So what do I think? First of all, I don't think that this article told me anything that I didn't already know on some level. I think that if humans weren't around, populations of everything from the endangered wolverines to the ubiquitous white-tailed deer would be a lot more "in balance." By in balance, I mean that they would probably be at more stable levels. White-tailed deer would not be taking over everything and wolverines would be a lot less threatened by extinction. But humans are in the picture, and so a utopian vision of a non-human natural world is meaningless (and we all know that nature is cruel anyway- if humans weren't in the picture, somebody would be on top).
I think I knew that by even just setting up a tent in the middle of the woods, I am affecting the vegetation we are on top of. Even if you follow the best of Leave No Trace wilderness ethics, such as by camping on a durable surface like rock, you are probably affecting something somewhere. For example, what about insects that would crawl around on the rock that now have to go around your tent if it's in the way? What about just the fact that your scent in the woods might alert another animal of your presence and change their feeding habits? A rule of thumb I picked up somewhere about how far away you should stay from wildlife you are viewing is that if the animal moves because of your presence, you are too close. (For example, if you are in bear country and you are taking a picture of a bear, you don't want to get so close that it runs away.) But what about all the ways we affect wildlife that we don't see? What about the animals that are avoiding us because they see us before we see them? How should we change our behavior so that we are not impacting these species?
I think the clear answer is that no one should ever go outside. If we stay inside, then we will not ever disrupt the fragile vernal pool population of fairy shrimp. If we stay inside, then we will never cause piping plovers or loggerhead turtles to die from beach traffic, which the author mentioned happens at Cape Hatteras Natural Seashore. If we stay inside, then everything can go on in nature without being harmed by us. Sounds great, right?
Of course not. If no one explored the vernal pools by their homes, if no one went to the mountains or to the beach, if no one hiked on a trail or got in a boat, if no one went outside, then where would our future conservationists come from? If no one came to know the world outside their buildings, outside their air conditioning and outside their offices, if no one went outside...then no one would work to save what we are losing more quickly than we can even keep track. We need to know the world outside in order to see it as valuable and worth preserving. We need nature.
William Cronon wrote an essay entitled "The Trouble with Wilderness," which he published in an anthology of nature essays that he edited called Uncommon Ground. In this essay, he states that "the idea of wilderness has for decades been a fundamental tenet...of the environmental movement," but that the time has come for it to be rethought (p. 69). Rather than wilderness being the "one place on earth that stands apart from humanity," wilderness is, in fact, "a product of civilization, and [can] hardly be contaminated by the very stuff of which it is made" (69). In essence, Cronon argues that wilderness is a product that has been manufactured by society. We are not separate from the natural world, but a part of it. Paraphrasing the writer Wallace Stegner, Cronon states that "the myth of wilderness...is that we can somehow leave nature untouched by our passage" (p. 88). This is dangerous because it is false. We are a part of nature, and wilderness frankly does not exist.
I have tried to state my ideas eloquently in this blog post, but sometimes others just say it better. So I would like to directly quote Cronon's last paragraph of this essay because it so perfectly describes my beliefs and much more succinctly (the bold is mine):
Learning to honor the wild--learning to remember and acknowledge the autonomy of the other--means striving for critical self-consciousness in all of our actions. It means that deep reflection and respect must accompany each act of use, and means too that we must always consider the possibility of non-use. It means looking at the part of nature we intend to turn toward our own ends and asking whether we can use it again and again and again--sustainably--without its being diminished in the process. It means never imagining that we can flee into a mythical wilderness to escape history and the obligation to take responsibility for our own actions that history inescapably entails. Most of all, it means practicing remembrance and gratitude, for thanksgiving is the simplest and most basic of ways for us to recollect the nature, the culture, and the history that have come together to make the world as we know it. If wildness can stop being (just) out there and start being (also) in here, if it can start being as humane as it is natural, then perhaps we can get on with the unending task of struggling to live rightly in the world--not just in the garden , not just in the wilderness, but in the home that encompasses them both. (p. 89-90)
In short, I believe that the article's author, Christopher Solomon, is spot-on yet his efforts are misguided. Do passive recreationists on the trails, mountains, and beaches negatively affect the wildlife populations (and probably plants as well) that these users are so keen on spotting? Most definitely. But is that the heart of the problem? Or is there something bigger that the author missed? Are we truly separate from nature at all, and negatively impact the bunnies when we are in their backyard? Or is everything technically their "backyard"? And our backyard too? Because after all, we all share this planet. Is there a way to not just co-exist but almost "inter-exist" (I just made that word up) with each other? This planet is all we have. I am sure it is fair to argue that the group of people who go to Cape Hatteras on their vacations are the ones working for preservation and asking themselves the question of use or non-use, or putting aside money for wildlife refuges and scientific research. Likewise, hunters are one of conservation's biggest supporters (I haven't looked up the exact stats on this or exactly how much money hunting groups donate to conservation organizations, but I have heard this to be true many times). This article brought to light some important conservation issues, but at the end of the day, targeting hikers and beach-goers and skiers is low-lying fruit when the issue of wildlife conservation is really much larger than this. Beyond perhaps being more mindful about where I place my foot or my tent when I am using my local nature trail, I am not changing my behavior beyond that.
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| A beautiful shot of the Blue Ridge Mountains my friend Greg took on a recent hike to Overall Run in Shenandoah National Park. |
