beyond crony and the model for SeldomrnSeen Smith in The Monkey WrenchrnGang, was quoted as saying recently,rn”through industrial tourism than all thernmining, logging and ranching combined.”rn(Sleight, as a wilderness outfitterrnoperating in the slick-rock country ofrnsoutheastern Utah, is a part of the touristrnindustry himself, though he representsrnits simpler, gentler, pre-modern stage.)rnThe effects he has in mind are physicalrn— urban and suburban sprawl, resourcerndepletion, pollution, and sornforth—yet the displacement by the recreationrnbusiness —hotels, motels, ski resorts,rndestination resorts, second-homerncommunities —of traditional Westernrnwork means, essentially, the substitutionrnof play for work, frivolity for seriousness,rnchildishness for adult behavior, waste forrnproduction, abstraction for concreteness,rnand unreality for reality, with consequencesrnaffecting Western life in its naturalrnand environmental, social, political,rneconomic, educational, and spiritual aspects.rnIndustrial tourism has been a disasterrnfor the West in every respect, andrnif the monkey-wrenchers have at lastrndiscovered their real enemy—well, sornmuch the worse for the enemy, say I: anrnevil force committed to the destructionrnnot of “wilderness” or “the Earth” alonernbut of ordered civilization as well.rnELF doesn’t know this, of course:rnThey see only a conflict between “profits”rnand lynxes, according to superficialrnformulae characteristic of leftist fanaticsrnand of the ontologically confused andrnfundamentally dishonest left operatingrnover a period of some 300 years. That isrnnot of interest. What is interesting is therndeveloping antagonistic relationship betweenrnrecreationism and environmentalismrn— in particular for what it has to sayrnabout the sort of people working as environmentalrnactivists today.rnWhat seems to be occurring is the intrusionrnof a new and exotic type of environmentalistrninto a movement in dangerrnof being taken over by it, as lake trout,rnwhen diabolically introduced by environmentalrnsaboteurs, overwhelm a nativernpopulation of Western cutthroats. Inrnattempting to describe what this newrnbreed is, I begin by suggesting what itrnisn’t. The neoenvironmentalist is not,rnfirst of all, an outdoorsman — not of thernAbbey-Leopold-Doug Peacock type atrnany rate: a survivalist without all the gearrnand something of a naturalist, competent,rncomfortable, and supremely atrnhome in an isolated natural setting. Itrnfollows that he is also not an adventurer,rnsomeone for whom the acrid smell ofrndanger, natural or otherwise, provides arnpleasant flow of adrenaline. It does notrnfollow that he shouldn’t be a literaryrngent—which doesn’t matter because hernisn’t one, anyway. The neoenvironmentalistrndoes not write books —not onesrnyou’d want to read, that is—or even articlesrnbeyond ranting press releases posingrnas letters-to-the-editor in the state and localrnnewspapers. In the Great Traditionrnof nature and travel literature that, inrnhowever attenuated form, persisted untilrnquite recently as environmentalist literature,rnconnoisseurs of the natural worldrnproved themselves often to be mastersrnof the written word as well (to the aforementionedrnThoreau, Muir, etc., addrnCM. Doughty, Charles Darwin, andrnJoseph Wood Krutch, for starters). EdrnAbbey, not to mention Charles Doughty,rnhas no worthy successors (or even successor)rnthat I can think of, whether as anrnoutdoor adventtirer or a writer. He has,rnhowever, plenty of political-bureaucratic-rnactivist types to claim his manfle, if onlyrnby invoking his most infamous book.rnHere in New Mexico, where I enjoy arntemporary residency, environmentalismrnhas taken over state government andrnthe federal agencies like kudzu vine;rnthe same goes —to a slightly lesserrnextent, perhaps —next door in Arizona.rnNowhere in the country have environmentalistsrnfiled their suits, won their rulings,rnand had their way, finally, as in thernSouthwest—not even in the Creater Yellowstonernarea, which has received sornmuch of the national attention. Reintroductionrnof the Mexican Grey Wolf, thernvirtual shutdown of the timber industryrnto protect the Mexican Spotted Owl (itrnisn’t just Mexican human immigrantsrnwe’re determined to shelter here in thernU.S. of A.), competitive bidding tornsnatch lands leased from the federal andrnstate governments from under the feet ofrncattle ranchers already struggling to complyrnwith regulations designated for thernprotection of the Southwestern WillowrnFlycatcher—these actions have been thernwork of the Southwestern Center for BiologicalrnDiversity in Tucson, the ForestrnGuardians in Santa Fe, and many otherrnlike-minded organizations staffed, all ofrnthem, by political activists, lobbyists,rnarm-twisters, propagandists, chair-warmers,rnand telephone jockeys —most ofrnwhom have no idea, one gathers, how tornpilot a dory through a whitewater rapids,rnsaddle a horse, field-dress an elk, avoid arnflash flood, build a campfire that doesn’trngo out, jack a Jeep out of a mudhole, findrnwater in the desert, pick up a rattlesnakernbare handedly. . .. Neoenvironmentalistrnpagans worshipping Wilderness in thernRocky Mountains have this in commonrnwith their unlikely neoconservativerncousins offering sacrifice to Democracyrnhalf a continent away in New York Cityrnand Washington, D.C.: They have nornpersonal, experiential knowledge of theirrnadored idol, which for them is only anrnintellectual abstraction. To state the situationrnless politely, they—literally —rndon’t know what they are talking about.rnRecreationism was more or less okay forrnan earlier breed of environmentalist thatrnwas happier camping up Navajo CreekrnCanyon on the Big Reservation thanrnhanging around on the back benches inrnthe Round House in Santa Fe. Now thatrntheir successors are urban revolutionaryrncadres, participants in the long marchrnthrough the institutions whose goal, ultimately,rnis not ecological at all but socialrnand political, recreationism has becomernthe enemy too.rnThis is not to agree that making snowrnis the economic, moral, or social equivalentrnof growing beef, that felling trees forrnski runs is the same as managing forestsrnfor sale, or that Westerners are better offrnmaking up rooms in resort hotels thanrnmining coal. The argument has beenrnmade for a couple of centuries at least,rnand refined a few years ago by GarrettrnHardin in his “Tragedy of the Commons,”rnthat most people take better carernwith what they own than with what theyrndon’t. Today a similar, perhaps corollary,rnargument needs to be added: Withrnthe possible exception of a fancy sportsrncar, an expensive golf club, a spirited saddlernhorse, or a trophy mistress, peoplerntreat their work tools better than they dorntheir toys. The earth, the land, wildernessrn—whatever we choose to call it—isrnneither an untouchable idol for worshiprnnor a potential playground awaiting developmentrnand exploitation but a divinelyrncreated home for man, and his livelihoodrnas well. It has all the dignity Godrnconferred on it at the Creation, and it isrna means by which we earn dignity forrnourselves, suffering with it in a mutualrntravail of which ELFs and developersrnknow not one single thing. -crn50/CHRONICLESrnrnrn