I recently spent a day out in the beautiful Berkshires with Doug Bruce of the Berkshire Natural Resource Council. Our most recent endeavor into the woods was slightly more productive and slightly less exhausting then are first day together. The property that we spent the day in is located near the MCLA Athletic Complex, and I’m not sure of the name of the property. The lot was a recent Resource Council purchase, bought from a man who planned to create housing developments at the base of the mountain we would be working on. While walking up to the Resource Council’s lot, Doug spoke of how interesting this parcel of land is to the Council. As mentioned before the parcel, which is a mountain ridge, is right next to a future housing development. This seems rather odd if you consider the idea of conservation, which is to preserve land for the use of the public. While the Council would prefer to own all of the land and not have more housing developments come to the Berkshires, they also realize that they must pick and choose their battles. In a sense the Council really embodies the ideas of Pinchot, in that they realize land must be practically used.
Up to this point, if I had to tie the works of the Resource Council back to the text I would say that they embody the National Park Services’ approach to Conservationism. This approach, as Wellock showed in the text, has its ups and downs. The Resource Council today faces the same double edged sword that the National Park System faced in the early parts of the 20th century. Both of these groups need visitors to their lands in order to receive funding. However, any time you bring people into the wilderness you run into problems. Just like the roads that had to be built through early 20th century national parks, modern housing developments that can be seen from scenic ridgelines, are a necessary evil in today’s efforts in conservation.
Going along with the theme of necessary evils I must discuss the boundary markers for the Resource Council. Along the boundaries of parcels, similar to posted sings, the Council puts up markers that state whose land this is and where the property line runs. The big problem with these boundary markers however, is the wording on the sings. The sings, designed by Doug’s predecessor, state the name of the organization followed by the following; NO vehicles, dumping, camping, fires. The problems with these sings according to Doug, is that they state what visitors cannot do in a bold fashion, rather than outlining what they can do, hunting, fishing etc. I certainly consider it to be true that a visitor to Resource Council lands will most certainly notice the NO signs first. This is truly a shame, but yet again highlights the very difficult task of a keeping a park system open to the public. While obviously the Council or any park service would love to attract lots of visitors, they must remember that visitors can often spell problems and sometimes bold signs saying no are the best way to avoid some of these problems.