Abbot Kinney - Conservationist

Conservationist

Kinney was appointed to a three-year position as chairman of the California Board of Forestry. There he developed an agency to protect the forests of the San Gabriel Mountains, where ranchers typically set fires to clear land for livestock grazing, but then, as a result, subsequent rainfalls led to flooding in the valleys.

On his own property, he developed land management techniques for raising livestock alongside cultivated forests. Aided by his friend naturalist John Muir, Kinney established the San Gabriel Timberland Reserve in December 1892, forerunner to the Angeles National Forest.

In 1883, Kinney and Helen Hunt Jackson co-wrote a report for the U.S. Department of the Interior on the condition of California Mission Indians. This report and others led to the Mission Indian Act of 1891, which created a commission to seek to establish or confirm reservations in Southern California.

In 1887, Kinney established the nation's first forestry station in Rustic Canyon on 6 acres (24,000 m2) of land donated by Santa Monica co-founder John P. Jones (also a U.S. Senator from Nevada), and Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker. One of the station's projects was a study of the newly introduced eucalyptus trees.