Editor's Introduction ix 



thing real that they can communicate to each other and to any reader 

 willing to meet them halfway. 



Perhaps when President Taft made his jaundiced observation he 

 put his finger on a major strength as well as a minor weakness of the 

 conservation idea. England and America have been well served by 

 their peoples' highly developed genius for knowing when to rise above 

 strict definitions, logic, and consistency in going about the public busi- 

 ness. One of the costs of this pragmatic knack is that it enhances the 

 importance — and the difficulty — of distinguishing the significant de- 

 velopments of the past from the trivial and transient. In using the 

 past as a springboard for appraising the present and future, hard 

 questions arise on all sides. 



The essays in this book explore some of them. For example, what 

 forces during the past fifty years have shaped American concepts of 

 conservation and attitudes toward it? What have been the really im- 

 portant issues and trends in land and water, minerals and energy, 

 outdoor recreation, and fish and wildlife management? How have re- 

 source development policies and programs affected the nation's econ- 

 omy, political life, and social structure — and vice versa? Most impor- 

 tant of all, what guidance does the record of the past offer for the 

 future? We shall surely need all the guidance we can get, in a period 

 when the growth of cities, increases in total population, and con- 

 tinuing advances in technology will intensify or otherwise change the 

 already familiar resource problems and doubtless bring some entirely 

 new ones. 



Few responsible persons care to give pat answers to large questions 

 of this kind. This book offers none, nor does it attempt to be an en- 

 cyclopedia in an assemblage of related fields that runs all the way from 

 the A of aesthetics to the Z of zoology. It is intended, rather, as a 

 modest guidepost toward better understanding of a set of complex 

 and important problems. There are, naturally, conflicts among the 

 interpretations and proposals of the twenty-three contributors, for 

 they deal from a wide range of viewpoints with living questions and 

 issues. But the sum of their essays adds up to more than a random 

 sheaf of facts and comments. As a serious effort to help clarify an 

 inherently confusing tangle of evidence, the book is held together by 

 a definite pattern built around a central idea. 



