Extracts from debate at 55th ANNUAL MEETING OF AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION.

Forest and Bird, Issue 22, 1 October 1930, Page 12

Extracts from debate at 55th ANNUAL MEETING OF AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION.

“Conservation means a sustained effort to make good the mistakes of our pioneer forefathers, who were content to take all they could out of their immediate environment and then move on to fresh fields of exploitation. The pioneer left us not only the physical heritage of denuded and disorderly landscapes, but, what is still more serious, the psychological heritage of a lazy willingness to tolerate denuded and disorderly landscapes.”

“We are challenged to substitute the psychology of conservation for the psychology of conquest. We must substitute stable and scientific agriculture for an unintelligent raping of the soil. We must substitute rational forestry for reckless timber slashing. We must learn to dress the land we have deflowered. We must become high-minded statesmen of our resources. With respect to all our natural resources we must exalt the common lot above the common loot.”

“The kind of mind upon which the conservation movement must depend for its continuing vitality must be a mind that takes long views—a mind that can think in terms of the next generation as well as in terms of the next election. It must be a mind that realises the complexity of the conservation problems as well as a mind that works for a co-operative leadership of the nation rather than competing leaderships in the nation.”

“Men and women as individuals are too concerned with individual advantages to be influenced greatly by considerations of general welfare. “There is little justification for scolding our pioneers for their shortsightedness unless we show ourselves possessed of more vision—unless we take steps to prevent so far as we can a repetition of the old blunders. We are feeling the increased economic pressure which is the penalty the sons in the third and fourth generation are paying for the sins of their fathers. We should be recreant if we did not avoid the errors which, if continued, will cause even more serious visitations upon our children.

“But if those visitations shall be averted, it will be because of a new attitude on the part of the governmental bodies and not to any great degree because of a change of practice on the part of individuals. For the individual is motivated by his immediate rather than his remote incentives. He holds the penny of to-day too close to his eyes to see the dollars which might be made to represent to-morrow’s prosperity.”