ABSTRACT
The budget appropriation for the Council on Environmental Quality was sent to the floor of the United States House of Representatives for a vote. The thirteen biennial wilderness conferences preceding this one focused on protecting natural areas in North America. This fourteenth conference—the First earthcare Conference—marks a significant departure from past formats in several particularly important ways. Wilderness is considered in the context of critical global environmental needs, not as a separate objective. The Earth has a prodigious capacity to absorb man’s garbage, break it down into life-sustaining components, and recycle them back into the ecosystem. When one considers all of the problems that affect the quality of the human environment, one certainly must put population growth at the top of the list. Modern technology so multiplies the effort of one man that he can perform more work—and do more damage—than a hundred or even a thousand men could a century ago.
