conservationistn.adj.

1870 J. S. Mill Let. 17 May (1910) II. xiii. 251 Now, at the expense of what pre-existing energy has this force been generated? The conservationists are obliged to say, out of potential energy.

1911 Jrnl. Philos., Psychol. & Sci. Methods 8 620 There is no addition, he grants the conservationist, to the sum of existence.

1908 Coshocton (Ohio) Daily Times 5 Dec. 2/5 All sorts of obstacles have been elevated in the pathway along which the conservationists wish to travel, and learned diatribes have been hurled at those who planned to save for the children's children of the present generation the stores of natural wealth.

1910 Science 21 Oct. 531/1 If we can do this each individual worker will at once become an enthusiastic soil conservationist.

1922 Encycl. Brit. XXX. 102/2 The most ardent of the conservationists failed to recognize the urgent importance of conserving the salmon and halibut fisheries.

1969 N. W. Pirie Food Resources ii. 69 The conservationists fear that many at present wild species will become extinct.

1998 Outdoor Canada Summer 94/2 Conservationists are..talking not only about saving surviving tracts of wilderness, but about ‘rewilding’ our over-exploited landscapes.

1915 Polit. Sci. Q. 30 629 It thus became the duty of the Bahama people to furnish quotas of men and ships for this humanitarian and conservationist service [of salving ships].

1956 Canad. Jrnl. Econ. & Polit. Sci. 22 98 An appreciation of the role of external diseconomies in conservationist theory.

1970 Nature 18 July 225/2 ‘Conservationist’ opposition to the construction of nuclear power plants is slowing the building programme.

2002 N. Lebrecht Song of Names vi. 186 Their conservationist rigour, they believe, is all that preserves the Jewish race from extinction.