ABSTRACT
Americans of the early twentieth century with lesser means and connections than Theodore Roosevelt did their wilderness “importing” vicariously. The nature-importing nations were protecting their interests. Alexis de Tocqueville Michigan experience illustrates an axiom of environmental history: nature appreciation, and particularly nature protection is characteristic of highly civilized societies. The more common form of export today is through the minds, spirits, and cameras of tourists, but there are also “armchair” tourists who derive pleasure simply from the knowledge that unspoiled nature exists. The philanthropy that funds world nature-protection organizations also constitutes the importation of nature, as does the purchase of books, films, and television specials on foreign wilderness. The existence of this export-import relationship is frequently recognized in the discussion of international concepts of nature protection. Africans, if they knew about Tarzan at all, undoubtedly dismissed the stories as so much insanity—additional evidence of the irony of global attitudes toward nature.
