Ecological awareness

Press, 13 September 1982, Page 20

Ecological awareness

Sir.—Conflict over the future of our land is not merely a fight between exploiters and preservationists but equally a race between unbridled technology and people's education. The pressure of organised public opinion is the only weapon the conservationist has to combat the powerful well-funded logging. mining and pastoral lobbies. Two outstanding writers who were largely responsible for the wilderness concept, both members of the United States Forest Service, Robert Marshall and Aldo Leopold who' died respectively in 1939 and 1948, give us encouragement. “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” (Leopold) “There is just one hope of repulsing the tyrannical ambition of civilisation to conquer every niche on the whole Earth. That hope is the organisation of spirited people." (Marshall) Understand, what we save now is all we will ever save!—Yours, etc., ERIC BENNETT. September 10, 1982.