Dawn of Conservation Diplomacy

In the first decades of the twentieth century, fish in the Great Lakes and Puget Sound, seals in the North Pacific, and birds across North America faced a common threat: overharvesting that threatened extinction for many species. Progressive era conservationists saw a need for government intervention to protect threatened animals. And because so many species migrated across international political boundaries, their protectors saw the necessity of international conservation agreements. In The Dawn of Conservation Diplomacy, Kurkpatrick Dorsey examines the first three comprehensive wildlife conservation treaties in history, all between the United States and Canada: the Inland Fisheries Treaty of 1908, the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention of 1911, and the Migratory Bird Treaty of 1916. Dorsey recounts the story of each of these early treaties, examining the scientific research that provided the basis for each effort, acknowledging the complexity of the issues, and presenting the personalities behind the politics. He argues that these decades-old treaties both directly affect us today and offer lessons for future conservation efforts.