Theodore Roosevelt's Conservationist Policies

The movement for the conservation of wildlife, and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources, is essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method. As president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt made conservation a central policy issue of his administration. He created five National Parks, four Big Game Refuges, fifty-one National bird Reservations, and the National Forest Service. Roosevelt advocated for the sustainable use of the nation's natural resources, the protection …

…imbued it with the capacity to inspire and teach as well. This contradiction in Roosevelt's construction of wilderness, devaluating nature to an economic resource while at the same time giving it spiritual powers, was the basic ideological framework of Roosevelt's conservationism. He viewed conservation as a means of protecting the nation's economic stability and its spiritual well being, both of which Roosevelt believed were fundamental to the continued strength of American democracy, conservation's greater goal.