Book Review. For Whom the National Parks

Modern environmentalism has its roots in the late nineteenthand early twentieth-century reaction to the scientific conservation movement.'Scientific conservation was in turn a reaction to the then-prevailing ethic that natural resources should be exploited as rapidly as possible.2 The conservation movement did not challenge the need to exploit natural resources, but argued that the rate of exploitation should be slowed to achieve a maximum return over time.From this movement came this century's prevailing management ethic: Resources should be exploited for multiple-use objectives to promote efficient allocation.3 The forerunners of the modern environmental movement were, by contrast, primarily concerned with one goal: preserving large areas of the public lands in their natural state.This single-use philosophy, based on appeals to higher spiritual values and loose notions of the moral imperatives of ecology, 4 was an appealing if ambiguous model for the environmental move-* A.B.