28 TH EWA UD U'BiO N, (Bo U Lilie hei 
of an area by walking over and compressing the soil, by feeding wildlife, 
by littering remote corners with beer cans and facial tissue. 
We are in danger of destroying all outdoor resources in our attempt 
to face-lift the entire environment. The bulldozer, the chain saw, the 
concrete and asphalt jungle, will so impair the natural landscape in the 
name of progress that every future value for most people will be gone. 
Road-building efforts can destroy the scenic value of a mountainside. 
Giant dams can inundate an historic canyon. Chain saws can strip the 
few remaining virgin forests and begin destructive soil erosion which will 
pollute water and choke our reservoirs. 
Each Area Has Its Best Use 
It is about time we discovered that some recreational resources have their 
best use as wilderness. We should give priority to forest lands on mountain 
slopes. Multiple use for some resources may mean their eternal destruction. 
If a mountain offers soul-lifting recreation for many, it is unwise to per- 
mit blasting the slopes for a few tons of uranium. Vested interests may 
strip the protecting cover from national forest meadows by overgrazing 
with cattle, sheep and goats. Wind and water erosion will then wreck 
the landscape for all time to come. 
Surely we are not so short of grassland in America that we must 
issue permits to cattlemen for grazing away the few straggling blades 
that help to hold a scenic mountainside in place! The grass removed may 
mean that soil will muddy a mountain stream, killing the defenseless 
trout and driving out the few remaining beaver and elk. Other Americans 
have the right to ask that we conserve a few beauty spots and species of 
wildlife. Regulation and zoning of multiple-use areas is a wise conservation 
practice which has been postponed entirely too long. Much of the open- 
space land in Southern Illinois is forest land, poorly managed, producing 
inferior species of trees. It would be a better practice to use some of our 
surplus labor to plant black walnut and tulip poplar on some of these 
over-cut, non-producing areas. 
Save Some Natural Areas for Posterity 
Some scenic areas, such as the Little Garden of the Gods and the Little 
Grand Canyon in Southern Illinois, should be set aside as wilderness 
areas where no attempt to build access roads or “improve” the landscape 
should ever be undertaken. Bringing in the uninformed, unappreciative 
masses by providing paved roads and easy trails may destroy the beauty 
and the greatest value of these preserves. 
By wrecking the habitat of some endangered species we can cause 
them to disappear from the earth more effectively than by gunning them 
to death. The Bald Eagle, our national emblem, must have unmolested 
nesting areas, safe from the pesticides which threaten to send the eagle 
where we sent the Dodo Bird. 
With all of our surplus food and expensive plans to store and dispose 
of surplus grain, surely we can set aside a few thousand acres of un- 
disturbed grassland for the Prairie Grouse and antelope. We are not so 
meat hungry in America that we must permit a few people to gun down 
the remaining Sandhill Cranes. A dead bird in the bag is small compensa- 
tion indeed for the thrill, the lift, the pride of adding a living specimen 
to the checklist of countless bird-watchers the country over. The first 
use destroys the resource; it is gone forever. The second use desecrates 
nothing, destroys nothing; but it greatly enhances the meaning of living. | 
