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76 Denv. U. L. Rev. 535 (1998-1999)
The Wildlands Project and the Rewilding of North America

handle is hein.journals/denlr76 and id is 555 raw text is: THE WILDLANDS PROJECT AND THE REWiLDING OF NORTH AMERICA DAVE FOREMAN INTRODUCTION Ecological concerns, including the preservation of habitat for rare and imperiled species and the protection of representative examples of all ecosystems, have always been at least minor goals in wilderness area and national park advocacy in the United States. At the Sierra Club Biennial Wilderness Conferences from 1949 to 1973, scientists and others pre- sented ecological arguments for wilderness preservation and discussed the scientific values of wilderness areas and national parks. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Ecological Society of America and the American Society of Mammalogists developed proposals for ecological reserves on the public lands. The eminent ecologist Victor Shelford was an early propo- nent of protected wildlands big enough to sustain populations of large carnivores. Some of this country's greatest conservationists have been scien- tists, too. One of the many hats John Muir wore was that of a scientist. Aldo Leopold was a pioneer in ecology and wildlife management and argued for wilderness areas as ecological baselines.' Bob Marshall had a Ph.D. in plant physiology and explored the unmapped Brooks Range in Alaska not just for adventure, but also to study tree growth in that ex- treme climate. Olaus Murie, long-time President of The Wilderness So- ciety, was an early wildlife ecologist and one of the first to defend the wolf. Aesthetic, recreational, and utilitarian (e.g., watershed protection) arguments have traditionally dominated advocacy for national parks and wilderness areas and these values have had more influence on what areas were protected than have ecological arguments. In the last decade, how- ever, ecological arguments have risen to the top of the conservation * Chairman of the Wildlands Project, publisher of Wild Earth, and a director of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance. Portions of this article have appeared in a different form in Wilderness: From Scenery to Nature, WILD EARTH, Winter 1995-96, at 8; Missing Links, SIERRA, Sept./Oct. 1995, at 52. A different version of this article will appear in The War on Nature, a book in progress by Dave Foreman. Thanks to Michael Sould and Steve Gatewood for their suggestions. 1. Michael Soulk & Reed Noss, Rewilding and Biodiversity As Complementary Goals for Continental Conservation, WILD EARTH, Fall 1998, at 19, 20-21. 2. The section entitled Wilderness in Leopold's A Sand County Almanac is stunning for the extent to which it anticipated much of modem conservation biology. ALDO LEOPOLD, A SAND CouNTY ALMANAC AND SKETcsEs HERE AND THERE 188-201 (1949). 535

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