Land Management Quotes

“Do we allow unlimited visitation, or do we restrict numbers to protect a delicate ecosystem? Do we heavily advertise the park, enticing paying visitors, generating needed money for Idaho's park department, or do we sacrifice financial benefits to better preserve natural ones? Do we log diseased trees, interfering with nature, or do we allow trees to rot and fall, possibly endangering lives? Do we inexpensively repair historic structures, or do we meticulously restore them? Do we maintain this park as closely as possible to the condition in which Idaho received it, or do we develop it for multiple uses; allow overnight visitors; permit all-terrain vehicles; provide paths for those unable to navigate unpaved trails?”
― Mary E. Reed, Harriman: From Railroad Ranch to State Park

“The bald unpalatable fact is emphasized that the Highlands and Islands are largely a devastated terrain, and that any policy which ignores this fact cannot hope to achieve rehabilitation.”
― Frank Fraser Darling, West Highland Survey: An Essay in Human Ecology

“It is a great misfortune to be too rich: for it makes many men negligent as to the improvement of their estates.”
― Andrew Wight, Present State of Husbandry in Scotland: Extracted from Reports made to the Commissioners of the Annexed Estates

“Our distant ancestors had the capacity to make profound changes to the environment, to shape it such that it would better deliver those things upon which their subsistence depended. They could overexploit an exhaust, and persecute perceived competitors to extinction, but they could also recognise depletion and take steps to regulate overuse and bad practice. Above all, however, they developed a fundamental social resilience in the face of adversity and crisis, and it is from that characteristic that we have most to learn in these uncertain times.”
― Richard Oram, A Land Won from Waste: Scotland AD 400 - 1400