A century ago this week, President Teddy Roosevelt gave us the bountiful and enlightened National Wildlife Refuge System.

As a result, there are national wildlife refuges in every state, important centers for the preservation of a sense of wildness in each place. In addition, these refuges have served as models for states like New York, which have created their own supplemental patchwork of refuges large and small. As much as anything, the refuge safety net has created a long-standing public policy for establishing wildlife sanctuaries, and the tacit understanding that without them, wilderness is doomed.

For a century, a critical underpinning of America's view of wilderness has been that we can't live without it. It's our heritage. National forests and parks have steadily grown in numbers and size, and public appreciation.

We've consistently recognized that significant pieces of our natural environment need to be set aside. It hasn't been a Republican thing or a Democratic one; it's been a remarkably bipartisan vision. Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson signed the far-reaching Wilderness Act 40 years ago. Republican Richard M. Nixon gave us the Environmental Protection Agency and the Endangered Species Act, and Republican Ronald Reagan signed more wilderness protection legislation than any other president. I offer this short, historical brush stroke only to paint a backdrop for what the Bush administration is attempting, which seems to be nothing less than total reversal of a century of environmental flow in this country.

At every turn, this administration is thumbing its nose at every president who's gone before, back to Teddy Roosevelt. It is staggering how much environmental progress Bush is trying to undo. There is a cumulative sense over the last couple of years of a level of greed and exploitation encouraged by the White House that at some points of our history would have been the stuff of impeachment.

Mining, lumbering, oil interests and developers in general have never had it so good on public lands, much of which were set aside explicitly or in the spirit of protecting wilderness. Sadly, public reaction has been surprisingly muted.

The topper has to be the latest: an attempt to export the Bush brand of exploitation abroad and turn on its head the Endangered Species Act.

Under a proposal being floated by the administration, trophy hunters, circuses and the pet industry would be permitted to kill, capture or legally import certain desired species, many of which are at the door of extinction.

The sick premise being that poor countries can use the money raised by selling some of their endangered wildlife to support badly needed conservation efforts for the others.

A sort of "Sophie's Choice" for endangered species. The jaded part of this plan is that only foreign endangered species would be involved: trophy hunting for rare beasts, exporting Asian elephants for circuses and zoos, resuming a partial African ivory trade, encouraging shadowy collectors to retrieve rare birds from the Amazon. American endangered species are not part of the proposal, probably because the hue and cry that would result nationally would deafen a few ears in Washington.

Worldwide, and especially in poorer countries, the black market trade in endangered species is a huge problem, tying up all kinds of international policing resources. But at least at present there's something of a cap on the illegal activity.

With the Bush proposal, we may as well put up billboards telling poachers they now have a place in line behind lumbering, mining and oil.

And please, after you've shot the last elephant, turn out the lights.

© 2003 Times Union, Capital Newspapers Division of The Hearst Corporation

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