THE UNITY OF ECOLOGY — DARLING 475 



Pleistocene had passed. Well, man conjures from his mind ways of 

 using resources unproductively, be it pyramid building in Egypt, 

 temple building and human sacrifice in Mexico, and now defense and 

 nationalism. Nationalism is the modern Irish Elkism. In a world 

 where the only hope for man is internationalism, nationalism is the 

 political ecological factor which prevents any constructive action to 

 curb population increase. And withal, we are faced with the ironic 

 paradox of splintering nationalism and pseudo-national costumes, 

 with the dismal destruction of individuality inside them, which varia- 

 bility is as desirable in the social system as in the eco-system. Further- 

 more, I believe that the pressure of population on land is presenting us 

 with an emergency earlier than the problem of growing enough food 

 for the increase. Mobility by way of the internal combustion engine, 

 vastly increased leisure by way of automation, and sophisticated modes 

 of outdoor recreation are changing the land-use pattern far quicker 

 than we are learning how to cope with it. Fifteen years ago the excuse 

 of increased food production was enough to get rid of hedgerow trees 

 in England ; but at this moment the amenity value of such trees in such 

 a populous country, needing the balm of the green leaf, far outweighs 

 the small increase of food production which might accrue from their 

 removal. The picture in the United States is of food surpluses but 

 a very real shortage of recreational land. An Outdoor Recreation 

 Bureau has been established as a department of government to help 

 in planning the solution of this very considerable problem of land-use 

 ecology in its widest sense, and I am glad to say ecologists have been 

 brought in at the beginning. 



It would be fantastic, nevertheless, to make the mistake now of so 

 expanding the scope of ecology that it would become all-embracing, 

 so that the ecologist would bog down in a morass of his own ignorance, 

 and become the supreme irritating busybody. That, I think, was 

 feared by those who years ago wished to exclude man from their studies 

 and would not admit human ecology. Neither do I ; there is no human 

 ecology — only ecology — but in those sciences dealing with man, from 

 political economy to social anthropology and archeology, there is 

 plenty of room for the ecological slant of mind. As a corollary, I 

 think that ecological research must become more and more the effort of 

 teams of workers ; the single worker will continue to discover beautiful 

 expressions of phenomena, but the synecological studies in depth of 

 habitats and communities which we need today demand far more 

 than what one man can compass. Ecological studies are not designed 

 ad hoc to solve land-use problems but to discover truth, and this high 

 scientific approach must be jealously guarded, but thereafter ecologists 

 can have a social conscience and apply their discoveries to the problems 

 of land-use by man. The teams I envisage are not collections of 



