Sir: As for the expansion into the field of conservation, I have my doubts and questions. I am a forester, and in the course of researching the growing controversy between the wilderness-recreation interests and the timber interests, I was appalled at the almost total lack of an objective approach to the issues on the part of the Sierra Club and Wilderness Society spokesmen. Granted, these two organizations are due a debt of gratitude from the American people for fighting a difficult and (formerly) unpopular fight. But my objection is to the ridiculous, carping literature they employ. The innuendo and guilt-by-association tactics are reminiscent of Joe McCarthy, and certainly do nothing to increase their standing in the eyes of professional foresters, biologists, and ecologists. I am concerned that the American Heritage Society’s officers and editors will be tempted to follow the same path. I hope that the professional attitude so well displayed in the magazine to date will be kept, and that objectivity and scientific procedure will win out over subjectivity and emotionalism.
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January 2011
Sir: … More than fifty years ago I was an Adirondack guide and woodsman. What has happened since is enough to scare you. Our magnificent forests were bequeathed to us, but at the present rate of wastefulness and destruction we will have nothing to pass onto those who follow. …
Sir: May I congratulate AMERICAN HERITAGE on its decision to inaugurate a new department devoted to the conservation of natural resources? Our social and economic problems are legion, but none will have a solution at all if the resource base which supports us all suffers continued destruction.
Sir: I am very pleased to learn that A MERICAN H ERITAGE will expand its editorial charter and contents to include a new department devoted to conservation. Of course, as a subscriber for the past ten years, I am also proud to become a charter member of the American Heritage Society.
Sir: … In my view, conservation means a maximum utilization of natural resources for the benefit of the greatest number—our natural and historical treasures. In this utilization, every consideration must be given to the prevention of pollution, indiscriminate commercial exploitation, and in certain instances, commercial urban encroachment. On the other hand, I am diametrically opposed to the Sierra Club view that all of the areas that haven’t suffered from commercial exploitation, as of this date, should be put in isolated preserves and kept for the benefit of a very small minority. An excellent case in point is their present opposition to the Mineral King development of the Walt Disney organization. Opposition is based on the assumption that the wild natural beauty of the Mineral King bowl area is to be preserved in its natural state rather than utilized, to any degree, by the twenty million people who populate this state and/or any tourists of the remaining two hundred million people who populate this country.
(1) Alaska Conservation Society, College, Alaska,
is fighting to soften the impact on Alaska’s fragile environment of massive development triggered by the newly found oil reserves. It is calling for a long-range plan for the entire state that will protect the resources, including potential wilderness areas, wildlife refuges, and game ranges, and it proposes additional national parks.
(2) Big Thicket Association, Liberty, Texas,
is working to save a fragment of what was once a sweeping expanse of over three million acres. This wilderness is a dense and luxurious growth of giant magnolia, beech, oak, and pine; a haven for orchids, ferns, and flowering shrubs. Today’s remaining three hundred thousand acres of Big Thicket are the last refuge of the once bountiful wildlife of Texas—bears, panthers, wildcats, and possibly the ivory-billed woodpecker, long thought to be extinct. The entire acreage is privately owned and is currently disappearing at the rate of fifty acres a day.
In one year the United States of America produces: 142 million tons of smoke 7 million scrapped cars 20 million tons of waste paper 48 billion discarded cans 26 billion discarded bottles and jars 3 billion tons of waste rock and mill tailings “What we have saved and what we will save in the next few years will be all that will remain to be passed on to future generations. There will never be another chance.”— The Nature Conservancy
Fifteen miles north of New York City the Tappan Zee Bridge reaches across the Hudson River to the southern tier of Rockland County and to the last large chunk of unprotected and undeveloped land in the region, a ridge of the Palisades range called Clausland Mountain. At this time of year parts of the mountain are green with eastern hemlock. In spring the deciduous forest understory comes alive with pink and white dogwood, wild cherry, and shadbush—a sanctuary for wild flowers, warblers, owls, fox, deer, and people. For the past two years a small group of nearby residents, extraordinary only in their perseverance and determination, have struggled to save Clausland Mountain from urban development and preserve it as natural parkland. They are now in the last crucial stage of the battle.
“If you want to save a piece of history and preserve a Maine island of natural beauty,” commented the Maine Times, “you can do one of three things: be born a millionaire and buy it outright; interest a conservation group or foundation in buying it, and hope that they will respond in time to save it … or take a king-size gamble like going into debt to raise a down payment and working like mad to raise the balance from other conservationists you know must be out there somewhere …”