... AND ITS ENEMIES

The same two authors have also edited a book Bureaucracy vs. the Environment (Michigan Univ. Press, $15), a collection of 13 essays by economists on the environmental costs of bureaucratic governance; for example, how collective ownership of sheep pastures on the Navajo Indian Reservation (under the auspices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs) has led to severe overgrazing.

Students of energy will particularly appreciate E.R. Habicht's "US Natural Gas Policy: An Autopsy," which starts off by recalling the tax and regulatory incentives to the predecessor of today's energy industries, the whaling industry. As early as 1645 in Southampton, Long Island, a bounty of five shillings was paid to anyone who located a stranded whale, unless he found it on the Sabbath, in which case he got nothing.

A drastic example (not in the book) of what property rights can do for the preservation of wilderness comes from Africa. The hunting grounds of Kenya and other countries under socialist management are close to "shot out" by safaris and poaching expeditions. In South Africa, many ranchers found they could make money by fencing lands and charging entrance and head fees for hunting wild animals, without having to other with vaccinations and other care demanded by cattle. And who is a better guardian of leopards, lions, their prey, and their natural habitat than the owners of such wilderness parks?

But the best writing on environmentalism that we have read in a long while is The Environmental Battle, a series of eight articles by Ron Arnold, a media consultant and film producer in Washington State. They were originally published in Logging Management, Feb. 79 - June 80, but reprints are available for $15 (and well worth the price) from Vance Publishing, 300 W. Adams, Chicago, IL 60606.

The fact that the articles deal with the forest industry rather than with energy production is, of course, quite irrelevant; the issue is destruction of industry, not of which branch.

To win the battle against the irrational redistributors, says Arnold in so many words, you have to be sure of your facts; but you will lose if you think that is enough.