Hope for the Land

To ecology and equity, as criteria for ethical land-use decision-making, Little ( Greenways for America ) would add aesthetics. Noting that the U.S. has no permanent policy for land conservation and landscape preservation, he criticizes the conservation movement for yielding its positions to cost-benefit analyses, and charges that the cause of outdoor recreation often leads to the destruction, not the preservation, of the landscape. He examines the dire state of agriculture and the decreasing water supply on the Great Plains, and looks at proposals to return this plowed-out, dried-out land to open prairie. To the three conventional categories of land use--settlement, agriculture and wilderness--he adds ``the living landscape,'' citing three successfully managed areas: New Jersey's Pine Barrens, the Lake District in England (a national park), and Adirondack Park in New York State. These exemplify ``greenlining''--maintaining coherent landscape with outstanding public value partially owned by public and quasi-public agencies, plus unspoiled land still in private ownership. Little introduces people from around the country whose conservation efforts illustrate that his principles can work in inner-city neighborhoods as well as in open spaces. (May)