This book examines different aspects of land conservation. Using land in its broadest ecological sense, to include not just soils but wildlife, water, ecological processes, and humans, it approaches the battlegrounds from two quite different directions. Those who promote conservation typically respond to some inner longing to respect nature's processes. They care about living creatures, often passionately, and want nature's beauties and life forms close at hand. When taken seriously, as a vital strand of political and cultural thought, conservation poses a forceful challenge to elements of mod ... More

This book examines different aspects of land conservation. Using land in its broadest ecological sense, to include not just soils but wildlife, water, ecological processes, and humans, it approaches the battlegrounds from two quite different directions. Those who promote conservation typically respond to some inner longing to respect nature's processes. They care about living creatures, often passionately, and want nature's beauties and life forms close at hand. When taken seriously, as a vital strand of political and cultural thought, conservation poses a forceful challenge to elements of modern culture accepted as fundamental. It questions not only specific land-use practices but also our entrenched ways of seeing and valuing nature, and challenges our excessive faith in science and the capitalist market along with our exaggerated emphasis on individual autonomy. By situating humans within a value-infused natural order, the cause overlaps with religious traditions that honor the creation, and, by emphasizing connections among people and between people and lands, promotes a community-centered perspective of life which contrasts with social views exalting individualism. With its call for citizens to broaden their moral and aesthetic sensibilities, conservation fits within America's long heritage of progressive social reform.