The Conservation Ethic and the National Park Service

Sigurd (shown at left during a trip to Alaska in July 1963) gave this talk in October 1963 at the National Park Service's annual conference for park superintendents, held that year in Yosemite National Park. Early in the conference, assistant interior secretary John Carver gave a speech that deeply angered nearly everyone there. His main point—that the Park Service had become too rigid and unresponsive to changing times—was something that many outside the agency agreed with. But Carver seemed to attack the very heart of the service itself. "When all else fails," he said, "the Park Service seems always able to fall back upon mysticism, its own private mystique." Carver criticized a recent Park Service memorandum, saying it had "the mystic, quasi-religious sound of a manual for the Hitler Youth Movement." He called this "simply intolerable" and added, "The National Park Service is a bureau of the Department of the Interior, which is a Department of the United States government's executive branch. It isn't a religion, and it should not be thought of as such."

To make matters worse, the superintendents soon learned that National Park Service Director Connie Wirth had given a letter of resignation to Interior Secretary Stewart Udall. Wirth wasn't fired, but it was clear to him that Udall wanted to replace him with a young director who had strong political skills and interests. Udall tried to smooth things over with the superintendents, praising the Park Service for its "dedication and esprit," but his sincerity at that moment was questionable to Wirth supporters. According to Ted Swem, who at the time was in charge of planning new national parks (and who eventually would become president of the Wilderness Society), it was Sigurd Olson who saved the conference.

Sigurd, who at the age of 64 was at the height of his influence as a conservationist, was a scheduled speaker for the conference, assigned to talk about "the conservation ethic." Unlike his usual practice, he did not prepare his speech before arriving at Yosemite; he intended to base his comments on topics that came up earlier in the conference. There was no topic, of course, that resonated more than Carver's talk. It was clear that morale had suffered, and Sigurd intended to change that. In his talk, which is reproduced below, he never mentioned Carver by name, but he spoke right to the heart of Carver's message. He began by talking about Olaus Murie, a wilderness leader beloved by many in the Park Service, who was dying. He used Murie as a positive example of "mystique," the term Carver had used in his attack on the Park Service. Sigurd did spend some time defining and discussing conservation ethics, but his real goal was to boost morale and to champion the spiritual and intangible aspects of the Park Service's mandate, which Carver had compared to Nazism. Sigurd's off-the-cuff talk was perhaps the most important one of his life, and when he stepped down from the podium, many in the audience had tears in their eyes. At Christmastime, A. Clark Stratton, Park Service acting director, sent a transcript of Sigurd's talk to all of the agency's field offices, tweaking Carver once again and adding to Sigurd's glowing reputation among Park Service employees.

I want to say a few words about Olaus Murie. As Connie Wirth no doubt told you, Olaus is passing out of the picture, as far as active participation is concerned in conferences such as this, and in the realm of preservation of natural areas and wilderness. Olaus, to all of us I think, epitomizes the wilderness, the feeling of men and women for beauty, for wild country, the feelings of awareness and the dedication to the preservation of these things.

We've heard a lot and thought a lot during the conference of this strange something called "mystique." I think Olaus epitomizes mystique. And by mystique, I mean devotion, dedication and faith. I don't think there's a single man here—I haven't met a single man in the Service—who hasn't the guiding depth of devotion to this cause. I was very interested to hear that the concessioners, in spite of their financial difficulties and complication, are in the parks because of their love of the parks. Their love of the parks is a way of life, their feeling of serving the public. That is good, it's something one doesn't normally expect to hear from people in the business of trying to make a profit with the public.

From the very beginning of this conference I have been impressed with this mystique. I know, as one man said to me, if I was told that there would be no paycheck for the next six months, it wouldn't bother me, I'd still consider it a privilege to work in the National Parks. That is, in a sense, what you call mystique. It's the thing that binds us together, it's the thing that makes us conquer all the difficulties, the ramifications of our jobs. It's the thing that keeps us going when the chips are down and we're surrounded by difficulties.

I was up in Alaska a month ago with Olaus Murie. It's always a privilege to be with Olaus and I've made many trips with him. I just want to recite one instance: We were looking at Mt. McKinley on a gorgeous morning such as this when the mountain was just as clear as could be. All of a sudden an eagle flew over, and I said to Olaus, "Watch that eagle." He turned and looked up at it, the sunlight was glinting on the eagle's head, and in Olaus' eyes was a pure and almost holy light. He'd seen many eagles, but to have seen that eagle again meant something to him. In his eyes were almost childlike wonder and awareness, the feeling that he was privileged to see one of God's creature's. After Olaus is gone I'm going to remember that and the look in his eyes.

Some day soon, he'll probably be packing up and making ready to take the last long trail; I think it will probably be in the north somewhere, which he loved. He'll be heading to the mountains and the tundras of the Far North, into an unknown land that he knows nothing about, but somewhere back there he'll be happy. But even though he leaves us—leaves us physically—he will still be with us, and as long as we live we will know that the spirit of Olaus Murie—his love of the wilds, his love of all beauty, his dedication to the cause of preservation—will be with us. So, though we may say good-by soon we will never say good-by to his spirit, to the mystique he epitomizes, to the love of the wilderness.

I came here without a prepared speech because I knew during the proceedings of this conference better thoughts would come to me and they have. I do not intend to summarize the conference, Connie [Wirth] will do that much better than I. I do not intend to elaborate on any of you proceedings, but I must say I've been impressed with the thoroughness and the depth with which you've gone into all of the problems and, as you know, they are many.

The name of this conference—"The Conference of Challenges"—was an excellent one, because this is a conference of challenges and the challenges that are going to meet you today and in the future are greater perhaps than they have ever been. As I said the other day they will take all of the imagination, all of the courage, all the mystique, all of the basis of belief and dedication to this cause that we possess.

When you talk of a conservation ethic—the topic given to me to discuss—you are dealing with a matter of right and wrong. Ethics has to do with morals, morals has to do with what is right and what is wrong. We cannot consider conservation ethics without considering what is right and wrong, and that is what you've been laboring over the last few days: What is the right thing to do?

Let's survey a number of definitions of conservation, just to clear the air and see what I'm supposed to talk about. Conservation has many definitions. I like the oft-quoted one of Aldo Leopold in which he said a conservation ethic has to do with morals and esthetics, which what is right for the people, rather than what is politically expedient. And what is right for the people preserves the integrity of the land—not only the animals, the birds, trees, mountains, glaciers, lakes and deserts, but the people themselves.

I think of another definition by Sterling North, a much simpler one in which he said, "Every time I see a muddy stream I see the passing of American democracy."

I think of Paul Sears of Yale, who said, "Conservation is a point of view, a point of view involved with the whole concept of dignity, freedom and a good life."

All of those things have to do with the human spirit. All of those things have to do with human dignity, with happiness and our culture. You come away pondering those definitions and typing them up with a conservation ethic and you realize that what the Park Service is engaged in is humanitarian in nature, philosophical in purpose, and you might say cultural in impact.

In short, we're not dealing with purely practical considerations. Important though practice may be and inevitable as problems may be, in the back of all this is a feeling of humanitarianism—a philosophy. We're dealing with people and with people's happiness, we're dealing with people's needs.

Speaking of people's needs, and I think it's well to survey some of the broad basic objectives of all people, I want to just mention very briefly what human needs are with respect to our parks, out beauty spots, our wild areas, our recreational regions, our historical regions wherever they may be.

I do not have to enumerate for you what's happened in the past decade. There's been a world revolution, we're in the midst of it now; we're riding its crest. The world will never be the same again. The world has changed from the early world we knew even 20 years ago, 10 years ago, and is changing very rapidly. Scientific advance has almost been beyond our comprehension. We are doing things today and contemplating things which would have seemed merest fiction a generation or two ago. Sociologically, the same thing: new nations emerging, the end of colonialism, the beginning of new beliefs, the changing ways of living, the growth of urbanization, the moving of people from the soil—from little towns and farms and villages—into the big cities, the increase of communication, transportation, leisure. A whole complex of changes which man has never, never run into before.

What does this mean to man? What is it doing? Many is confronted with a complex of situations, a complex of physical conditions which has has never known before. Our forefathers knew nothing of the Jet Age. As children most of us knew nothing about it. As a result man is a little confused, he's a little uncertain, he doesn't know quite where to go. He has an inner hunger which means he must get out of doors and escape the complex that he has built for himself—and so he comes looking for the out of doors, for the beauty places. Ninety-one million this year, two hundred million, probably three hundred million by the turn of the century. He must somehow recover some of the past. He must experience the thing which is deep in his consciousness, the thing that a million years' slow evolution from the past has made it what it is.

He must somehow touch home base again. He must somehow rejuvenate himself and recapture some of the old beauty, some of the naturalness, some of the quiet, some of the serenity and the chance for contemplation which our busy, tumultuous world seems to deny us.

And I think in the National Parks, in all its various kinds of areas, we are going to be able—if we're successful, and I think we're going to be—to provide this sort of thing for this generation and generations to come. I think that man divorced from the earth, man confronted with a new set of conditions, man coming from a stable ecological community to a shifting, unstable, uncertain ecological community, must have some places where he can bridge the gap—some places of retreat where he can capture, if even for a moment, some of the things which have gone from his life.

In all of your deliberations this week, in the back of your minds was the feeling that this is a humanitarian effort, this is for people, this is to maintain sanity in the years to come, this is to enrich our culture, this is to make us a happier, more contented people.

A Greek philosopher once said, "Life is a gift of nature, but a beautiful life is a gift of wisdom." And wisdom is what we are trying to achieve.

I sat in on one of the first major conferences of the Long Ranger planners [a National Park Service planning group] in Williamsburg when the major drafts of this wonderful condensation were just being discussed. I remember the first evening when we sat down, when Howard Stricklin, chairman of the group, led us in a word of prayer. I thought to myself, "What a beautiful way to enter this thing." These young men are dedicated, but calling upon Divine guidance to help them in their deliberation was fitting and good. There was no levity, there was a sense of seriousness, responsibility.

Those men knew that out of their deliberations, and the refinements of those deliberations in the months to come, would be serious decisions that had to do with millions of people. I think that same spirit of dedication, that faith and understanding has stayed with that group up and through this conference. I don't think a single man or woman will leave this conference without that sense of deep, spiritual understanding and commitment.

Bertrand Russell said not long ago, "More than cleverness, we need wisdom." he went on to say we are clever people, in our inventions, in our manipulation of the earth—in all the things we do we have shown our cleverness—in fact it has gotten so that we worship our cleverness as though cleverness was the end of life.

But Russell said we need wisdom more than cleverness. Why wisdom? Because in order to enjoy the fruits of cleverness you must have wisdom, in order to develop an idea of where we are going.

I think this work of the LRR group on these deliberations this week was a serious attempt to use wisdom and to find wisdom. Wisdom can be defined as the proper way of doing things. Wisdom can be defined as perspective and judgment. I believe this group has done its best to develop wisdom, to acquire wisdom, to meet the challenges of the future.

Wisdom to live a beautiful life! What is a beautiful life? Each of us has a different idea, but to me I cannot consider a beautiful life without the out-of-doors, without space, without room to breathe, without vistas—as we saw on the top of Glacier Point yesterday—without vistas of trees and the countless looks to the top of the mountains as we see them here. Those things are important to me and I think they are important to all of you and are important to all Americans.

The great historian Trevelyan said we are children of the earth, and removed from her our spirits wither. He was very right, we are children of the earth, and I never see an enormous industrial complex like Gary, Indiana—or any of the countless others scattered across our lands—without wondering if this is the end of all mankind. The only hope is for Americans to escape those complexes and to find out what America really means.

Thoreau said, "In wildness is the preservation of the world." He said it a hundred years ago when all of this country was largely wilderness. What did he mean? He meant simply that wilderness—beautiful country, natural country—has qualities, inherent qualities which mankind needs, and when those qualities are lost, people are spiritually poor.

Julian Huxley said another thing at the centennial conference at Dartmouth. He said, "True, we have done remarkable scientific things"—and he proceeded to enumerate them. But at the end he said, "But you know you still need to see wild birds flying, we still need to see animals moving in freedom, we need to see wildflowers blooming, for these things give us happiness, for these things give us stability and contentment."

So often times we are tempted to be ashamed of sentiment; at my age I'm no longer ashamed. I think we do not wear our sentiments on our sleeves as often as we should. We seldom pay tribute when it should be paid. We are afraid to admit that love is an important part of our being.

Joseph Whitcrooch down in Arizona said not long ago, "Conservation is a dead thing without love." I think he is right. We must love the earth, we must have deep feelings inside for the earth. The earth must be able to stir us and we should not be ashamed of our feeling because all people have the same feeling. Conservation of natural areas, conservation of parks, beauty spots, is an empty thing unless it is motivated by this thing we call love.

I want to end with another old quote from a Greek philosopher: "Let us preserve our silent sanctuaries, for in them we perpetuate the eternal perspectives." What are eternal perspectives? Eternal perspectives are those perspectives that have to deal with the past and the future. The eternal perspectives give us a sense of stability, they give us a sense of belonging, they give us an understanding of why we are here on this earth and where we are going.

In places such as this you preserve eternal perspectives, and I can think of no higher occupation, no higher goal, no higher aspiration that that to which this group here is dedicated—preserving the silent sanctuaries and the eternal perspectives which can be found there.