6 oH EAU (D Ue BONS (Ba Lo ir Eee 
In the development and maintenance of a quality environment, nat- 
ural areas play a critical role particularly in view of the rapidly changing 
(developing) surface of the earth. Natural areas may make major con- 
tributions to environmental quality programs by: (1) providing sites for 
collection of baseline data and for long term monitoring of various aspects 
of the ecosystem; (2) providing sites for studies on the structure and 
function of the ecosystem; (3) preserving gene pools of natural organisms 
including those that are rare and endangered, and (4) providing sites 
that may be used in educational or environmental training programs 
(Franklin, et al. 1972). 
Rational decisions on matters involving environmental resource man- 
agement and quality is dependent to a large extent on a thorough under- 
standing of the structure and function of natural undisturbed ecosystems. 
It is only in the undisturbed state that natural areas can be used to 
examine parameters of the ecosystem and compare them with those en- 
countered in systems which have been affected by man. 
To quote Aldo Leopold (1949): “The science of land health needs, 
first of all, a base datum of normality of how healthy land maintains it- 
self as an organism.” 
The grazing of a prairie, cutting of a forest, or channelization of a 
river changes the relationships between organisms as well as the factors of 
the environmental complex that control the organisms. Because of dis- 
turbance, some plant or animal species may disappear from an area while 
others, usually weedy or “opportunistic” species, increase in number and 
arnt When the natural balance has been disturbed, the original 
value of the ecosystem for information is lost. 
Natural areas, therefore, serve as “benchmarks” for collecting ecologi- 
cal data and assessing the extent of man’s impact on the ecosystem; since 
many of the problems affecting resource management have stemmed from 
unexpected side effects of man’s activities, development of the ability to 
predict these effects beforehand is an essential requirement for the de- 
velopment of quality environments. 
Natural areas serve as reservoirs for two types of gene pools: (1) they 
preserve rare and endangered species; (2) they act as gene pools for ordi- 
nary wild or unaltered organisms (Franklin, et al. 1972). Both common 
and rare or endangered species may some day prove to be valuable and we 
can not afford to lose any living organism. Many organisms may be poten- 
tially important to man from the standpoint of food or medicine. From an 
area may come a valuable plant or animal species, fungus, or bacteria that 
could not survive under disturbance conditions. 
Before World War II, fungi were considered pests, but from fungi 
have come penicillin, aureomycin, streptomycin, and terramycin. Others 
propably will follow. Compounds from a large number of forest fungi can 
be used to treat disease by transforming steroids, physiologically impor- 
tant hormones in the body. Others are used in the production of cortisone 
which relieves the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. Hundreds of species 
