The Unsettling of America (1977) by Wendell Berry

ONE REASON THAT an organization cannot properly enact our relationship to the world is that an organization cannot define that relationship except in general terms, and no matter how general may be a person's attitude toward the world, his impact upon it must become specific and tangible at some point. Sooner or later in his behalf-whether he approves or understands or not-a strip-miner's bulldozer tears into a mountainside, a stand of trees is clear-cut, a gully washes through a cornfield.

The conservation movement has never resolved this dilemma. It has never faced it. Until very recently-until pollution and strip-mining became critical issues-conservationists divided the country into that land which they wished to preserve and enjoy (the wilderness areas) and that which they consigned to use by other people. With the increase of pollution and mining, their interest has become two-branched, to include, along with the pristine, the critically abused. At present the issue of use is still in its beginning.