Concerning Conservationists

Concerning Conservationists What About the Men Who Battle Nature? Here is Some Virile Thought About the Fitness For the Job

By ROSS CALVIN THE most practical and most pressing question about conservation in the Southwest does not concern its permanence; that is taken for granted. Nor does it concern the amount of money to be spent; that is certain to decrease greatly as the depression lifts. It concerns the conservationists themselves.

The conservationists are umpires with the immensely significant task of deciding just when human use of the land becomes misuse; and how closely we can harvest the increase of field, range and forest without lasting impairment; and what to do in places where impairment has already taken place. Basically there is no uncertainty nor dispute about the desirability of utilizing the nation's resources and of leaving them as far as possible undiminished and unimpaired to descend to our children. But serious differences of opinion arise concerning the methods involved, the amount of public funds that can be spent efficiently in the process, and, above all, who shall spend them.

If in the recent past, some money has been spent wastefully, it is due in large measure to the genuine inability of the political administrators to secure adequately trained technicians. In past wars, America has always been handicapped by lack, not of men but of officers adequately prepared. The present case is parallel.

One must ask about the conservationists of the future: will they be trained or untrained, transient or permanent?

On these choices the effectiveness of the whole program depends. And in the future, moreover, who shall place the conservationist in his position of authority? Who shall test his fitness and award his certificate of merit? And to whom shal be look for training? The matter is of national concern, and there is no citizen who has not some stake in conservation.

It is pertinent to inquire about the nature of this training. But think again of the task-the stupendous one of utilizing the nation's basic resources of water and soil for the maximum benefit of all both today and in the future; and of rehabilitating for that purpose impaired areas of the nation's domain. By the side of it, the Russian Five Year Plan appear insignificant.

The conservationist in the Southwes requires a training that in many respects is unique, for an arid country suffers worse than any other from misuse by civilization. Here the moods of nature are more violent in storm, flood and erosion, the wide-flung vegetative cove (which protects soil and prevents wastage of water) is scantier at all times, and when destroyed is vastly more difficult to replace. And, furthermore, through everything runs this undertone: