In a twist of irony, Grand Teton National Park was created by a series of shady land deals orchestrated by John D. Rockefeller, Jr, son of the famous oil tycoon. Nowadays, underhanded land grabs and Big Oil are the archenemies of conservationists and environmentalists, but Terry Tempest Williams paints Rockefeller and his plan in golden, glowing colors. The land became a national park, piecemeal, between 1943 and 1950, leaving only the JY Ranch in the hands of the Rockefeller family as a beloved summer retreat. In 2001 this, too, passed into the hands of the National Park Service, at the request of Rockefeller Jr.’s son, Laurance. The ranch itself was dismantled and reconstructed outside the park, and the land on which it had once stood was rewilded, returned to it’s pre-ranch state. Williams explains the motivation for the land transfer:

This gift marked a continuation of John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s philanthropic legacy to national parks. The ranch, purchased in 1932  for $90,000, roughly $45 an acre, is valued today at more than $160 million. But as Laurance Rockefeller said, “Father’s greatest gift to the national park was not his generous donation of land, but rather his vision that people can live in harmony with nature.”

But the vision realized by the gift and the rewilding is not one of harmony, but segregation. The deconstruction of the ranch is a clear message that humans can live in harmony with nature, and nature with humans, but they cannot do so while living in the same place. That kind of thinking is not only sad, it’s dangerous—but it’s also unfortunately common in conservation.

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