Fires continue to burn outside of Los Angeles and they have become a partisan football. President Donald Trump has blamed California governor Gavin Newsom for the devastation, making inaccurate accusations about poor water management and federal environmental protections of endangered species. But, to the President’s credit, he also included the failures of American forest conservation practices in his bill of horribles supposedly responsible for the fires. Though his claim that these practices failed to prevent the fires was misleading, he was right about one thing: forest conservation practices are central to the ongoing battle between humans and nature in Southern California.
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Despite its importance, this topic has received little attention in the coverage of the fires. But it’s crucial to understanding the destruction of the fires — and crafting policies to prevent future disasters. In the late 19th century, progressive politicians and bureaucrats began focusing on conservation. They saw it as a way to boost the economy and businesses, develop rural areas, and wisely use America’s natural resources. For more than a century those have remained the core principles of American conservation policy. Yet, as the L.A. fires expose, that’s no longer tenable in a world confronting climate change.
Conservation gained traction in the U.S. during the late 19th century as Americans — and the Western world more broadly — looked to address the consequences of industrial growth through what became known as progressivism. Progressivism became a popular (at first mostly local and state-driven) movement propagated by middle-class professionals and “experts” that soon permeated both major political parties. The reformers driving this movement believed in human progress, scientific management, the use of government power for the public good, and replacing political patronage with the hiring of experts.
Republican Theodore Roosevelt, who ascended to the Presidency after the assassination of William McKinley in 1901, cemented the role of these ideas in running the federal government. He used the executive branch to greatly expand the government and lay the foundation for the modern state.
Conservation was essential to the mission of progressives like Roosevelt. The President had long been an outdoor recreation enthusiast, and the famed story of him sparring with a black bear cub during a 1902 hunting trip—which prompted the invention of the “teddy bear”—spotlighted his passion for the environment. Roosevelt extended his relationship with the natural world during his Presidency and championed federal conservation policies with the assistance of bureaucratic lieutenants: James R. Garfield at the Department of Interior, Frederick Newell heading the Bureau of Reclamation and, most notably, Gifford Pinchot at the Forest Service. Pinchot became a leading voice in the push for conversation. In a 1910 book, he offered the progressives’ definition of the practice: conservation was a set of policies that emphasized development, the reduction of waste, and the management and maintenance of natural resources in order to do in his words, “the greatest good to the greatest number for the longest time.”
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That same year, an unprecedented fire broke out in the West, burning millions of acres of forest in Idaho, Montana, and Washington in just two days.
In 1911, Congress responded to the “Big Blowup,” as the fire became known, with the Weeks Act, which created a national conservation policy for managing wildfires. Conservationists, driven by the progressive mindset, viewed forest fires—which they did not connect to being part of the natural ecosystem—as wasteful, inefficient, and a hindrance to development. Therefore, the Weeks Act established a system for collaboration between federal and state agencies and, later, private organizations, to prevent and extinguish them.
This policy would evolve over two decades, before eventually coalescing into the “10 a.m. policy,” which mandated suppressing forest fires—or at least attempting to—by the morning following their reporting. Such a policy was essential, the progressives believed, because forests were a crucial part of American agriculture and development. Everything from building homes to laying train tracks depended on the ability to harvest lumber in forests. Protecting property from wildfires was also crucial for industrial development.
The government implemented this policy in the 1930s, just as another Roosevelt, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was shifting the focus of conservation beyond natural resources like water and forests. The Great Depression, and changing American geographical demographics, prompted Roosevelt to adjust the purpose of Progressive ideas about conservation.
In the New York state senate, he had represented rural upstate constituents, and Roosevelt himself dabbled with farming and forest management after inheriting his childhood home along the banks of the Hudson. This experience led the future president to view rural American prosperity, especially for farmers, as essential to overall economic growth. As industrialization spurred urban growth, it also created disparities between rural and urban areas and, in Roosevelt’s mind, that demanded the government stepping in to create geographic parity in the interest of the public good. To him, this was the essence of conservation: developing the country’s natural resources in such a way as to drive economic growth.
Roosevelt became president during the Great Depression, which was exacerbated by environmental disasters—floods, soil erosion, and most memorably, the Dust Bowl in the southern plains.
Roosevelt saw conservation as a crucial part of his New Deal and a way to both reverse the environmental degradation that had caused these disasters, as well as a means of providing work opportunities through programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Members of the CCC, for example, developed state parks throughout the country and planted billions of trees in the plains to protect farms from wind erosion and another Dust Bowl. Other programs, such as building hydroelectric dams, mitigated flood damage and provided electricity to rural Americans to expand the consumer market for goods produced in urban factories.
These policies furthered all of Roosevelt’s conservation goals: developing rural areas, providing work to the unemployed, and improving the climate for business and development. Conservation was about the economy, not the environment.
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In the 1960s, however, a burgeoning environmental movement challenged this understanding of conservation. Activists exposed unsafe business practices and pushed for environmental protections. In the 1970s, their efforts bore fruit. In 1970, President Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which mandated that the government consider the environmental impact of any federal development or decision, such as highway construction or granting permits.
Yet, even as Congress mandated considering the environment in policy decisions, the new laws still emphasized the need for development and for collective action in the public interest—as conservation policies had for seven decades. Laws like the Clean Air Act forced businesses, like automakers, to adopt practices to safeguard the environment, but in ways that wouldn’t materially impact their bottom line.
Even as Ronald Reagan ushered in a much more conservative political direction for the country in the 1980s—one focused on cutting regulations and government, not adding new protections—American support for conservation remained strong. In 1985, for example, Congress enacted a farm bill, which used agricultural subsidies to incentivize farmers to refrain from developing designated wetlands and highly erodible lands. Yet, legislators envisioned this provision not as an environmental protection measure, but as a way to drive economic development by raising crop prices and ensuring soil quality for sustainable production.
The environmental importance of conservation would only warrant a greater focus in the 1990s, as Congress enacted waste reduction programs like EnergyStar. Initially, the voluntary labeling program focused on encouraging the purchase of office electronics that reduced energy consumption but evolved to include all large electronics, appliances, and buildings. Even then, the Clinton Administration emphasized the importance of the program both as a means of saving money and of addressing growing concerns over climate change—or, “global warming,” in 1990s terminology. As EPA Administrator Carol Browner described, the program would enable Americans “to see that saving energy is not only good for the environment and good for the country, but also good for business.”
This history makes clear that conservation in the U.S. has always been about economic growth and development in the public interest, and the environmental impact only became part of its focus in recent decades. Yet, that is no longer sustainable in a world beset by climate change. To protect development and economic security, the top priority of conservation programs needs to be safeguarding the environment—and not just in rural areas.
Decades of a focus on development, especially in rural areas, has left the U.S. ill prepared for the challenges presented by climate change. American environmental policy has had successes in creating resilient solutions to immediate problems, but they have not been evenly applied throughout the country to prepare for unprecedented environmental dangers such as the Los Angeles wildfires. Yet, adjusting conservation policy doesn’t have to be an either/or situation: protecting the environment and making the U.S. more climate change resistant can also create jobs and drive economic growth.
Johnathan Williams is an assistant professor of instruction in the history department at the University of Northern Iowa. His current book project, The Retail Exception, examines the history of Target and the retail industry to understand modern American environmental politics.
Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.