Powell could scarcely have imagined that a century after his feat, more than 2 million tourists would visit the Grand Canyon annually--among them families with small children who would float down the once fearsome Colorado as a summer lark. During the past 30 years, annual visitation to the Grand Canyon has ballooned from 2 million to more than 5 million. If you want to paddle down the Grand Canyon on your own, without hiring a commercial outfitter, the waiting list for boating permits is now so long that you won't be able to launch your raft until 2012 at the soonest.

The destiny of wild places in the coming century can be read in the numbers. The 6 billion people living on the planet are projected to swell to 9 billion by 2050. The pressure to exploit the world's remaining wilderness for natural resources, food and human habitation will become overwhelming. But bulldozers and chain saws aren't the only threats. A new menace has emerged from the least likely quarter; in many cases, the very people who care most passionately about empty places are hastening their demise.

Not so many decades ago, those advocating the preservation of wilderness constituted a small minority and were considered to be on the radical fringe. Such pastimes as mountaineering and backpacking were thought to be the exclusive domain of outcasts, anarchists and social misfits. But there has been a broad-based shift in public opinion of late. Polls show that a majority of Americans now place a high priority on protecting the environment. MORE>>

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