Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Reforestation, Renewal, And The Cost Of Coal: Opposing A Manichean Worldview In Central Appalachia, Elizabeth R. Hansen Jan 2015

Reforestation, Renewal, And The Cost Of Coal: Opposing A Manichean Worldview In Central Appalachia, Elizabeth R. Hansen

Pomona Senior Theses

Surface coal mining is a major form of land change and environmental degradation in Central Appalachia. Traditional mine reclamation iresults in unmanaged, unproductive grasslands that fail to mitigate many of the environmental costs of coal mining and are of minimal use to communities. Forestry reclamation is an alternative reclamation tactic that has the potential to address both environmental and socioeconomic concerns in Central Appalachia. A case study of Laurel Fork Mine in Eastern Kentucky is included.


Making Common Cause For Conservation: The Pinchot Institute And Grey Towers National Historic Site, 1963-2013, Char Miller Jan 2013

Making Common Cause For Conservation: The Pinchot Institute And Grey Towers National Historic Site, 1963-2013, Char Miller

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Pinchot Institute for Conservation and the donation of the Pinchot family home Grey Towers to the U.S. Forest Service. In the following essay, historian and Pinchot biographer Char Miller discusses how the Institute is applying Gifford Pinchot’s principles to contemporary environmental issues. It is adapted from Seeking the Greatest Good: The Conservation Legacy of Gifford Pinchot, his new history of the Institute, and is published with kind permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.


Overcoming The Obstacles To Sustainability In Ghana, Ashley M. Scott Jan 2011

Overcoming The Obstacles To Sustainability In Ghana, Ashley M. Scott

CMC Senior Theses

For several decades following its independence from Great Britain, Ghana’s policies continued to promote over-extraction of natural resources to the detriment of its economy and rural communities. Agricultural and forestry policy has gradually evolved to foster more sustainable and equitable practices, as in building partnerships with the private sector to fund infrastructure improvements. Policy has recently recognized the dire need to adopt agricultural practices and means of forest resource extraction that are compatible with ecological stewardship. However, many shortcomings are still apparent. Large logging operations completely disregard forestry regulations with impunity, whereas rural sustenance extractors are severely punished in the …


At The Creation: The National Forest Commission Of 1896-97, Gerald W. Williams, Char Miller Jan 2005

At The Creation: The National Forest Commission Of 1896-97, Gerald W. Williams, Char Miller

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Among the central forces in the creation of the legislation necessary to establish federal forestry was the National Forest Commission. Its members included some of the leading conservationists of the 1890s, including Charles Sprague Sargent and Gifford Pinchot; John Muir was an unofficial member. Its final report advocated the establishment of a national forest system and served as the basis for the so-called Organic Act, which cleared the way for active management on federal forests and grasslands. Unlike the other articles, this one contains several excerpted documents interspersed with exposition.


French Lessons: F.P. Baker, American Forestry, And The 1878 Paris Universal Exposition, Char Miller Jan 2005

French Lessons: F.P. Baker, American Forestry, And The 1878 Paris Universal Exposition, Char Miller

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Although he never became a forester, F. P. Baker did much to advance the profession’s cause. Its potential became clear to him while serving as a U.S. Commissioner to the 1878 Paris Exposition, during which he reported on European forestry, its scientific methods and political meaning. Returning home, he was inspired to advance forestry in America.


Amateur Hour: Nathaniel H. Egleston And Professional Forestry In Post-Civil War America, Char Miller Jan 2005

Amateur Hour: Nathaniel H. Egleston And Professional Forestry In Post-Civil War America, Char Miller

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Nathaniel Egleston, the second head of the U.S. Division of Forestry (1883–1886), is a forgotten figure in the history of early American forestry. The one-time minister became a tireless advocate for trees in the post-Civil War era, writing innumerable and well-received essays and pamphlets. But his enthusiasm did not translate into administrative success, and he was replaced by Bernard Fernow, who in turn was succeeded by Gifford Pinchot; the pair’s scientific training signaled the professionalization of American forestry.


Deep Roots: The Late Nineteenth Century Origins Of American Forestry, Char Miller Jan 2005

Deep Roots: The Late Nineteenth Century Origins Of American Forestry, Char Miller

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

The U.S. Forest Service celebrated its centennial in 2005, an event that depended on a set of individuals who in the years immediately prior to the agency’s creation in 1905 labored quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, to defuse opposition to the idea of it within the executive and legislative branches. Surely the most crucial of these figures was Gifford Pinchot, then head of the Bureau of Forestry, and President Theodore Roosevelt: animating their activism was a shared conviction that conservation of the nation’s natural resources would save the United States from economic ruin and a collective faith that a …


Eminent Domain: B.L. Wiggins, Forestry, And The New South At Sewanee, Char Miller Jan 2004

Eminent Domain: B.L. Wiggins, Forestry, And The New South At Sewanee, Char Miller

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

The history of the University of the South and of its forest is intertwined. The health of the forest—and of the university—hung in the balance when Benjamin Wiggins took charge of both in 1893.