First World Conference on National Parks

Adams, Alexander

Along with his growing ability to change his environment, man is becoming aware that his own survival depends on keeping portions of that environment unchanged. For in spite of his pretensions, he has never really gained his independence from the natural world- and probably never will. His air-conditioner may blow from his apartment the sultry air of a summer's night, but he needs the winds to blow the pollution from the skies of his cities. He may obtain hiswater from a tap in the kitchen, but fundamentally he is as dependent as his most primitive ancestors on the rains that fall from the clouds. When his crops fail, he often returns to the wilderness for new strains with which to strengthen his seeds. From the earth and the seas he draws the materials that he uses in his own life and the food that he gives to his children. More than that, he cannot shake completely free of his cultural and spiritual dependence on the world in which he developed. No degree of technological advance can obliterate a millennium of history.But the problem of conserving nature is not a local matter, because nature does not respect political boundaries. The birds winging their way southward over Europe neither know, nor care, whether they are passing above a Common Market or a group of feudal duchies. The whales in the waters of the Antarctic and the penguins strutting over its ice cap do not restrict their movements in accord with international treaties. Nature takes no heed of political or social agreements, particularly those that seek to divide the world into compartments. It has been-and always will be-ail-inclusive.The men and women who work to preserve nature know this fact, and so it is not surprising that the First ·world Conference on National Parks, held in the United States in July 1962, sprang from a proposal made in 1958 by a Japanese landscape architect at an international meeting taking place in Athens, Greece. The Japanese was Tsuvoshi Tamura, known for many beautiful gardens he has designed, and considered the father of the national park system in Japan. The organization holding the meeting was the lUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources)/ established at Fontainebleau, France, in 1948. The meeting in Athens was its Sixth General Assembly.