To Save the Wild Earth

Patrick Colgan is the former executive director of the Canadian Museum
of Nature.

Ric Careless is a distinguished B.C. environmentalist. This account of
his career is, as Maurice Strong points out in the foreword, a
compelling story of commitment and achievement. The nine chapters
movingly chronicle a succession of environmental victories for some of
the most spectacular wilderness of the province, including major rivers,
forests, plateaus, and mountains.

The eloquent and passionate narrative shows how Careless’s own life
has evolved in tandem with the social growth of conservation. The reader
is treated to deft accounts of splendid areas, colorful characters,
painstaking research, political strategies and coalitions, effective
publicizing, and tough campaigning. A central message is that each
campaign required its own flexible approach and appropriate outcome,
such as an integrated management unit for a region. Careless, who has
moved from one challenge to the next with great relish, clearly does not
fear political hardball: no wonder his adversaries regard him as a
scourge.

The text is supplemented with photographs, maps, and an index, but not,
surprisingly, the addresses of pertinent organizations through which
readers responding to the author’s powerful appeals can participate in
the effort.

Some books dryly document the need for conservation. Others bring an
incoherent emotionalism to discussions of the environment. In To Save
the Wild Earth, Careless achieves a rare and exhilarating blend of logic
and passion.