THE OTTAWA NATURALIST 



VOL. XXIV. OTTAWA, MARCH, 1911 No. 12 



CONSERVATION, OR THE PROTECTION OF NATURE.* 



By C. Gordon Hewitt, D.Sc, F.E.S., 



Dominion Entomologist, Ottawa. 



The most vital problem to be solved by Canada, at the pres- 

 ent time, is to know how we can insure the prosperity of the coun- 

 try and the consequent and incident prosperity of her people. 

 An enormous country is entrusted to our care as a people, a 

 vast heritage of Nature abounding in untold wealth and pro- 

 ductive of the greatest good. Nature is not ours to squander, to 

 amass wealth at her expense and enjoy a transient prosperity ; 

 it is ours to protect, and the protection of Nature is nothing more 

 or less than the insuring of a national happiness. Through the 

 foresight of the representatives of the people who are charged 

 with the country's weal, that question has been answered, 

 regardless of political creed, and in such a way as to place Canada 

 in the front rank of those nations upon whom the future existence 

 of the world will depend. We must conserve those resources of 

 Nature in which are bound up the very life of this country and 

 its future, and Canada enjoys the privilege of having the first 

 Commission appointed by a national government to promote 

 the conservation of our natural resources. 



But it must not be supposed, in fact it is the greatest mistake 

 to suppose, that this is a question which concerns those alone 

 who are charged with the governing of the country. It is one 

 which concerns every Canadian, whether he be an owmer of 

 thousands of acres or the rude pioneer blazing the path of progress 

 through the wild unknown: it concerns every citizen. 



To the naturalist, however, it should and does appeal with 

 especial force, and it is on this account, because conservation 

 means nothing more or less than the protection of Nature, the 

 prevention of destruction without perpetuation, and because 

 the work of the biologist must form the basis of a large proportion 



*An address delivered befqre the Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club on January 10th, 1911. 



