History of the DNR
Chester Wilson, the lawyer who drafted the legislation creating the Department of Conservation in 1931, remembers when Governor Harold Stassen asked him to take over the agency Wilson had helped to create. "Chet," Stassen said, "I want to appoint you Commissioner of Conservation."
"I'll have to think that over," Wilson replied. "I've got a good job now. Commissioner of Conservation is the hottest job in the state government."
Wilson finally accepted, and his observation rings as true today as it did in 1943 when he began his 12-year term. The agency, whose name was changed in 1971 to the Department of Natural Resources to better reflect its broader responsibilities, has lived in the midst of controversy since it was established almost 70 years ago.
"This conservation movement traveled a very difficult road," wrote an editor in a 1933 issue of The Minnesota Conservationist, the department magazine. "Selfish interests, powerful and resourceful, placed obstacles in the way. Sportsmen's groups, women's organizations, conservationists, and others who believed that the bounties of nature were intended for the common use and happiness of all mankind, found themselves beset with enemies at every hand. But sentiment for conservation became crystallized and assumed such proportions that lawmakers could not avert their eyes."
The long struggle to create a single agency responsible for Minnesota's dwindling natural resources was won in 1931 when four units of state government -- forestry, game and fish, drainage and waters, and lands and timber -- were combined in the Department of Conservation. The new agency, headed by a five-member commission and an administrator, traced its roots to commissions and departments set up in the late 1800s to manage state resources. The work of those early agencies was, at best, uneven, and at worst, ineffective and fraudulent. "Previous to 1931," stated an early department report, "conservation progress in Minnesota was both painfully slow and haphazard."
Minnesota's developing conservation ethic, which the new department brandished as a weapon and wore as armor, crossed the lance of tradition. For nearly 100 years, pioneers sought to extend their domain over Minnesota's wilderness and market hunters reaped profit at public expense. The great pine forest, a green canopy that stretched across eastern and northern Minnesota, had been clearcut or carelessly burned. The passenger pigeon was extinct. Buffalo, cougar, and grizzly bear had been driven from Minnesota. Elk and caribou were rare. Moose and beaver were growing scarce. Millions of acres of wetlands had been drained.
"Commercial exploitation in the past has despoiled our forests, marred our landscapes, and dissipated our resources," Governor Floyd B. Olson proclaimed in 1933. "It has robbed our people of the greater part of their heritage of natural resources. Let us guard what is left diligently and zealously."
Diligence and zealousness alone, however, would not carry the day. Research and education were also important, for the Department of Conservation faced difficult technical and political problems. Many remain as problems today.
The Depression launched the Department of Conservation, but with a boost from the federal government. Unemployment programs provided laborers and skilled workers who planted trees, planned parks, constructed buildings, and cleared trails. The loss of private lands through tax forfeiture enabled the state to consolidate its holdings for wildlife management areas, state forests, parks, and other land units.
Two big changes in the department -- one substantive, the other symbolic -- should be noted. In 1937, the Conservation Commission was abolished and a single Commissioner of Conservation, appointed by the governor, was put in charge. Then, in 1971, the agency's name was changed to the Department of Natural Resources to reflect its broadening responsibilities.
Through the years, natural resource management has become increasingly complex. Old problems persist; new issues arise. More people are putting wild areas to more uses. Attitudes change and render old policies obsolete. The task of managing Minnesota's resources has required research, persistence, flexibility, insight, and the help of those who find occupation or respite in the outdoors.
"We have deserted the anti-social doctrine of the past as it pertains to our natural resources," declared The Conservationist in the early 1930s. "We are . . . planning with an eye to permanency so that future generations will inherit an empire of wealth rather than a land shorn of the blessings which nature bestowed upon it."
The Department of Natural Resources' vision today, of sustainability and an ecosystem-based framework for setting natural resource management priorities, echoes this heritage.
* Excerpt from "Managing Minnesota's Natural Resources: The DNR's First 50 Years, 1931-1981,"
--written and researched by Greg Breining, 1981.
