Abstract
PUBLIC opinion is inclined to look upon the scenery and great natural monuments of a country as of the order that lasts for aye, and to imagine that their survival through many millennia betokens an infinite future. It little realises that in this and other civilised countries, human progress is constantly nibbling at the works of Nature, and that greatly as the rate of consumption has grown in recent years, the threat will undoubtedly be magnified in the years to come. The need of watersupplies for the centres of population has altered lakes and swamped valleys; the demands of industry have changed rivers and harnessed waterfalls; the vast requirements of the modern metalling of roads are cutting into the ‘everlasting’ hills; and the desire for speedy transport has driven and threatened to drive bleak roads through some of the select scenery of the land.
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RITCHIE, J. The Preservation of Nature. Nature 119, 265–267 (1927). https://doi.org/10.1038/119265a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/119265a0