page_title: Leopold Report
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Leopold Report / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Giant Sequoia trees in the Giant Forest grove, Sequoia National Park, California. Esperanto: sekvojaj arboj en la "giganta arbaro" de la Nacia Parko Sekvoja
context_page_description: The Leopold Report, officially known as Wildlife Management in the National Parks, is a 1963 paper composed of a series of ecosystem management recommendations that were presented by the Special Advisory Board on Wildlife Management to United States Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall. Named for its chairman and principal author, zoologist and conservationist A. Starker Leopold, the report proved influential for future preservation mandates.
  After several years of public controversy regarding the forced reduction of the elk population in Yellowstone National Park, Udall appointed an advisory board to collect scientific data to inform future wildlife management of the national parks. The committee observed that culling programs at other national parks had been ineffective, and recommended different management of Yellowstone's elk population. In addressing the goals, policies, and methods of managing wildlife in the parks, the report suggested that in addition to protection, wildlife populations should be managed and regulated to prevent habitat degradation.
context_section_description: The Leopold Report was the first concrete plan for managing park visitors and ecosystems under unified principles. With an infusion of scientists and resource programs, it set into motion a series of ecologically positive legislative actions in the 1960s and into the 1970s. While direct management of the elk population in Yellowstone National Park continues to spark debate amongst scientists, the report nonetheless successfully influenced multiple areas of park management. Prior to the report's publication, California's Sequoia National Park was beset by a thick underbrush, which the report directly referred to as a "dog-hair thicket ... a direct function of overprotection from natural ground fires". This underbrush would have been naturally eradicated by lightning storms, but because of policies that supported wildfire suppression, the growth threatened the park's Giant Sequoia trees. As a direct result of the report's advice regarding the usefulness of controlled burning, in 1964 the park began performing trial controlled burns, which led to a 1968 policy championing the continuation of burns for the betterment of the park's forest ecosystems. Fire ecologist Bruce Kilgore credited the Leopold Report as being a true catalyst for change, stating that it was the "document of greatest significance to National Park Service [fire] policy".
  Although the Robbins Report did not receive the same recognition as the Leopold Report, it reached similar conclusions. However, unlike the Leopold Report, the Robbins Report criticized the NPS for its lack of scientific research and made recommendations for sweeping changes in the structure of the NPS, with a proposal for a strong focus on a science-based approach. In 1972, the far more detailed Cain Report was released; amounting to 207 pages in comparison to the Leopold Report's scant 28, its committee was chaired by Stanley A. Cain, who also worked on the Leopold Report. Although this report made similar recommendations to the one primarily written by Leopold, it stated that little had been done to advance the previous report's findings, especially in terms of predator control. As a result of the Cain Report's recommendations, President Richard Nixon signed Executive Order 11643, which restricted the usage of poisons such as strychnine and sodium cyanide for predator control.
  The report's visionary goal for preservation has been both lauded and criticized. Author of the book Searching for Yellowstone: Ecology and Wonder in the Last Wilderness, Paul Schullery, wrote of the report: "Scholars return to it for new interpretations and even inspiration regularly, speakers invoke it on all occasions, and it is trotted out to prove almost every perspective in debates about modern park management." On the other hand, Alston Chase, a vocal critic of the National Park Service, disapproved of the limited scope of the Leopold Report, arguing that it had "inadvertently replaced science with nostalgia, subverting the goal it had set out to support". The report's insistence to return parks to the condition that "prevailed when the area was first visited by the white man" has also been criticized for ignoring the Native Americans' historical presence in the area. Historian and author Philip Burnham in particular stated in his 2000 book, Indian Country, God's Country: Native Americans and the National Parks, that although Leopold et al. were more progressive than their predecessors, they "still dismissed native people as passive onlookers".
caption: Giant Sequoia trees in the Giant Forest, Sequoia National Park
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