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Yosemite Grant
This was the first time park land was being set aside specifically for preservation and public use on behalf of the federal government. -
Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone becomes the first national park as the government realized that they needed to preserve their resources. -
Desert Land Act of 1877
The government sold arid land cheaply if the purchaser irrigated the soil within three years. -
Forest Reserve Act of 1891
This act authorized presidents to set aside public forests as national parks and other reserves. -
Sierra Club
This club was founded for the sole purpose of trying to preserve the wilderness off the U.S. -
Carey Act of 1894
This act distributed federal land to the states on the condition that it be irrigated and settled. -
Organic Act of 1897
This act provided the main basis for the management of the forest reserves. It was the first towards the management, protection, and care of the nation's forest reserves. -
Bureau of Reclamation
The Bureau of Reclamation oversees water resource management, specifically when dealing with numerous water diversions, deliveries, and storage and hydroelectric power generation projects in the western U.S. -
Newlands Act of 1902
This act authorized the government to collect money from the sale of public lands in the western states and then use these funds for the development of irrigation projects -
Multiple-Use Resource Management
This idea was a policy developed under President Theodore Roosevelt and it sought to combine recreation, sustained-yield logging, watershed protection, and summer stock grazing on the same expanse of federal land. Many westerners first resisted this federal policy, but soon learned how to take advantage of the new agencies, such as the Forest Service.
