The essential feature of wilderness, Zahniser went on to argue, was the ability of nature to operate free of the sort of human tinkering that was reorganizing everything else in the world. “Such tracts of wilderness land should be managed so as to be left unmanaged,” insisted Zahniser, and then summarized his position in an aphorism that would become the slogan of this side of the debate to the present day. “With regard to areas of wilderness we should be guardians not gardeners.”
