Natural Defense: Air Force Origins of Department of Defense Natural Resources Conservation Program - Land Use Controversy, Fish and Wildlife, Turtle Habitats, Species at Risk on DOD Installations

Professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction, this Air Force publication relates the story of why the U.S. Air Force took the lead among the military services in developing a comprehensive conservation program and how efforts by the Air Force laid the groundwork for the Department of Defense natural resources program that followed. The book also situates USAF/DOD conservation efforts within the context of U.S. military environmental engagement across the decades, and within the broader scope of the emerging conservation/environmental movement in the post-World War II United States.

Chapter One - The U.S. Military and Natural Resource Awareness through World War II * Chapter Two - The Newly Independent Air Force, Its Culture, and Post-World War II Conservation Efforts * Chapter Three - Natural Resources Conservation, the Military Land Use Controversy, and Congressional Challenges * Chapter Four - The Air Force Response to Conservation Concerns * Chapter Five - The Air Force and Department of Defense Launch Conservation Programs

This study examines the origins of the U.S. Air Force Fish and Wildlife Conservation Program and the Department of Defense natural resource management efforts that followed. It considers why the U.S. Air Force took the lead among the military services in developing a program to protect natural resources on Defense Department lands and tells how the service's top officers, who had long associations with notables in conservation and sportsman circles, shaped these conservation efforts. In addition to detailing the legislative hearings and laws that prodded the military into action, this work describes the interaction among military leaders, conservation advocates, members of Congress, and American citizens who, fueled by the broader natural resources conservation movement that was gaining traction in the country in the 1940s and 1950s, created an atmosphere conducive to substantive improvements in fish and wildlife programs on military lands.

As detailed in the first chapter, from its earliest days, the U.S. military played a significant role in exploring and documenting the country's vast natural resources and biological wealth. U.S. Army officers led the Lewis and Clark expedition and the Pacific railroad surveys, among other endeavors. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the Army protected and helped shape the earliest national parks. With the advent of the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service, the Army and its new Air Service found other nature-related duties during World War I and the interwar years, culminating with involvement in supervision of camps of the Civilian Conservation Corps.