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PREFACE 



Even the most casual traveller in Europe soon notices that the 

 landscape, however picturesque, is never really wild, untampered with, 

 or natural. Over the past 2,000 years virtually every square foot has 

 been cropped, grazed, landscaped, or "improved" to such an extent that 

 all memory, much less actual fragments, of the original environment 

 has been lost. A classic and ironic example of this can be found in 

 Scotland where the uplands were cleared of their pine and oak forests 

 centuries ago to increase grazing land for vast flocks of sheep. The 

 moorland which replaced the forest has become so much a part of the upland 

 Scottish scene that governmental efforts to reforest certain areas have 

 been vociferously denounced by Scots vitally concerned with preservation 

 of the status quo. 



In North America this point has not yet been reached; despite the 

 herculean effort made in the last 300 years to cut and plow, drain or 

 flood, level, fill, pave, and build, this continent still has an incredible 

 diversity and relative abundance of natural areas, many hardly changed from 

 their appearance a thousand years ago. Even in those areas that have been 

 manipulated in some way — logged over, burned, or farmed - the links with 

 the past are everywhere evident allowing the possibility, at least, of 

 future restoration — an option no longer available over much of Europe. 



