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However well written, it's frustrating to see an otherwise thoughtful work disregard the benefits of protecting public lands under the Wilderness Act, which is
by rch 7y ago
However well written, it's frustrating to see an otherwise thoughtful work disregard the benefits of protecting public lands under the Wilderness Act, which is to the best of my knowledge the only robust means of doing so.
- soperj 7y agoProtecting it from what exactly? It's already been massively disturbed by humans.
- rch 7y agoThe intent is to protect areas from further disruption, along the lines of road building, for example.
- soperj 7y agoSure, but there's nothing special about that land specifically. You could take any land, even within a city and do the same. It would return to nature pretty quickly.
- gambiting 7y agoReturn to the "natural" state might take much longer than you anticipate - my favourite example is that the lands that the Aztecs and the Mayans used for farming still haven't returned to the same state as the surrounding jungle, despite being left alone and undisturbed for literally several centuries.
- soperj 7y agoUhhh, i didn't say to a natural state. I said "to nature". The same way that the land protected to the example hasn't returned to a natural state. You can't get back to a natural state, it's been massively disturbed by humans.
- njarboe 7y agoAnd there are vastly larger areas of public lands that are not protected under the Wilderness Act (Forest Service, and BLM lands) where human activity is still allowed. These could be managed in some way like the article advocates. I think that is article is a good one if one takes away from it the idea that humans have had an influence over almost all of the Earth's landmasses for thousands of year. The idea of wilderness, meaning a place where humans don't influence nature, is recent and probably partly stems from the depopulation of western North America from European diseases before Europeans began exploring the region. See the Louis and Clark expedition.
- rch 7y agoI don't believe the article adequately addresses intensive industrial uses, e.g. oil and gas leases[1], which are potentially permitted on other categories of federally managed lands. It's also fairly disingenuous to claim that human activity is not allowed in wilderness areas: I'll be camping in a gorgeous wilderness area in Colorado this weekend. [1] https://www.blm.gov/programs/energy-and-minerals/oil-and-gas/oil-and-gas-statistics https://www.blm.gov/programs/energy-and-minerals/oil-and-gas...