Draft of a Plan for Beginning Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador

The book is Draft of a Plan for Beginning Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador. An eagerly exploiting people in an easily exploited country, we are only too apt to live on the capital of all our natural resources. We are also in the habit of developing one thing at the expense of everything else connected with it. The value of these other things often remains unrecognised till too late. For instance, reckless railways burn forests which ensure a constant flow of water for irrigation, navigation, power plant, and fish, besides providing wood for timber and shelter for bird and beast. The presence of a construction gang generally means the needless extermination of every animal in the neighbourhood. The presence of mills means the needless absence of fish. And the presence of ill governed cities means the needless and deadly pollution of water that never was meant for a sewer. The idea is the same in each disgraceful case. It is, simply, to snatch whatever is most coveted for the moment, with least trouble to one's self, and at no matter what expense to Nature and the future of man. The cant phrase is only too well known Lots more where that came from. Exploitation is destroying now what civilisation will long to restore hereafter. This is lamentably true about material things. It is truer still about the higher than material things. And it is truest of all about both the material and higher values of wild life, which we administer as if we were the final spendthrift heirs and not trustees.