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> He filled thousands of human-free negatives with land he knew the Miwok had tended for at least four thousand years. And he knew that the Miwok had been forci

> He filled thousands of human-free negatives with land he knew the Miwok had tended for at least four thousand years. And he knew that the Miwok had been forcibly evicted from Yosemite Valley, as other natives would later be from national parks yet to be created, all in the putative interest of protecting nature from human disturbance. The history of the conservation movement is rich white people screwing over poor brown people due to romantic notions of wilderness. Lest we think it is in the past, look at the current conservation movement and endangered species. If you look at the land animals most people want to save, these are mostly in areas where a lot of poor brown people live. The brown people are the ones who have their development curtailed and have to live with lions killing their cattle, elephants trampling their crops, etc.

hinkley 7y ago
I've heard similar complaints about John Muir. People get very, very touchy when you say bad things about John Muir. Having read Tending the Wild, I'm inclined to think that at least some of their complaints have merit. California 'wilderness' was considerably curated by communities that moved back and forth from foothills to shoreline with the seasons (are you 'semi-nomadic' if you keep moving between the same handful of locations?)
- deleted 7y ago
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- jariel 7y ago
  This notion of 'curation' in the article and in your comment stretches credulity. Aboriginals were not in a position to 'curate' or 'manage' much at all. Aside from some rare controlled burns here and there - they didn't have the capacity to 'curate' vast areas of land. More reasonably, their 'industrial footprint' was small by virtue of their near lack of modern industrialisation and their small population. They were light on the land, but let's not construe that with some kind of 'caretaker' moniker - this is a romanticism of another kind entirely. Finally, because aboriginals were present in some areas does not abnegate the notion that they were essentially pristine, i.e. this is not some kind of false romanticisation of the land by Westerners, rather, a mischaracterisation. Lacking a large agricultural base, large scale domestication of animals, an industrial base, large cities or even large populations, it's fair to suggest that such areas were in fact, by and large, pristine - certainly relative to the West. Treatment of aboriginals by whatever policy is an altogether different question.
Spooky23 7y ago
Big wild animals have been gone from other places for centuries. Unless you’re protecting the grey squirrel, you’re out of luck.
Nasrudith 7y ago
While that may be a factor at times it goes back before race was a relevant factor due to local homogenized scope and "white" as a construct not existing yet. Look at medieval poaching laws from hunting being an aristocratic privledge. Poaching has been considered villainous in the past and present for completely different reasons. A "rich playground" aspect has long been there and that isn't limited to even the West. It is a warrior elite among agrarians thing really.

hinkley 7y ago

I've heard similar complaints about John Muir. People get very, very touchy when you say bad things about John Muir. Having read Tending the Wild, I'm inclined to think that at least some of their complaints have merit. California 'wilderness' was considerably curated by communities that moved back and forth from foothills to shoreline with the seasons (are you 'semi-nomadic' if you keep moving between the same handful of locations?)

deleted 7y ago
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jariel 7y ago
This notion of 'curation' in the article and in your comment stretches credulity. Aboriginals were not in a position to 'curate' or 'manage' much at all. Aside from some rare controlled burns here and there - they didn't have the capacity to 'curate' vast areas of land. More reasonably, their 'industrial footprint' was small by virtue of their near lack of modern industrialisation and their small population. They were light on the land, but let's not construe that with some kind of 'caretaker' moniker - this is a romanticism of another kind entirely. Finally, because aboriginals were present in some areas does not abnegate the notion that they were essentially pristine, i.e. this is not some kind of false romanticisation of the land by Westerners, rather, a mischaracterisation. Lacking a large agricultural base, large scale domestication of animals, an industrial base, large cities or even large populations, it's fair to suggest that such areas were in fact, by and large, pristine - certainly relative to the West. Treatment of aboriginals by whatever policy is an altogether different question.

Spooky23 7y ago

Big wild animals have been gone from other places for centuries. Unless you’re protecting the grey squirrel, you’re out of luck.

Nasrudith 7y ago

While that may be a factor at times it goes back before race was a relevant factor due to local homogenized scope and "white" as a construct not existing yet. Look at medieval poaching laws from hunting being an aristocratic privledge. Poaching has been considered villainous in the past and present for completely different reasons. A "rich playground" aspect has long been there and that isn't limited to even the West. It is a warrior elite among agrarians thing really.