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| ***Natural***   | > **Technical Report**                             |
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| ***Resources*** | **Stewardship, Spirituality, and Natural Resources |
|                 | Conservation:**                                    |
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| Conservation*** | **A Short History**                                |
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| ***Service***   | > ![](media/image1.emf)                            |
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| ***\_\_\        | > *Social Sciences Institute*                      |
| _\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ | >                                                  |
| \_\_\_\_\_\_*** | > *Technical Report*                               |
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| ***Social       | > *Release 2.2 (September 1997)*                   |
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| *Ft. Collins,   |                                                    |
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| *University of  |                                                    |
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**Stewardship, Spirituality, and**

**Natural Resources Conservation:**

**A Short History**

**by**

**Barbara Wallace and Frank Clearfield**

**Social Sciences Institute**

> *When the land does well for its owner, and the owner does well by his
> land - when both end up better by reason of their partnership - then
> we have conservation.*

*Aldo Leopold*

> *Whatever may be the wishes or inclinations of the people of this
> country, this task of protecting the land against increased impairment
> and destruction must be fought from now on.*
>
> *Hugh Hammond Bennett*

**Introduction**

The link between stewardship, spirituality, and agriculture not only
spans millenniums, but also connects diverse people and many religious
philosophies. Judeo-Christians find biblical references to stewardship
beginning in Genesis. An early proverb states, \"A good man leaves an
inheritance for his children\'s children.\" The story of Noah bringing
paired sets of animals through the flood is well known. The New
Testament provides other stewardship parables as well. The importance of
stewardship has long been understood by American Indian and Native
American cultures. Some of these cultures treat the natural resources as
part of their religion. Natural resources are a living, unifying force
that should be respected and honored. Land, water, animals, and
vegetation provide sustenance and are also seen by these cultures to be
part of a higher spirit. Similarly, the law of Islam acknowledges the
rights of all creatures and \"disapproves the wasteful flow of much
water\...and to make the best use of all resources \-- living and
lifeless.\"

In American history, agrarian values have deep roots. Thomas Jefferson
emphasized that farmers who own land would embrace policies that support
the stability of a democratic government. Modern America\'s linkage
between spirituality and stewardship may have had its beginning in
Europe. In France, more than 1500 years ago, the city of Vienne had crop
failures and widespread hunger due to bad weather, fires and
earthquakes. Saint Mamertus, the bishop of Vienne, called for prayer and
penance on the three days preceding Ascension Day. Word of the practice
spread to other countries and as the years went by the annual practice
of setting aside special Rogation Days was widely established. Earlier
in this century, parts of the U.S. South set aside the fifth Sunday
after Easter as Soil and Soul Sunday.

**Defining Stewardship**

There are many different definitions of stewardship. One definition is
\"the individual\'s responsibility to manage his life and property with
proper regard to the rights of others\" (Resler, 1983: 6). Rexford A.
Resler in his article entitled "On Stewardship" in 1983: 6 states noted
historian Henry Clepper uses the term to imply the responsibilities of
\"one who has charge of the household of another\" or \"one who manages
the property of another.\" Clepper's interpretation is that \"we are in
charge of our household - the planet earth - and have a responsibility
to pass it on in a condition that will benefit our children\'s
children." Finally, E. William Anderson suggests stewardship \"is
essentially a synonym for conservation\" (Anderson, 1983: 271).

**America\'s Conservation Ethic**

Before and during the 1930\'s, stewardship seemed to have a religious
connotation and was not associated directly with conservation. This
period was clearly an era of agricultural degradation. The worldwide
depression, propelled by agricultural scarcities and high food prices,
was exemplified in America by natural resource disasters such as the
Dust Bowl.

National, state and local leaders recognized stewardship of agricultural
natural resources as a necessary ingredient to make America productive
again. Establishment of Federal and private conservation institutions,
initiated in the thirties, provided agricultural producers with
information, technical assistance, and financial assistance. The
stewardship flame of farmers and ranchers, never wholly extinguished,
was now being fanned by many aspects of our culture including the
government, private sector, and religious groups. At the basis, however,
conservation work was fueled by the stewardship ethic of the American
farmers.

The origin of Soil Stewardship Week goes back to 1946 (Simms, 1970). It
later became known as Soil Stewardship Sunday, the first day of Soil
Stewardship Week. In 1955, the National Association of Conservation
Districts took over national sponsorship and expanded it from a regional
to a national level, as the observance grew rapidly in the rural areas
of the United States.

Through the forties and fifties, farmers and ranchers voluntarily
installed conservation on their land because it was the \"right thing to
do.\" Federal agencies such as the Soil Conservation Service and their
private sector partners, the local Conservation Districts, assisted
agricultural producers. State agencies were developed and strengthened.
The U.S. Congress passed laws to extend the reach of conservation work
so that it had agricultural production components as well as protective
elements. According to Franck (1969: 154, 228) by the mid 1960's
stewardship and conservation of natural resources were married through
an expanding environmental interpretation of both.

Even in the face of difficulties, including human caused (e.g., market
failures) and natural disasters (e.g., droughts and floods), many
agricultural producers have maintained an ethic toward the land that
treats farming and ranching as *a* *way of life rather than a business*.
Many social surveys during the 1960\'s and 1970\'s, and even today,
confirmed that farmers choose both life style and profits as goals
(Gibson, 1993; Kolodge, 1993). Farmers and ranchers wanted to achieve
their goals of living a vital and rewarding life style and passing their
farmstead on to their children, in better shape than when they first got
it.

However, the early 1970\'s partially shattered this ethic. World markets
offered opportunities for expanding agricultural operations, and marked
a boom for productivity, but a bust for stewardship and conservation
work. Earl Butz\'s now famous statements advising American farmers to
\"get big or get out\" and \"plant fence-post to fence-post\" put
stewardship on hold for a time during this dizzying and gray episode in
American agriculture. However, stewardship did not fade away, it was
only suspended for a short period.

Legislation in the 1980\'s and 1990\'s unsheathed the proverbial
\"stick,\" which used the loss of program benefits to discourage
breaking up new farmlands, disturbing wetlands, and farming highly
erodible lands without using appropriate conservation practices. These
programs have caused many agricultural producers to come into the
conservation fold regardless of their stewardship attitude. Once they
installed conservation practices, however, studies show that they may
want to continue using these practices because of multiple reasons,
including aesthetics, off farm impacts, community social pressure, and
the difficulty of breaking newly formed habits (Wright et. al., 1989;
Wunderlich, 1991).

Over the past 20 years, there has developed a stronger link between
stewardship, spirituality, and conservation. In 1979, Pope John II, in a
speech to Iowa farmers said, \"You who live in the heartland of America
have been entrusted with some of the earth\'s best land. While it is
true that farming today provides an economic livelihood for the farm,
still it will always be more than an enterprise in farming. In farming
you cooperate with the Creator in the very substance of life on Earth\"
(Bear, 1986: 286).

**Durability of Stewardship**

Farmers and ranchers take seriously the charge to protect the natural
resources that are under their control. In a recent Gallup Poll (1995),
the public recognizes the job the agricultural sector is doing to
conserve land and water. The public ranked farmers and ranchers highest
as environmental caretakers compared to others who work with natural
resources such as oil, manufacturing, and high technology companies. The
public also ranked agricultural producers above homeowners in how they
care for their land.

The consciousness of America and the rest of the world has been lifted
regarding stewardship issues. However, it would be disingenuous not to
recognize that regulatory legislation at national, state, and local
levels as well as the threat of regulation has spurred some agricultural
producers into protecting more fully the natural resources they manage.
Whole industries and specific companies now recognize that the
marketplace can exert a tremendous force over those that pollute the
environment. At the same time, the voluntary spirit of stewardship has
also changed so that farmers and ranchers are told they must deal more
holistically with agricultural natural resources. Holistic planning
actually is similar to the thirties, forties, and fifties, with notable
differences such as general improvements in scientific knowledge and a
finer focus on air quality, water quality, and threatened and endangered
species.

These variations come about during a changing of the guard in
agricultural ownership, operations, and management. Americans have
witnessed the loss of half the farms in the United States over the past
30 years. Two percent of the farms in 1993 generated about 40 percent of
the gross farm sales (USDA, 1996). Just recently, however, there has
been a slight increase in small, part-time farms across the nation,
especially in \"exurbia\" (the area just beyond the suburbs). Many who
operate these middle and small agricultural enterprises continue to have
a special relationship with the land. To them, private ownership means
stewardship or trusteeship, not the right to do whatever you want.
Larger agricultural enterprises, like other industrial sectors, have
either already learned this lesson or run the risk of blindly running
into the regulatory stick.

**Future Stewardship**

The force of public opinion is highlighted by a group of 34 prominent
scientists \-- including Carl Sagan, Freeman Dyson, and Stephen Jay
Gould \-- who issued an \"open letter to the religious community\" in
1990. The scientists stated that the earth\'s problems are so serious
they must be \"recognized from the outset as having a religious as well
as a scientific dimension.\" Religious leaders responded and founded the
National Religious Partnership for the Environment. This group includes
the National Council of Churches of Christ, U.S. Catholic Conference,
the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, and the Evangelical
Environmental Network. In 1994, the organization distributed 53,000
environmental \"starter kits\" to congregations throughout the United
States. \"Science may have alerted evangelicals to the problem, but
it\'s Scripture that\'s moving them to action\" (Atkisson, 1995: 15).

Over the next 20 years, stewardship, spirituality, and conservation will
be impacted by conflicting forces. These forces include population
growth, export opportunities, and greater internal production demands.
This trend goes hand in glove with the downsizing of government programs
and the move toward a fuller free market that is represented by the
so-called Freedom to Farm Bill. The fierce forces of competition
reemphasize and reinforce the bottom line, which can influence farmers
to suspend what we believe is a strong stewardship attitude in favor of
maximizing production to survive.

In contrast, the weight of public opinion reveals itself through voting
behavior, membership in environmental groups, financial contributions,
legislation, and changes in personal behavior. Organized religions have
also begun to focus heavily on the issue of stewardship and laws that
protect threatened and endangered species (Mahan, 1996). Agribusiness
has recently begun many stewardship initiatives. In the early 1990\'s,
USDA\'s \"Crop Residue Management Campaign\" had active participation
from 9 Federal agencies, about 20 states, and approximately 80
organizations that represented the private sector and non-governmental
organizations. This successful campaign made crop residue a household
word among farmers and the practice of leaving crop residue on their
fields benefited both production and conservation. As another example,
the Chemical Manufacturer\'s Association in 1988 announced the first
single industry initiative on environmental stewardship (Hoffman, 1995:
63). Since that time, industries such as petroleum, printing, textiles,
paper, lead, and automobiles have designed similar programs.

The stewardship of natural resources has changed greatly since the
beginning of the twentieth century. For many farmers and ranchers, the
traditional land and water ethic has endured. Many in the countryside
manage land resources because it is the \"right thing to do.\" Others
protect natural resources because of regulations or the threat of
regulation. Although the voluntary protection of natural resources has
changed, many stewardship elements are still encased in spirituality,
which may ensure its permanence.

**Bibliography**

Anderson, William E. \"Viewpoint: Building a Stewardship Ethic.\"
[Rangelands]{.underline}, December 1983, 271-273.

Atkisson, Alan. \"Thou Shalt Care for the Earth.\" [Utne
Reader]{.underline}, March-April, 1995,

15-16.

Bear, Firman E., H. Wayne Pritchard, and Wallace E. Akin. [Earth: The
Stuff of Life]{.underline}. Norman and London: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1986.

Bennett, Hugh Hammond (quote). [Farmland or Wasteland: A Time To
Choose.]{.underline} Neil R. Sampson (author), Rodale Press, Emmaus,
page 258, 1981.

Franck, Marga, ed. [Bibliographic Index - A Cumulative Bibliography of
Bibliographies]{.underline} [1966-68]{.underline}. H.W. Wilson Company,
1969.

Gallup Poll. "National Survey of Attitudes Towards Agricultural Natural
Resource Conservation," in [Is There A Better Way?]{.underline},
USDA-NRCS, 1995.

Gibson, Eric. "Community Supported Agriculture." University of
California Small Farm Center, November/December 1993.

Hoffman, Andrew J. "Faces of Environmental Stewardship." [Chemical
Week]{.underline}, July 5/12, 1995, 63.

Kolodge, Craig. "Amish Farming: A Modern Day Paradox." University of
California Small Farm Center, January/February 1993.

Leopold, Aldo (quote). [Aldo Leopold: The Man and His
Legacy]{.underline}. Thomas Tanner (author), Soil Conservation Society
of America, 1987.

Mahan, David. "A Biblical Call to Protect Wildlife," [The Grand Rapids
Press.]{.underline} Grand Rapids, MI, (no date).

Resler, Rexford A. "On Stewardship." [American Forests]{.underline},
1983, 6.

Simms, Harper D. \"The Soil Conservation Service.\" [Farm and
Ranch]{.underline}, 1970.

USDA, Office of Communications. [Agricultural Fact Book,
1996]{.underline}. Washington, D. C. 1996.

Wright B., H. Cordell, T. Brown, and A. Rowell. "The National Private
Land Ownership Study: Establishing The Benchmark." USDA, Southeast
Experiment Station December 1989, 33-50.

Wunderlich, G. "Owning Farmland in The United States." USDA-ERS,
Agriculture Information Bulletin 637, 1991.