Economía y gestión forestal en el movimiento conservacionista americano: Bernhard Fernow

The B. Fernow's Economics of Forestry [19021 is especially relevant for two reasons. On the one hand, it is the first book written in English entirely focused on a systematic discussion of forest management from an economic viewpoint. In fact, Fernow transferred forestry economics –a discipline that had begun to develop in Germany during the eighteenth century- to the English-speaking world. On the other hand, it is a book of great historical significance. It was published in 1902, just when the American Conservation Movement began its golden age, and when forestry itself epitomized the ideals of rational scientific management in the service of economic progress which guided the conservation policy leaded by G. Pinchot –a Fernow's disciple. However, the marked utilitarian bias associated with this conception of forest management -which at the end of the nineteenth century had been an effective response to the social concern about timber famine and the negative effects of fast deforestation- gave rise to the J. Muir's preservationist criticism, His wider view of the forest management anticipated later approaches to this matter.