It’s Time Conservatives Reclaimed Conservation

To conserve is not merely to preserve, but also to improve.

Conservation wasn’t on the top of my mind when I started getting engaged in the conservative movement. Like many people, I instinctively connected the concept of protecting the environment with apocalyptic climate activists and organizations, whose claims were dubious, constantly evolving, and whose solutions just so happened to be a progressive policy wishlist.

I wasn’t alone. For a long while, this skepticism caused the conservative movement to cede ground on just about every environmental issue to the well-funded environmental activist NGO complex.

Which is ironic, because both “conservative” and “conservation” come from the Latin word conservare, meaning to keep, preserve, keep intact, guard. And the conservative movement, as a whole, has failed to guard one of its richest legacies, one that was fully developed and implemented in the first decade of the 20th century under President Theodore Roosevelt.

conservare (v): to keep, preserve, keep intact, guard

His time in office marked a successive series of legislation and executive action that set the standard for conservation in the United States: the Antiquities Act, the Forest Transfer Act (which created the Forest Service), and the protection of roughly 230 million acres of land, from national forests to game preserves.

But his writings themselves show a deeper commitment, not toward an abstract goal of “protecting the environment” from development, or an arbitrary amount of acreage to designate, but a philosophy that underpins why conservatism as a way of approaching public policy is necessary. In fact, Roosevelt’s 1910 New Nationalism speech contains his own definition of conservatism, writing that “the true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth…” But this way of thinking was years in the making. It wasn’t a campaign pitch to win over potential voters; it was a way of life that defined all aspects of policy and behavior while Roosevelt held the presidency.

On May 13th, 1908, President Roosevelt delivered the opening address to the Governors’ Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources. He spoke primarily of hedging against the exhaustion of natural resources and of protecting those that could be made better through human involvement. He said to these governors: “One distinguishing characteristic of really civilized men is foresight; we have to, as a nation, exercise foresight for this nation in the future; and if we do not exercise that foresight, dark will be the future!”

That foresight and planning for future generations instead of for pure self-benefit or short-term gain is what distinguishes conservatives from their ideological counterparts. Theodore Roosevelt knew that the demands of industry were overwhelming and that man’s instinct would be to leverage all resources necessary to ensure continued economic growth and prosperity, but he also knew that there was a higher duty, a balance to be achieved that struck the middle ground between rapid advancement and destroying a beautiful environment, which many Americans took for granted.

In fact, President Roosevelt singled out conservation as an area of policy that he had made his own. He wrote in a special message to Congress that: “The policy of conservation is perhaps the most typical example of the general policies which this Government has made peculiarly its own during the opening years of the present century. The function of our Government is to ensure to all its citizens, now and hereafter, their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If we of this generation destroy the resources from which our children would otherwise derive their livelihood, we reduce the capacity of our land to support a population, and so either degrade the standard of living or deprive the coming generations of their right to life on this continent.”

That’s what makes conservation so important to the conservative movement. We understand that to conserve is not merely to preserve, but also to improve, to pass on something greater than what we inherited. Roosevelt’s “strenuous life” was not limited to personal exertion. It was a civic ideal that demanded moral effort in public life. To him, conservation was a strenuous act of citizenship, a test of whether Americans could discipline themselves for the long haul rather than indulge the comfort of short-term gain.

In an 1899 address, Roosevelt rejected “the doctrine of ignoble ease” and praised instead “the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife.” That same ethic animated his approach to conservation. Protecting forests, rivers, and wildlife required not passivity but discipline on behalf of society and industry.

For conservatives today, that lesson is indispensable. True conservatism channels change responsibly, with an eye towards the prosperity of our children. Roosevelt’s foresight reminds us that markets and technology must serve the common good, not erode it. His conservation policy was, in essence, an argument for limited government serving an unlimited moral duty.

In revisiting Roosevelt’s words, we rediscover a form of conservatism that balances rugged individualism with public stewardship. He did not see nature as something to fear or worship, unlike many today, but as a trust between generations. That trust, once central to the conservative identity, must be reclaimed. Conservation, rightly understood, is not a left-wing project. That’s why President Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act, which was an unprecedented investment to preserve the national park system for generations of Americans. It’s also why conservatives, myself included, opposed proposed land sales in the Big Beautiful Bill. It is an affirmation that the American experiment itself depends on continuity between the past we inherit, the present we govern, and the future we owe to our children.

Aiden Buzzetti is the President of the Bull Moose Project. He graduated from American University with a degree in political science.