2 THE, A°U-D'U BO NB Urine ies 
10,000,000 visits were recorded to our National Parks in 1940; the number 
reached over 65,000,000 by 1964. It took more than a million years for hu- 
manity to reach its first 8 billion (in 1960), but unless world birth rates 
are drastically curbed, the second three billion will exist by the year 2000. 
Increased longevity is causing an increase in human population. Rev. Shaw 
asked: “How does one protect wildlife, wildflowers, parks, rivers, forests and 
refuges from this kind of human pressure?” 
Speaking in San Francisco before the United Nations in June, President 
Lyndon Johnson said: ‘Let us act on the fact that less than five dollars in- 
vested in population control is worth a hundred dollars invested in economic 
erowth.” It is now widely recognized that western science and technology 
cannot significantly raise the standard of living of the undernourished two- 
thirds of the world without population stabilization. Rev. Shaw declared that, 
“We should be more concerned with the quality of lives people lead here on 
earth rather than the quantity of numbers.” He felt that we have been led 
into error by the Biblical injunction: ‘‘men should be fruitful and multiply.” 
The importance of life includes the creation and enjoyment of beauty, an 
increased sense of significance, and the preservation of all sources of pure 
wonder and delight. 
State Rep. Robert Mann, a winner of the “Best Legislator Award” of 
the Independent Voters of Illinois, urged the conservation forces of this state 
to become more vocal. Far too little is heard from them on many important 
issues. Only a few conservationists participate in political affairs. Far too few 
write their legislators—he mentioned that he received a handful of letters 
on the proposed $100,000,000 recreation and land acquisition bond issue. (It 
lost by less than a dozen votes in the Illinois House although it passed the 
Senate). Mr. Mann suggested that sportsmen’s clubs, Audubon clubs, hikers, 
camping clubs, and garden clubs invite more political officeholders to address 
their meeting's. 
In an electrifying talk of almost two hours, Dr. Hugh Iltis spoke to a 
packed N.R.C.I. banquet audience. Moving quickly from the origin of life, 
Dr. Iltis took us on to Greece and Rome. He quoted from Homer about the 
great forests, and later from Plato about their woeful decline. Dr. IIltis cited 
Mexico, Peru, and other parts of the Americas as lands with unlimited human 
reproduction and limited land resources. ‘“‘Man strides across the landscape 
and deserts follow in his footsteps.’”? He cited the secret cutting of forests 
under cover of night, by peasants who use the wood for fuel because no other 
fuel is available. 
Dr. Iltis stated that we need to preserve samples of all prairies and land 
areas—not minute areas of 12 to 25 acres, but 300 to one thousand acres. 
In all the wealth of original Illinois prairie, not one large area is left today; 
we have only remnants along fences and railroad tracks. He decried the de- 
struction of forests in the Middle West and the terrifying speed with which 
the magnificent redwoods of California are now being cut. He urged his au- 
dience to read, study and evangelize, to spend more time fund-raising and 
less time on socializing. 
Dr. Iltis declared that we need land for recreation, learning, enjoyment 
and research—that we should seek to preserve entire biological communities 
for the gorilla, the buffalo, the tundra, the desert, the forest and the prairie, 
with decentralized and rehumanized cities. We need and need urgently the 
control of human population. Dr. Iltis concluded: “Only by a new land ethic, 
by an ecologically sound philosophy, can man preserve and maintain an en- 
