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While we're on Abbey quotes... "The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.” - EA This quote has always been a source of debate for me.

While we're on Abbey quotes... "The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.” - EA This quote has always been a source of debate for me. Does the idea of wilderness need no defense? Must we create heavily managed spaces simply to prevent the tragedy of the commons from occurring? Does the fact that wilderness is a political designation mean that it is not truly "wild"? I'm of the mind that because societal negligence of our natural world leads to its destruction in one form or another almost certainly, then yes, the idea of wilderness needs no defense, but one can argue that the designation itself leads to a place losing its "wildness"...

justinator 10y ago
There could be a good argument that nothing is Wilderness, and that Wilderness itself - in the US at least, is a 18th-sh century construct, created by a European-leaning philosophy that didn't understand the relationship between the land and the people that were there before them, but were instead bound by the God and Relgion on the idea of almost a second Eden and a Manifest Destiny to take the land which belonged to on one. In reality all those forests that the original author writes so daringly about were manicured and well-cared for woods, engineered to provide food in the form of nuts and berries, as well as prime hunting ground for big game, say nothing for easily passageway between villages for trade and seasonal migration. In this perspective man has for a very long time held the spot of curator of so-called, "Wild Lands". It's my opinion that we continue to do so. Not for monetary gain (although there is - the Outdoor Industry isn't that small), but because without it, we all commit suicide, in a very real way.
- douche 10y ago
  Unfortunately, there is so much antagonism between the conservationists and the sports(eh, people...), when, really, they should be allies. Ultimately, their goals are actually aligned, although they don't seem to realize it. A healthy ecosystem provides healthy populations for hunting, with good ratios of trophy animals, and likewise, an animal population needs predators or else you end up with the sad and disgusting spectre I have seen in too many mid-Atlantic and southern states, where the animals are emaciated, undersized, and disproportionately succumbing to vehicle hits.
- solipsism 10y ago
  There's no evidence Native Americans managed the land to this degree. In fact it's clear there weren't enough of them to do so. The population in all of the Americas, from Alaska to Patagonia, was somewhere around 50 million. All of Canada had about 500,000 people. Do you know how much forest there is in Canada? There's a theory that early man had widespread effects on the environment using purposeful burning, but even if that's true (it's hard to tell the difference between lightning strikes and purposeful burns), it hardly amounts to "manicured and well cared for woods". Unless you are willing to give beavers an equal designation.
  - justinator 10y ago
    There's a lot of compelling theories in the book, 1491 [0] about how forests were modified in ways in which I elude to, and how the population of the Americas was much, much higher than just 50 million, and how the were civilization much earlier than what we had first thought. If we just take east coast of Maryland, where the author grew up, the first explorers talk about villages that interconnected across the coastline, Chestnut and walnut trees everywhere, and established hunting grounds. Burning was an immensely useful tool to do this. Everyone had a fire starter. Later on, early settlers saw something drastically different - a dying off population from diseases brought by Europeans that they had no defense towards. And that is why our estimates on the population of the Americas, and the level of which they modified the land could be really off. [0] https://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-Columbus/dp/1400032059 https://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-Colu...
    - solipsism 10y ago
      "much, much higher"? In that book Mann argues that the higher counts are more likely to be right. 50 million is among the higher counts. The highest count reasonably argued for being just double that, so we're not talking about orders of magnitude difference. The Americas were a vast, mostly empty (of humans) land. Except near the coasts.
sverige 10y ago
> one can argue that the designation itself leads to a place losing its "wildness"... There are always more people on the hiking trails and in the campgrounds in places designated "wilderness" on maps than places not so described. These days the best places don't have a lot of publicity, manicured trails, designated camping areas, forest rangers, or puff pieces in glossy magazines. No, I'm not going to share, sorry. Use your imagination and buy some old-fashioned topo maps. (Your phone won't work there, so Google won't be of any use.)

justinator 10y ago

There could be a good argument that nothing is Wilderness, and that Wilderness itself - in the US at least, is a 18th-sh century construct, created by a European-leaning philosophy that didn't understand the relationship between the land and the people that were there before them, but were instead bound by the God and Relgion on the idea of almost a second Eden and a Manifest Destiny to take the land which belonged to on one. In reality all those forests that the original author writes so daringly about were manicured and well-cared for woods, engineered to provide food in the form of nuts and berries, as well as prime hunting ground for big game, say nothing for easily passageway between villages for trade and seasonal migration. In this perspective man has for a very long time held the spot of curator of so-called, "Wild Lands". It's my opinion that we continue to do so. Not for monetary gain (although there is - the Outdoor Industry isn't that small), but because without it, we all commit suicide, in a very real way.

douche 10y ago
Unfortunately, there is so much antagonism between the conservationists and the sports(eh, people...), when, really, they should be allies. Ultimately, their goals are actually aligned, although they don't seem to realize it. A healthy ecosystem provides healthy populations for hunting, with good ratios of trophy animals, and likewise, an animal population needs predators or else you end up with the sad and disgusting spectre I have seen in too many mid-Atlantic and southern states, where the animals are emaciated, undersized, and disproportionately succumbing to vehicle hits.
solipsism 10y ago
There's no evidence Native Americans managed the land to this degree. In fact it's clear there weren't enough of them to do so. The population in all of the Americas, from Alaska to Patagonia, was somewhere around 50 million. All of Canada had about 500,000 people. Do you know how much forest there is in Canada? There's a theory that early man had widespread effects on the environment using purposeful burning, but even if that's true (it's hard to tell the difference between lightning strikes and purposeful burns), it hardly amounts to "manicured and well cared for woods". Unless you are willing to give beavers an equal designation.
- justinator 10y ago
  There's a lot of compelling theories in the book, 1491 [0] about how forests were modified in ways in which I elude to, and how the population of the Americas was much, much higher than just 50 million, and how the were civilization much earlier than what we had first thought. If we just take east coast of Maryland, where the author grew up, the first explorers talk about villages that interconnected across the coastline, Chestnut and walnut trees everywhere, and established hunting grounds. Burning was an immensely useful tool to do this. Everyone had a fire starter. Later on, early settlers saw something drastically different - a dying off population from diseases brought by Europeans that they had no defense towards. And that is why our estimates on the population of the Americas, and the level of which they modified the land could be really off. [0] https://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-Columbus/dp/1400032059 https://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-Colu...
  - solipsism 10y ago
    "much, much higher"? In that book Mann argues that the higher counts are more likely to be right. 50 million is among the higher counts. The highest count reasonably argued for being just double that, so we're not talking about orders of magnitude difference. The Americas were a vast, mostly empty (of humans) land. Except near the coasts.

sverige 10y ago

> one can argue that the designation itself leads to a place losing its "wildness"... There are always more people on the hiking trails and in the campgrounds in places designated "wilderness" on maps than places not so described. These days the best places don't have a lot of publicity, manicured trails, designated camping areas, forest rangers, or puff pieces in glossy magazines. No, I'm not going to share, sorry. Use your imagination and buy some old-fashioned topo maps. (Your phone won't work there, so Google won't be of any use.)