They must be managed in ways that transcend purely private interest. Conservatives should say that first, and with conviction. We believe in markets and private property. But we also recognize that you can't easily privatize monarch butterflies or the Shenandoah. This doesn't mean buying into every government program that any green socialist proposes.
Government attempts to help the environment often backfire.
The swamp programs are doubly expensive because the government also props up the price of sugar, which makes it far more expensive to return Florida real estate to the alligators. The Superfund program has become a massive boondoggle for lawyers, its principal effect being to paralyze practical efforts to clean up chemical wastes. Conservatives can make these points. But they must have a positive environmental agenda, too. Environmentalism is too important a matter to be left to the radicals.