Environmental Pioneers

In a short book with large print that is presumably designed for younger readers I found a discerning selection of unusual photographs and details. Beginning with a poignant quote from Miantonomo, a chief of the Narragansett tribe, in 1642, Author Byrnes takes us very briefly through history. She moves through the wanton destruction of bison and birds and into the naturalist movement of John Muir, the first park (Yellowstone), in 1872, the embodiment of the conservation movement into government policy by President Theodore Roosevelt, and into the more modern environmental movement and laws. Then begins the most valuable part of the book, as carefully chosen detail highlights the lives of the pioneers, beginning with John Muir (did you know that he hated sheep, calling them "hooved locusts" because they could be so destructive? Not only the detail but some of the people are unusual - like Jay Norwood ("Ding") Darling "Cartoonist and Conservationist", and Rosalie Edge, the first woman to have impact on the conservation movement. Byrnes book takes a "true environmentalist" stance with none of the more recent revelations popularized by Jared Diamond - for example that the Pre Columbian North America had far larger Indian populations than were earlier assumed. More recently , the book "1491" by Mann points out that the huge buffalo herds were probably an consequence of the very early decimation of Indian hunter tribes by European disease. The purist environmentalist vision has also helped, perhaps understandably but also with some bad results, to create overly draconian laws that have promoted unnecessary and unfortunate internal conflict in the U.S.