More than anything, we hope the series will do something lasting
for wilderness. Man needs to save enough of it, what he knows
viscerally is enough without waiting for all the statistics.
Man can safely assume that for all his shortcomings, he is bright
enough to carry on his civilization on the 95 per cent or so
of the land he has already disrupted. He is wise enough to recognize
that he will not have a bright land, nor really serve himself
well, if he hurries to disrupt that last five per cent on the
pretext that progress will otherwise cease. It won't. It will
cease, however, if we cannot be kind enough to tomorrow's men
to leave for them, in big wilderness, a chance to seek answers
to questions we have not yet learned how to ask.
David R. Brower
