Which U.S. president said, “The conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our national life”?

If you guessed Theodore Roosevelt, give yourself a Presidents' Day pat on the back. Roosevelt, the most famous conservationist President and the 26th to hold office, protected 230 million acres of public land. “A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself,” he said, echoing the sentiment of contemporary conservation heroes like his friend John Muir.

Roosevelt set aside 150 national forests, five national parks, and 18 national monuments. But his legacy also includes his words, hundreds of speeches and letters in which he laid bare his passion for nature and his faith in Americans' responsibility to protect it. In a speech in 1910, he said that “of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land than it is for us…”

Other presidents have added to Roosevelt's environmental legacy, though perhaps none have embraced the cause so wholeheartedly. (Of course, Roosevelt also hunted many species that are today endangered. But that’s another story.)

Interestingly, one of the greatest environmental legacies was left by President number 37, Richard M. Nixon, who by some accounts cared little about nature but shrewdly understood the political significance of the nascent environmental movement. (His predecessor, Lyndon B. Johnson, signed the Wilderness Act.) Nixon signed into law some of the most important federal environmental legislation, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) – the mother of all federal environmental laws – the Endangered Species Act, and the Clean Air Act, among others. Nixon proclaimed the first Earth Week, in 1971, and called, in his first State of the Union address in 1970, for $10 billion to clean up the nation's air and water.

Jimmy Carter, the 39th President, is still famous – or perhaps infamous – for his attempts at energy conservation. In a 1977 speech about the gas crisis he said, “With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes. The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly.”

Carter’s energy policy was based on 10 principles, which included resource conservation (which he touted as a means to economic prosperity), investment in renewable energy technologies and environmental protection. Carter’s stand on energy alientated voters, but he still remains a hero to many for his brave public recognition of the need to curb Americans’ thirst for oil. Carter also improved the National Park Service and preserved Alaska wilderness.

Photo credit: Library of Congress