622 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



place or attraction advertised and keep repeating; or ( b ) the size and 

 number of signs at motels, filling stations, restaurants, souvenir em- 

 poriums and others catering to tourists, should be regulated on a 

 statewide and/or countywide basis, in order to reduce the carnival- 

 ization of our highways. 



ELMO A. ROBINSON. Our founding fathers promulgated a modest 

 list of natural rights. Since then many other rights have been added : 

 the right to work, to health, to learn, to trade, etc. Enactment 

 by Congress of the Wilderness bill constitutes a claim that our citi- 

 zens possess a right to wilderness. The conference is a call to recog- 

 nize man's right to beauty. Thus to place beauty on a level with life, 

 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness gives it dignity and respectability. 



PHILIP Ross. The enhancement of the beauty of America can- 

 not be accomplished solely by eliminating billboards from the road- 

 ways or cleaning up junkyards. A fundamental ecological under- 

 standing of our natural resources is necessary in order to provide data 

 for highway planning, scenic easements, and green belt planning, to 

 mention just a few. Ecological understanding would have prevented 

 the plague of rodents in the Buena Vista lake bed in California 

 when coyotes were indiscriminately poisoned; the sudden bloom of 

 algae and the accompanying foul odors in a community pond when 

 excess fertilizer was applied on a nearby field ; and rich bottom lands 

 from becoming barren subdivisions. Ghost towns, epidemics, pov- 

 erty, localized unemployment, falling water tables, smog, floods, 

 beach erosion are but a few results of ecological errors from poor civic 

 planning. 



I strongly urge that an Office of Ecological Research be established 

 in the Department of the Interior. The Office would be responsible 

 for a twofold program for the conservation of our natural resources. 

 The first task is to describe, map, and evaluate the components of 

 our renewable natural resources and their interactions with the en- 

 vironment. This research would be undertaken on the 856 million 

 acres of public lands. The information gained from such a program 

 would provide data for formulating policy for ( 1 ) forest and Federal 

 recreational land programs; (2) wildlife and water conservation; 

 (3) watershed management, flood control, and soil conservation; 

 and (4) enhancing the natural beauty of the United States. 



