Washington » President Abraham Lincoln was striving to hold the nation together when he set aside land that later would become Yosemite National Park. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt faced the depths of the Great Depression when he created the Civilian Conservation Corps to boost public land projects. So when people assert that, with the country fighting two wars abroad and an economic crisis at home, it's not the time to focus on wilderness and the environment, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar responds that the United States must not neglect its own natural treasures.
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