From a researcher on "conservation refugees".

• Author: Dowie, Mark
• Position: FROM READERS - Letter to the Editor

I read "A Challenge to Conservationists" with particular interest, as I have just returned from a month in South America researching a book on the history of conservation refugees--people evicted or otherwise displaced from traditional homelands in the interest of conservation. And my last book was a history of American philanthropic foundations, an intriguing subplot of Mac Chapin's article.

As I'm sure World Watch readers are aware, the practice of evicting natives from "protected areas" began in the United States a century and half ago after the creation of Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks, when a dozen or so Indian tribes were summarily removed from the parks, often by force. That process, incidentally, was not stopped until 1969, when the last free-standing Miwok village was evacuated in...