Although
Thomas Jefferson argued that no one generation has the right
to encroach upon another generation's freedom, the futures right
to know the freedom of wilderness is going fast. It need not
go at all. A tragic loss could be prevented if only there could
be broader understanding of this: that the resources of the earth
do not exist just to be spent for the comfort, pleasure, or convenience
of the generation or two who first learn how to spend them; that
one of these is wilderness, wherein the flow of life, in its
myriad forms, has gone on since the beginning of life, essentially
uninterrupted by man and his technology; that this, wilderness,
is worth saving for what it can mean to itself as part of the
conservation ethic; that the saving is imperative to civilization
and all mankind, whether or not all men yet know it. . . .
This is the
American Earth epitomizes what the Sierra Club, since its
founding in 1892 by John Muir, has been seeking on behalf of
the nation's scenic resources and needs to pursue harder in the
times to come. The book is by far the most important work the
club has published and the debt is enormous to Ansel Adams for
his inspiration of the book, his photographs, and his guidance,
and to Nancy Newhall for the organization of the book and the
power of its text. It is a stirring book.
It needs to
be stirring, stirring of love for the earth, of a suspicion that
what man is capable of doing to the earth is not always what
he ought to do, of a renewed hope for the wide spacious freedom
that can remain in the midst of the American earth.
DAVID
BROWER
Executive
Director, Sierra Club
Lupine Meadows, the Tetons
August 23, 1959
