The Environmental Debate, Third Edition

146 The Environmental Debate

to provide a program for the conservation

of such endangered species and threatened

species, and to take such steps as may be

appropriate to achieve the purposes of the

treaties and conventions set forth in subsec-

tion (a) of this section.

(c) Policy.— It is further declared to be the

policy of Congress that all Federal departments and

agencies shall seek to conserve endangered species

and threatened species and shall utilize their author-

ities in furtherance of the purposes of this Act.

Source: Public Law 93-205, United States Statutes at Large,

Vol. 87 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,

1973), 93rd Cong., 2nd sess., December 28, 1973, pp. 884-85.

(G) other international agreements.

(5) encouraging the states and other inter-
ested parties, through Federal financial assistance
and a system of incentives, to develop and main-
tain conservation programs which meet national
and international standards is a key to meeting
the Nation’s international commitments and to
better safeguarding, for the benefit of all citizens,
the Nation’s heritage in fish, wildlife, and plants.
(b) Purposes.—The purposes of this Act
are to provide a means whereby the ecosys-
tems upon which endangered species and
threatened species depend may be conserved,

DOCUMENT 121: Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia (1975)

In Ernest Callenbach’s novel Ecotopia, a skeptical American reporter describes the application of utopian

environmental ideas in a secessionist Northwest of the future. It brings to mind the many utopian environmental

communes that were formed in the 1960s and 1970s, most of which did not survive more than a decade or two.

It also reflects the interest in organic farming and sustainable development that took hold during that era.

Wood is a major factor in the topsy-turvy

Ecotopian economy, as the source not only

of lumber and paper but also of some of the

remarkable plastics that Ecotopian scientists

have developed. Ecotopians in the city and coun-

try alike take a deep and lasting interest in wood.

They love to smell it, feel it, carve it, polish it.

Inquiries about why they persist in using such

an outdated material (which of course has been

entirely obsoleted by aluminum and plastics

in the United States) receive heated replies. To

ensure a stable long-term supply of wood, the

Ecotopians early reforested enormous areas that

had been cut over by logging companies before

Independence. They also planted trees on many

hundreds of thousands of acres that had once

been cleared for orchards or fields, but had gone

wild or lay unused because of the exodus of peo-

ple from the country into the cities.

I have now been able to visit one of the forest

camps that carry out lumbering and tree-plant-

ing, and have observed how far the Ecotopians

carry their love of trees. They do no clear-cutting

at all, and their forests contain not only mixed

ages but also mixed species of trees. They argue

that the costs of mature-tree cutting are actu-

ally less per board foot than clear-cutting—but

that even if they weren’t it would still be desir-

able because of less insect damage, less erosion,

and more rapid growth of timber. But such argu-

ments are probably only a sophisticated ration-

ale for attitudes that can almost be called tree

worship.

* * *

Our economists would surely find the Eco-

topian lumber industry a labyrinth of contradic-

tions. An observer like myself can come only to

general conclusions. Certainly Ecotopians regard

trees as being alive in almost a human sense—

once I saw a quite ordinary-looking young man,

not visibly drugged, lean against a large oak and

mutter “Brother Tree!” And equally certainly,

lumber in Ecotopia is cheap and plentiful, what-

ever the unorthodox means used to produce it.

Wood therefore takes the place that aluminum,