Human Rights at Home and Abroad: Past, Present, and Future

were the ones in which he developed many conservation programs. Under his presidency, Roosevelt
―tripled the land set aside for national forests, bringing the total to more than 150 million acres‖ (Nash,
650). While tripling the land for national forests, President Roosevelt also established ―150 national
parks, 51 federal bird preservations, 4 game preserves, 5 national parks‖ and many more preservations
(Theodore Roosevelt Association). Roosevelt also founded the National Conservation Commission to
take an inventory of all the natural resources in the United States. Although he was known as a master
hunter, Roosevelt felt it necessary to respect the animals and develop game preserves to save animals
from becoming extinct in the United States. His acts of conserving upset big businesses due to the fact
that Roosevelt did not feed into their briberies. Rather, he continued to protect the wilderness because he
felt that was more important than receiving money in an illegal manner. During President Roosevelt‘s
presidency, many natural resources were preserved to save the greater good of the people and the natural
beauty of the United States. Roosevelt did not allow big business to persuade his policy setting.
In the past few decades, the conservation of natural resources has taken a back seat to other major
issues. However, on April 20 th , 2010, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico brought the topic of
conservation to the forefront of American minds. The main concern of the BP spill after it was capped on
July 15 th , was that the total number of oil being dumped into the Gulf of Mexico reached an astounding
―4.9 million gallons with only 800,000 thus far being captured‖ (BBC News). Many men and women
feared for the preservation of marine wildlife endangered by the spill. Other people wondered what the
United States government would do the punish BP for their mistake in the oil spill. However, recent
presidents have allowed for Corporatocracy to occur. Corporatocracy is the term used to describe the
federal governments primary interest in large corporations, which ends up giving the corporation control
of the government. With the BP spill, the government allowed BP to exploit natural resources from the
Gulf in order to avoid a free market.
Alfred Webre of The Examiner states in his article that ―[it is] difficult to measure because of the
lack of reliable information from the U.S. government and BP‖ (Webre, 1). This comment shows that the
government remains fearful for severely punishing BP for the oil spill due to the government being paid
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