Nearly a half-century ago, the book "Silent Spring" awakened public concern for the health of our environment with its foreboding message. If our country continued along the path it was on, in springtime we could well find ourselves without the lilting and melodious songs of birds. Written by Rachel Carson, a scientist who would have turned 100 on May 27, "Silent Spring" chronicles the devastating effect chemicals such as pesticides have on populations of songbirds. Carson wrote the book -- her fourth -- because she was alarmed by "reckless squandering of natural resources." Her writing style, one of her professors told her, "is so good because you have made what might be a relatively technical subject very intelligible to the reader," and the book easily worked its way into the hands of multitudes around the country. Many people took up the clarion call, sharing her concern, and pushing for changes in public policy. Congress and the administration took notice, and some of the nation's cornerstone laws for protecting the environment soon entered the books. The modern environmental movement was born, which historians largely attribute to the awareness Rachel Carson raised in "Silent Spring." "I can remember no time when I wasn't interested in the out-of-doors and the whole world of nature," Carson said. Her affinity for nature and seminal writings on the natural world -- combined with other naturalist writers of her generation, in particular, Aldo Leopold and his posthumously published "A Sand County Almanac" -- helped to infuse plans for a great society with an emphasis on conservation. She had a receptive audience in President John F. Kennedy. Just two years after publication of "Silent Spring," one of the laws enacted was the Wilderness Act, which established the system of protected places bequeathed to us as well the process by which we may pass similar wild gifts on to our heirs. As a remarkable consequence of this far-reaching and visionary law, future generations of Americans will have the opportunity to use and enjoy, explore in and wonder at, slices of the original America, including wilderness in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, where Athabaskan and Inupiat people still live subsistence lifestyles; the King Range in California, encompassing the longest stretch of coastline in the lower 48 with nary a house or road along it; and El Toro wilderness of Puerto Rico, the first in a U.S. Territory and the first high elevation tropical rainforest permanently protected. The current Congress has already made progress to ensure a lasting legacy of wilderness for our children and grandchildren, building on the impressive record of more than a million acres across 6 states and a territory forever protected by the 109th Congress. In April, the House of Representatives passed legislation for the Wild Skyhomish Mountains in Washington, and the Senate should take the bill up soon. In order to gain congressional approval, collaboration and consensus leading toward compromise are the driving forces behind the success of wilderness legislation. Competing interests hammer out longstanding and nettlesome conflicts about the uses of our federal lands -- lands all of us own -- for not all uses are compatible on the same land. Two overarching pressures threaten our public lands today -- sprawling growth and an explosion of off-road vehicle use. Finding consensus has brought together interesting bedfellows, as hunters and anglers, Realtors and other business leaders, and ranchers who graze livestock on some of our public lands have joined together. In Washington and Montana, where "timber wars" have historically been such a part of local controversy, enlightened timber mill owners are sitting down with conservationists to craft proposals that can be supported by both. Good examples are emerging now for the Colville and Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forests. You know times are changing when leading conservation and sporting groups can get together with businesses like Vaagen Brothers Timber Co. and groups like the Montana Logging Congress. These emerging efforts are "unprecedented and visionary," in the words of Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer. Look for this fresh Congress to also consider wilderness measures protecting land on Oregon's iconic Mount Hood, in the stunning Boulder-White Cloud Mountains of central Idaho, for Arizona's Tumacacori Highlands, and the ridges and valleys of western Virginia. Five decades of wilderness protection would have been impossible had Rachel Carson not taken up her pen and popularized emerging scientific discoveries about the waning health of our environment, nor would have public consciousness have been raised as high about saving some of our natural heritage. May 27 is a date well worth commemorating for the remarkable affect Rachel Carson had on our quality of life, which is something we can pass along to our children by saving special places as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. About the writer:Mike Matz is executive director of the Campaign for America's Wilderness. He can be reached at 122 C Street NW, Suite 240, Washington, D.C. 20001; Web site: www.leaveitwild.org.
