🌳Thursday’s Thoughts | Protecting our National Forests

This summer, many American families will explore the vast and breathtaking national forests in our country. However, their preservation is no mere coincidence; it is the result of a concerted conservation effort, largely attributed to President Theodore Roosevelt. 🏛️

His advocacy for the protection of our forests and our natural resources was eloquently expressed in his State of the Union address on December 8, 1908. Here are key snippets of that address:

👨👨👦If there is one duty which, more than any another, we owe to our children and our children's children to perform at once, it is to save the forests of this country, for they constitute the first and most crucial element in the conservation of the country's natural resources.

Just as a farmer, who has spent his life cultivating his land leaves behind a valuable asset for his son, we too should leave our national domain to our children. But not just as it is, we should strive to enhance its value, not deplete it.

There are small sections of our own country, in the East and the West, in the Adirondacks, the White Mountains, and the Appalachians, and in the Rocky Mountains, where we can already see for ourselves the irreversible damage in the shape of permanent injury to the soil and the river systems which comes from reckless deforestation.

This is not a distant threat, but a present reality that demands our immediate attention. 🆘

It matters not whether this deforestation is due to the reckless cutting of timber, to the fires that inevitably follow such reckless cutting, or to uncontrolled grazing by migratory bands of sheep.

Shortsighted persons, or persons blinded to the future by a desire to make money in every way out of the present, sometimes speak as if no significant damage would be done by the reckless destruction of our forests. It is difficult to have patience with these persons' arguments.

[But] we can prevent further mischief from being done. Nothing should be permitted to stand in the way of preserving [our] forests. It is not just an individual's responsibility, but our collective duty. This destruction is fatal to the well-being of the whole country in the future.

Teddy Roosevelt was ahead of his time. Let’s keep his words in mind as we travel to our national parks and forests this summer. Have a safe and healthy summer. 😎

-Steve

Roosevelt's talk was edited for clarity.