; Bishop’s Stortford,

Hertfordshire, England

Died: March 26, 1902; Muizenberg, Cape Colony

(now in South Africa)

An ambitious British imperialist in southern Africa,

Rhodes became the owner of tremendous deposits of

dia-monds at Kimberley and gold at Witwatersrand,

cap-turing a near monopoly of these commodities through

ruthless actions against European colonists and

na-tive peoples As prime minister of Cape Colony, he

in-troduced legislation that opened additional areas for

white settlers and regulated land usage.

Biographical Background

Born and educated in England, Cecil John Rhodes

went, in 1870, to live at his brother’s cotton farm in

the KwaZulu-Natal Province of southern Africa for

health reasons Diamond finds in Kimberley lured

him into the interior Between intermittent returns

to England, Rhodes began amassing a considerable private fortune in diamonds and gold He used his wealth to enter politics and serve in the Cape Colony Parliament, from which he expanded his own per-sonal and British national influence throughout southern Africa, hoping to create telegraph and rail links from Cape Town to Cairo

Rhodes had little regard for the native peoples and applied pressure and subterfuge to obtain mineral rights and territorial concessions Rhodes’s British South Africa Company, created by consolidating his claims, functioned as a quasi government over large portions of southern Africa In 1890, he became prime minister of Cape Colony (now in South Africa), and

he held sway over what would later become Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) with his economic and political power His overreaching ambition caused him a ma-jor setback when the Jameson Raid (1895-1896), his attempt to overthrow the Dutch Boer territory, failed,

Cecil Rhodes owned South African mines that produced massive amounts of gold and diamond (Library of Congress)

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and he resigned as prime minister He participated in

the Boer War (1899-1902) and was present during the

Siege of Kimberley, but he died before the war ended

Impact on Resource Use

In southern Africa, Rhodes had an impact on three

major global resources: cotton, diamonds, and gold

His impact on cotton was brief, as he left his brother’s

cotton farm to head into the interior for the diamond

fields at Kimberley Rhodes and the miners had little

concern for the environment; Rhodes’s focus was

to acquire claims, which he did with remarkable

suc-cess Once the most accessible diamonds had been

worked, economic depression set in, and Rhodes

pur-chased claims from disappointed miners He also

pro-cured the contracts for pumping water out of the

mines in the rainy season and providing water during

the dry season for washing diamonds This

consolida-tion of mining into a large-scale operaconsolida-tion eventually

led to the creation of the De Beers mining company,

which at one time controlled nearly 90 percent of the

world’s diamond supply

With the discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand

in 1886, a gold rush ensued, and the easily

accessi-ble gold was quickly mined As he had done at the

Kimberley diamond fields, Rhodes, on behalf of his

Gold Field Company of South Africa, purchased claims

from disappointed prospectors who thought that the

supply of gold had been exhausted Using his political

leverage, Rhodes extended his control of potential

mineral rights by duplicitous negotiations with native

tribal leaders

As prime minister of Cape Colony, Rhodes

intro-duced the Glen Grey Act (1894), passed by the Cape

Colony Parliament This act impacted land resources

by opening up development for white farmers and

limiting the size of black African landholdings It also

regulated land usage by dividing land into farm,

resi-dential, and common areas and by introducing

scien-tific methods of land management and erosion

pre-vention The overarching purpose was to control the

black African population and their land usage

prac-tices, which were regarded as obstacles to white

pros-perity

Mark C Herman

See also: Cotton; Diamond; Environmental

degrada-tion, resource exploitation and; Gold; Resources as

a source of international conflict; South Africa;

Zim-babwe

Rice

Category: Plant and animal resources

Rice is the most commonly consumed food grain for a majority of the world’s population Leading producers are Japan, China, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Viet-nam, and Bangladesh In the United States, rice is grown in California, Texas, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas.

Definition

The rice plant, Oryza sativa, is a member of the grass

family World production of rice exceeds 500 million metric tons Most countries cultivate rice for domestic consumption, so less than 5 percent enters the export market The United States is an exception; it gener-ates only about 2 percent of world rice production, but almost half of U.S production is exported Rice cultivation almost certainly began in India, where it dates back to about 3000 b.c.e During medieval times

it spread westward to southern Europe

Overview

Oryza sativa has been classified into indica and

japon-ica varieties Monsoon tropics are ideal for indjapon-ica rice, which is commonly cultivated in China and Southeast Asia The plants can adapt to uncertain conditions The japonica type of rice requires precise water con-trol as well as weed and insect concon-trol It is cultivated

in temperate zones such as the United States, Austra-lia, Japan, North and South Korea, and certain parts

of China

Rice is self-pollinated, and the grain is enclosed in the palea, or hull Harvested but unmilled rice is called paddy or rough rice Milling of rough rice by any of several processes yields the polished grain that

is ready for consumption Rough rice contains ap-proximately 10 percent protein, 65 percent starch, 2 percent lipids, 5 percent minerals, and 18 percent hull/bran The unhulled whole rice kernel also con-tains thiamine, niacin, and riboflavin Parboiled rice can be stored for long periods

The International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines has contributed significantly to the devel-opment of high-yielding types of rice, beginning in the mid-1960’s The development of these plants is considered a significant part of the 1960’s Green Rev-olution in agriculture Some of these varieties

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mand complete irrigation systems all year round that

help keep the soil submerged under about 15

centi-meters of water

Next to corn, rice provides the farmer with the

greatest yield when plants are cultivated with the

nec-essary care The crop grows well in irrigated and

flooded areas Cooked rice is mostly consumed in its

whole grain form Puffed rice and flaked rice are

com-mon breakfast cereals, and rice flour is used in bakery

products Laundry starch is made from rice starch

Rice hull is used in cattle feed as well as fertilizers, and

the rice plant also produces oil for food and industry

and thatching material for roofs and mats The

Japa-nese alcoholic beverage sake is made from a process

that involves the fermentation of rice

The plant commonly known as “wild rice,” Zizania

aquatica, is actually a separate genus found in North

America Wild rice is also an annual grass, and it grows

mostly in lakes and streams Lakes in Minnesota,

Wis-consin, and southern Canada provide a good harvest

of wild rice Wild rice, once a staple of the diet of American Indians in those regions, has become a pop-ular side dish

Mysore Narayanan

See also: Agricultural products; China; Corn; Green Revolution; India; Monoculture agriculture; Wheat

Risk assessment

Categories: Scientific disciplines; social, economic, and political issues

Many harmful events, especially anthropogenic haz-ards, result from the process of resource exploitation Risk assessment is an essential tool to analyze existing

Source: U.S Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.

9,000,000 5,000,000

3,500,000 3,500,000 2,900,000 1,300,000

950,000 800,000 500,000 450,000

Metric Tons

Thailand

Vietnam

Pakistan

China

Egypt

Uruguay

Argentina

Cambodia

India

United States

Rice: Leading Exporters, 2007

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and potential hazards during the extraction of

sources, the use of resources, and the disposal of

re-source products or wastes.

Background

Risk assessment has been practiced throughout

hu-man history Prehistoric civilizations developed

meth-ods to assess risks associated with some hazards,

espe-cially natural disasters In the 1970’s, risk assessment

emerged as a new scientific field to help scientists and

public-policy makers understand and quantify risks

posed by both natural and anthropogenic hazards

Resources have been increasingly impacted by society

and environment Some local impacts, such as mining

accidents, can be devastating Global impacts caused

by resource exploitation, such as acid rain and climate

change, can last for many years Risk assessment has

become an essential tool in resource management to

protect human health and the environment and to

ensure sustainable development for future

genera-tions

Hazard and Risk

There are many definitions for hazard and risk In

general, a hazard is any source of potential harm and

damage In the fields of geosciences and resources, a

hazard can be defined as a phenomenon or process

that could cause disasters or adverse effects Most

haz-ards are divided into two categories: natural and

an-thropogenic Natural hazards result from events such

as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, droughts,

mass wasting, tornadoes, and tropical cyclones

An-thropogenic hazards are caused by human activities

such as deforestation and habitat destruction, food

and water contamination, and air pollution In many

cases, potential natural hazards can be triggered or

worsened by anthropogenic activities For example,

mass wasting and land subsidence can occur, and

become severe, if vegetation is destroyed by urban

development and human activities

Many experts debate the meaning of risk and risk

assessment Risk is often expressed as a probability or

the utility of harmful events Most of the debates

cen-ter on whether risk should be expressed as a

probabil-ity or utilprobabil-ity of the harmful event A utilprobabil-ity of an event

is defined by the probability of the event multiplied by

the value of the event However, not every undesirable

event has a price, especially in terms of global events

For example, a monetary value for the consequences

of global warming or tropical deforestation cannot be

determined Therefore, probability and values are used to express a hazard if the value of harmful events can be assessed Probability of undesirable outcomes

is used to describe a hazard if its consequence cannot

be assessed with a value

Hazards and Risks of Resource Exploitation Societal and environmental impacts of resource ex-ploitation exist in three categories: the extraction of resources, the use of resources, and the disposal of re-source products or wastes

Solid mineral and rock resources are normally ex-tracted by quarrying, surface mining, and under-ground mining Liquid and gas resources such as oil, natural gas, and water are extracted by wells All these activities have potential risks that may cause harmful events Underground mining, especially coal mining,

is an extremely high-risk profession In 2006, in the United States, sevety-two miners, including forty-seven coal miners, lost their lives The majority of these fatal-ities occurred in Kentucky and West Virginia and in-clude the Sago Mine Disaster China accounts for the largest number of coal-mining fatalities, with about 80 percent of the world’s total In 2006, according to the State Work Safety Supervision Administration, 4,746 Chinese coal miners were killed by gas explosions, water inrushes, and other accidents Other potential risks related to mining, quarrying, and excessive log-ging include landscape destruction and habitat loss, which may impact biodiversity and ecosystems and trigger harmful events, such as mass wasting In addi-tion, smelting metallic ores and refining oil may re-lease toxic gases and cause substantial air pollution Overpumping of wells to extract water, petroleum, and geothermal resources can deplete these resources and cause sinkhole collapse and land subsidence Sometimes oil and gas wells may erupt, causing fire hazards and severe pollution

The use of resources, especially the burning of fossil fuels, has released toxic and greenhouse gases, particles, and excess heat into the environment Emis-sion of sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides by the com-bustion of fossil fuel resulted in global acid-rain prob-lems in the past Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has increased dramatically because of in-creased demand for fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution Many scientists believe that anthropo-genic activities, specifically the burning of fossil fuels, lead to global warming

The disposal of resource products or wastes poses

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many potential risks to the environment and society.

Large piles of waste rocks from mining may cause

slope failure and mass wasting Surface water

drain-age and water quality may be affected by waste rocks as

well For example, acid mine drainage can occur if

iron sulfide minerals, such as pyrite and pyrrhotite,

are exposed and oxidized by moist air or water Acid

mine drainage around waste rocks and abandoned

mines can eventually cause water pollution and

bar-ren soils if the watershed is affected by acidic

drain-age All wastes produced by extracting or using

re-sources need to be recycled and properly disposed of

to prevent environmental and health risks For

exam-ple, some radioactive wastes generated by nuclear

power plants need to be safely stored in designated

sites for at least ten thousand years

Risk Assessment and Cost-Benefit Analysis

Risk assessment is the process of characterizing a risk

and involves the estimation of the probability of a

harmful event For example, the risk of sinkhole

col-lapse in karst areas can be assessed by studying

sink-hole distribution, geologic and topographic settings,

and human activities Results of this risk assessment

can be expressed as the probability of a potential

sink-hole collapse within a certain time period per unit of

area

Once a potential hazard is identified and the risk

assessment is conducted, the acceptability of the risk

also needs to be assessed Cost-benefit analysis is

com-monly used to decide the acceptability of a risk Using

this approach, risk assessors or policy makers need to

determine whether the benefits outweigh the costs

For example, coal mining has benefits such as

eco-nomic development and job creation and risks such as

mining accidents, pollution, and landscape

destruc-tion If policy makers and the public think the

bene-fits outweigh the costs of these risks, these risks will

be considered acceptable Benefits of resources are

relatively easier to analyze The values of economic

development, job creation, and markets can be

as-sessed However, values of many costs, such as

pan-demic disease or death caused by water pollution,

environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity, and

climate change, are difficult or impossible to assess

Uncertainties and Limitations of Risk

Assessment

Risk assessment has inherent uncertainties and

limita-tions Many U.S Environmental Protection Agency

(EPA) programs are designed to develop guidelines

on how to regulate metals and how to assess potential risks of metals to human health and the environment EPA has outlined key principles in metal assessments based on issues such as environmental chemistry, exposure, human health effects, ecological effects, bioavailability, and bioaccumulation Limitations on data and knowledge exist in almost all these issues

If a risk assessment is based on empirical experi-ence or historical data, it will be difficult to estimate a probability of a rare event For instance, earthquake frequency is usually low and irregular in many ar-eas Prediction of earthquakes remains a challenging problem with many uncertainties

Subjectivity is another limitation associated with risk assessment Scientists may disagree among them-selves on many risks Policy makers may have their own subjectivity to manage risks The general public may disagree with policy makers based on their sub-jectivity For instance, many scientists believe that one cause of global warming is the burning of fossil fuels However, climate change and the long-term impact of increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are not fully understood The acceptability of this poten-tial risk varies among public-policy makers in differ-ent countries

Yongli Gao

Further Reading

Byrd, Daniel M., and C Richard Cothern Introduction

to Risk Analysis: A Systematic Approach to Science-Based Decision Making Rockville, Md.: Government

Insti-tutes, 2000

Chiras, Daniel D., and John P Reganold Natural Re-source Conservation: Management for a Sustainable Fu-ture 10th ed Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice

Hall, 2010

Craig, James R., David J Vaughan, and Brian J

Skin-ner Resources of the Earth: Origin, Use, and Environ-mental Impact 3d ed Upper Saddle River, N.J.:

Prentice Hall, 2001

Framework for Metals Risk Assessment Washington, D.C.:

Office of the Science Advisor, Risk Assessment Fo-rum, U.S Environmental Protection Agency, 2007 See also: Capitalism and resource exploitation; Envi-ronmental Protection Agency; Greenhouse gases and global climate change; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; International Association for Im-pact Assessment; Natural capital

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Rivers See Streams and rivers

Rock See Aggregates; Igneous

processes, rocks, and mineral

deposits; Metamorphic processes,

rocks, and mineral deposits;

Sedimentary processes, rocks, and

mineral deposits

Rockefeller, John D.

Category: People

Born: July 8, 1839; Richford, New York

Died: May 23, 1937; Ormond Beach, Florida

Founder of the Standard Oil Company, Rockefeller

was one of the world’s most famous industrialists He

started an American dynasty that made an indelible

mark not only on the oil business but also on

philan-thropy, politics, commerce, corporate management, and

industry.

John D Rockefeller had the foresight to realize that

oil would be one of the most essential of natural

re-sources, and he had the business instinct to attempt

to capitalize on this realization Standard Oil was

founded before the production of mass-market

auto-mobiles increased the market for oil exponentially

Standard Oil was also influential indirectly in that its

near-monopoly of the American oil industry spurred

public distrust and governmental regulation of big

business

Rockefeller began his career in Cleveland, Ohio

At the age of twenty he had established a commission

business dealing in commodities such as grain and

meats He built his first oil refinery in 1863 near

Cleve-land Recognizing the enormous potential of oil, he

soon took control of several other refineries and

ex-panded his business into the Pennsylvania oil fields

By 1865, his Cleveland refinery had become the

larg-est in the area He founded the Standard Oil

Com-pany of Ohio in 1870 and concentrated on

monopo-lizing the oil industry

Impact on Resource Use Rockefeller encouraged aggressive (critics said “ruth-less”) business practices and emphasized economical operations Consequently, Standard Oil prospered and had almost monopolized the oil business by 1882

At its peak, Standard Oil accounted for 80 to 90 per-cent of the oil produced in the United States A num-ber of states enacted antimonopoly laws, which proved ineffectual, and Standard Oil was at the center of vari-ous investigations and exposés Standard Oil included more than thirty corporations and helped Rocke-feller to amass a personal fortune of more than one billion dollars In 1911, the U.S Supreme Court held that Rockefeller and Standard Oil had “a monopoly

of restraint of trade” and had violated the Sherman AntiTrust Act of 1890 Standard Oil was dissolved and broken up into thirty-nine companies

Rockefeller retired at the age of seventy-two and devoted the rest of his life primarily to philanthropy

He and his son John D Rockefeller, Jr., spent almost half their personal fortune and established world-famous institutions such as the Rockefeller

John D Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company in 1870.

(Library of Congress)

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tion and the Rockefeller Institute for Medical

Re-search (Rockefeller University) In 1955, estimates

indicated that their benefactions had exceeded a half

billion dollars

Mysore Narayanan

See also: Energy economics; Getty, J Paul; Oil

in-dustry

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

Category: People

Born: January 30, 1882; Hyde Park, New York

Died: April 12, 1945; Warm Springs, Georgia

Roosevelt, the thirty-second president of the United

States, led the country through the Great Depression

and World War II His New Deal, intended to provide

relief from the Depression and get business moving

again, had an impact on resource use and

conserva-tion.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born into a political

family and furthered that tradition as a legislator,

gov-ernor, and four-term U.S president First educated at

the family’s Hyde Park estate, Roosevelt went on to

Groton School, Harvard University, and the

Colum-bia Law School He did not graduate from law school

but passed the bar and was admitted to practice in

New York in 1907 As state senator, beginning in 1910,

he served on the Forest, Fish, and Game Committee

and the Canals, Railways, and Agriculture Committee

Roosevelt was elected to the presidency in 1932

dur-ing the Great Depression, a time of business

stagna-tion and tremendously high unemployment He

en-gineered administrative and legislative reforms and

crafted the New Deal, a series of programs intended to

provide help for the unemployed, businesses, and

farmers The New Deal established the Tennessee

Val-ley Authority for flood control, hydroelectric power,

and economic development; the Civilian

Conserva-tion Corps for jobs and the compleConserva-tion of

conserva-tion projects; and the Social Security Act for

retire-ment security for blue-collar workers More than two

million men ultimately served in the Civilian

Con-servation Corps, undertaking projects ranging from planting millions of trees to preserving wildlife Al-though Roosevelt’s primary goal was to give Ameri-cans hope and put people to work, he nonetheless left

a legacy in the use and conservation of soil, water, for-est, and energy resources

The United States’ entry into World War II in 1941 brought further government involvement with soci-etal and business affairs as the president rallied the initially reluctant nation to the defense of democracy Industry geared up to produce tanks, warplanes, and munitions, diverting resources such as iron and rub-ber (which became a scarce commodity during the war) from the production of consumer goods to the manufacture of crucial military equipment Roose-velt also approved plans and funding for the top-secret Manhattan Project, which produced the first atomic explosion, leading both to atomic bombs and

to nuclear reactors for producing electricity

Kenneth H Brown

See also: Civilian Conservation Corps; Conservation; Dams; Dust Bowl; Hydroenergy; Manhattan Project; Tennessee Valley Authority

Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal had a profound impact on the use and protection of American resources (Library of Congress)

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Roosevelt, Theodore

Category: People

Born: October 27, 1858; New York, New York

Died: January 6, 1919; Oyster Bay, New York

As U.S president and as a private citizen, Roosevelt

personified the early movement for the conservation of

national resources.

An outdoorsman from his youth, Theodore Roosevelt

considered a career as a naturalist while at Harvard

University and was later a rancher in the Dakota

Bad-lands After leaving the White House, he took part in

an African safari and then explored Brazil’s River of

Doubt, later renamed in his honor

Roosevelt’s tenures as governor of New York and,

most notably, as president of the United States gave

him the power and the responsibility to implement

measures pertaining to his environmental concerns

He assumed the presidency in 1901; during the

fol-lowing eight years, congressional legislation and

exec-utive orders reclaimed through irrigation

12 million hectares of western lands, added

61 million hectares to the forest reserves,

set aside thousands of hectares for mineral

and water power development, established

more than fifty wildlife refuges, and

cre-ated five national parks and eighteen

na-tional monuments In 1908, he hosted a

conference on the conservation of natural

resources for the nation’s governors

Sympathetic to John Muir’s

preserva-tionist ethos but also to the utilitarian

con-servationism of Gifford Pinchot, Roosevelt

was committed to maintaining the

coun-try’s natural resources for all generations,

claiming, “We must handle the water, the

wood, the grasses, so that we will hand

them on to our children and children’s

children in better and not worse shape

than we got them.”

Eugene Larson

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