Sunday, June 21, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Planet Earth
Defining Wilderness
June 08, 2009
What is a wilderness? You might have an obvious answer ready, but -- sorry to be blunt -- it's wrong. Or at least mostly wrong. I suspect that answering that question has never been harder. To my mind there are at least four ways of defining wilderness.
1) John Muir's Wilderness: This would be a place that is pristine and untouched by humanity. It's the sort of place sought out by John Muir and other 19th century nature lovers. It's also the wilderness dreamed about and sought after by today's most idealistic young environmentalists. Unfortunately, it is largely a myth because humans have been messing with most landscapes on this planet for several thousand years. It's just a matter of degree. This is a hard pill to swallow for many environmentalists. I've pissed off a few over the years who can't get past this definition.
2) Beyond Suburbia: As in the phrase: "What? There's no ATM and I can't get a cell signal? No McDonald's either? Dang, what a blasted wilderness!"
3) The Wilderness Act definition: "... an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." I know, that's a bit vague. It goes on, "... an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value."
4) Something Forever New: That's right. Everyday it changes. This is sort of becoming the modern ecological view. A wilderness is not pristine and never was (like I said in #1). Unless you define "pristine" as constantly adapting to a changing world and rolling with the punches. Nowadays that means rolling with the punches dealt by almost seven billion humans. Sometimes a place's animals and plants, etc., are doing so in a vigorous way, sometimes not. This is becoming one measure of a how well a place can survive something like climate change.
My personal definition of a wilderness is a personal mixture of all of these, plus a few other bits and pieces of philosophy thrown in. It ain't as pretty as some, but it works for me. And I think it allows me to accept the imperfections of Nature (that's right all you silly anti-evolutionists: Nature is NOT perfect, and it shows) and hope that out of all the damage humans are doing, there is a tad more resilience in Nature than we know. I sure hope I'm right about that (and I'd rather we did not test this hypothesis).
-- Larry O'Hanlon
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June 08, 2009
What is a wilderness? You might have an obvious answer ready, but -- sorry to be blunt -- it's wrong. Or at least mostly wrong. I suspect that answering that question has never been harder. To my mind there are at least four ways of defining wilderness.
1) John Muir's Wilderness: This would be a place that is pristine and untouched by humanity. It's the sort of place sought out by John Muir and other 19th century nature lovers. It's also the wilderness dreamed about and sought after by today's most idealistic young environmentalists. Unfortunately, it is largely a myth because humans have been messing with most landscapes on this planet for several thousand years. It's just a matter of degree. This is a hard pill to swallow for many environmentalists. I've pissed off a few over the years who can't get past this definition.
2) Beyond Suburbia: As in the phrase: "What? There's no ATM and I can't get a cell signal? No McDonald's either? Dang, what a blasted wilderness!"
3) The Wilderness Act definition: "... an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." I know, that's a bit vague. It goes on, "... an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value."
4) Something Forever New: That's right. Everyday it changes. This is sort of becoming the modern ecological view. A wilderness is not pristine and never was (like I said in #1). Unless you define "pristine" as constantly adapting to a changing world and rolling with the punches. Nowadays that means rolling with the punches dealt by almost seven billion humans. Sometimes a place's animals and plants, etc., are doing so in a vigorous way, sometimes not. This is becoming one measure of a how well a place can survive something like climate change.
My personal definition of a wilderness is a personal mixture of all of these, plus a few other bits and pieces of philosophy thrown in. It ain't as pretty as some, but it works for me. And I think it allows me to accept the imperfections of Nature (that's right all you silly anti-evolutionists: Nature is NOT perfect, and it shows) and hope that out of all the damage humans are doing, there is a tad more resilience in Nature than we know. I sure hope I'm right about that (and I'd rather we did not test this hypothesis).
-- Larry O'Hanlon
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