Till' WILDERNESS — RECREATIONAL POLICY 731 



place on the continent. It has a high and varied recreational value. 

 Under the policy advocated in this paper, a good big sample of it 

 should be preserved. This could easily be done by selecting such an 

 area as the headv^^aters of the Gila River on the Gila National Forest. 

 This is an area of nearly half a million acres, topographically isolated 

 by mountain ranges and box canyons. It has not yet been penetrated 

 by railroads and to only a very limited extent by roads. On account 

 of the natural obstacles to transportation and the absence of any con- 

 siderable areas of agricultural land, no net economic loss would result 

 from the policy of vi'ithholding further industrial development, except 

 that the timber would remain inaccessible and available only for lim- 

 ited local consumption. The entire area is grazed by cattle, but the 

 cattle ranches would be an asset frou the recreational standpoint be- 

 cause of the interest which attaches to cattle grazing operations under 

 frontier conditions. The apparent disadvantage thus imposed on the 

 cattlemen might be nearly offset by the obvious advantage of freedom 

 from new settlers, and from the hordes of motorists who will invade 

 this region the minute it is opened up. The entire region is the natural 

 habitat of deer, elk, turkey, grouse, and trout. If preserved in its 

 semi-virgin state, it could absorb a hundred pack trains each year 

 without overcrowding. It is the last typical wilderness in the south- 

 western mountains. Highest use deuands its preservation. 



The conservation of recreational resources here advocated has its 

 historic counterpart in the conservation of timber resources lately be- 

 come a national issue and expressed in the forestry program. Timber 

 conservation began fifteen years ago with the same vagU2 pre r.onitions 

 of impending shortage now discernible in the recreational press. Tim- 

 ber conservation encountered the same general rebuttal of "inexhaus- 

 tible supplies" which recreational conservation will shortly encounter. 

 After a period of milling and mulling, timber conservation established 

 the principle that timber supplies are capable of qualitative as well as. 

 quantitative exhaustion, and that the existence of "inexhaustible" areas: 

 of trees did not necessarily insure the supply of bridge timber, naval; 

 stores, or pulp. So also will recreational resources be found in more- 

 ('nno-er of qmlitative than quantitative exhaustion. We now recognize- 

 that the sprout forests of New England are no answer to the farmer's; 

 need for structural lumber, and we admit that the farmer's special 

 needs must be taken care of in proportion to his numbers and im- 

 portance. So also must we recognize that any number of small patches 

 of uninhabited wood or mountains are no answer to the real sports- 

 man's need for wilderness, and the day will come when we must ad- 

 mit that his special needs likewise inust be taken care of in proportion 

 to his numbers and importance. And as in forestry, it will be much 

 easier and cheaper to preserve, by forethought, what he needs, than to 

 create it after it is gone. 



