Our Ability To Perceive Quality In Nature

Too Much Safety Seems To Yield Only Danger In The Long Run.

I Have Read Many Definitions Of What Is A Conservationist, And Written Not A Few Myself, But I Suspect That The Best One Is Written Not With A Pen, But With An Axe. It Is A Matter Of What A Man Thinks About While Chopping, Or While Deciding What To Chop. A Conservationist Is One Who Is Humbly Aware That With Each Stroke He Is Writing His Signature On The Face Of His Land.

When Some Remote Ancestor Of Ours Invented The Shovel, He Became A Giver: He Could Plant A Tree. And When The Axe Was Invented, He Became A Taker: He Could Chop It Down. Whoever Owns Land Has Thus Assumed, Whether He Knows It Or Not, The Divine Functions Of Creating And Destroying Plants.

We Console Ourselves With The Comfortable Fallacy That A Single Museum Piece Will Do, Ignoring The Clear Dictum Of History That A Species Must Be Saved In Many Places If It Is To Be Saved At All.

Conservation Is A State Of Harmony Between Men And Land.