The Conservation Ethic

Abstract

The gradual extension of ethical criteria to economic relationships is an historical fact. Economic criteria did not suffice to adjust men to society; they do not now suffice to adjust society to its environment. If our present evolutionary impetus is an upward one, it is ecologically probable that ethics will eventually be extended to land. The present conservation movement may constitute the beginnings of such an extension. If and when it takes place, it may radically modify what now appear as insuperable economic obstacles to better land-use.