An Ecologist's Plan For Mining in the White Cloud Area: The Ecological Facets to Be Considered in Mining Exploration and Development

Since all the press, radio, and TV have had environment and ecology on their lips with nearly every breath lately, it is no wonder that I have been invited here to talk with you today on An Ecologist's Plan for Mining in the White Cloud Area. Actually, the events leading to my being retained as a consultant for American Smelting and Refining Company over a year ago, and by four other mining companies since that time, go much further backfar into the distant past when environmental concern was shared by only a few men and women curious about the natural world and how it operates and by a few little old ladies (and men) in tennis shoes the conservationists. In those days, conservation was almost a dirty wordeven though it had a very propitious beginning, having been elevated to national significance just after the turn of the century by President Theodore Roosevelt.

In those years, each time I used the term ecology outside biological circles, I had to spell it and define it. So it is with great interest, and a good deal of pleasure, that I am at last in the national limelight by virtue of the profession that I chose out of sheer love and natural [208] bent, knowing that I would barely be able to make a living at it.

In approaching the topic, I am going to take a very circuitous route, because I want to develop some ecological ideas before dealing with the White