What do we save, though? The wilderness areas tens to be at higher elevation with modest tree stocks. In the lower 48 I think Olympic may be the only NP that protects a ton of anadromous fish habitat. Look at Spotted Owl. They were primarily lowland old-growth. That's all logged so we push them uphill.

We have tended to preserve areas with, at least when they were saved, marginal areas for extractive resources. But they are wonderfully beautiful.

I agree that we have the best concept for resource preservation in the world. Kind of gets political when money gets involved. I still think that we will see Pebble. Likely not in my lifetime, which has not that many years left, but it will happen as we need the metals.