Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural), are
natural environment
The natural environment or natural world encompasses all life, living and non-living things occurring nature, naturally, meaning in this case not Artificiality, artificial. The term is most often applied to the Earth or some parts of Earth. Th ...
s on
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
that have not been significantly modified by
human
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
activity or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally referred to terrestrial environments, though growing attention is being placed on marine wilderness. Recent maps of wilderness suggest it covers roughly one quarter of Earth's terrestrial surface, but is being rapidly degraded by human activity. Even less wilderness remains in the ocean, with only 13.2% free from intense human activity.
Some governments establish protection for wilderness areas by law to not only
preserve what already exists, but also to promote and advance a natural expression and development. These can be set up in preserves, conservation preserves, national forests, national parks and even in urban areas along rivers,
gulch
In xeric lands, a gulch is a deep V-shaped valley formed by erosion. It may contain a small stream or dry creek bed and is usually larger in size than a gully. Sudden intense rainfall upstream may produce flash floods in the bed of the gulch.
I ...
es or otherwise undeveloped areas. Often these areas are considered important for the survival of certain
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
,
biodiversity
Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...
, ecological studies,
conservation
Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws.
Conservation may also refer to:
Environment and natural resources
* Nature conservation, the protection and manageme ...
, solitude and
recreation
Recreation is an activity of leisure, leisure being discretionary time. The "need to do something for recreation" is an essential element of human biology and psychology. Recreational activities are often done for enjoyment, amusement, or pleasur ...
. They may also preserve historic
genetic traits and provide habitat for wild
flora
Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''.
E ...
and
fauna
Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is '' funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as '' biota''. Zoo ...
that may be difficult to recreate in
zoo
A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility in which animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for Conservation biology, conservation purposes.
The term ''zoological g ...
s,
arboretum
An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, man ...
s or
laboratories
A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratory services are provided in a variety of settings: physicia ...
.
History
Ancient times and Middle Ages
From a visual arts perspective, nature and wildness have been important subjects in various epochs of world history. An early tradition of
landscape art
Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent compos ...
occurred in the
Tang Dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
(618–907). The tradition of representing nature ''as it is'' became one of the aims of
Chinese painting
Chinese painting () is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. Painting in the traditional style is known today in Chinese as ''guó huà'' (), meaning "national painting" or "native painting", as opposed to Western style ...
and was a significant influence in Asian art. Artists in the tradition of
Shan shui
''Shan shui'' (; pronounced ) refers to a style of traditional Chinese painting that involves or depicts scenery or natural landscapes, using a brush and ink rather than more conventional paints. Mountains, rivers and waterfalls are common s ...
(lit. ''mountain-water-picture''), learned to depict mountains and rivers "from the perspective of nature as a whole and on the basis of their understanding of the laws of nature… as if seen through the eyes of a bird". In the 13th century, Shih Erh Chi recommended avoiding painting "scenes lacking any places made inaccessible by nature".
For most of
human history
Human history, also called world history, is the narrative of humanity's past. It is understood and studied through anthropology, archaeology, genetics, and linguistics. Since the invention of writing, human history has been studied throug ...
, the greater part of Earth's terrain was wilderness, and human attention was concentrated on settled areas. The first known laws to protect parts of nature date back to the Babylonian Empire and Chinese Empire.
Ashoka
Ashoka (, ; also ''Asoka''; 304 – 232 BCE), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was the third emperor of the Maurya Empire of Indian subcontinent during to 232 BCE. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, ...
, the Great
Mauryan
The Maurya Empire, or the Mauryan Empire, was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in the Indian subcontinent based in Magadha, having been founded by Chandragupta Maurya in 322 BCE, and existing in loose-knit fashion until ...
King, defined the first laws in the world to protect
flora and fauna
In biology, an organism () is any living system that functions as an individual entity. All organisms are composed of cells (cell theory). Organisms are classified by taxonomy into groups such as multicellular animals, plants, and fungi; ...
in
Edicts of Ashoka
The Edicts of Ashoka are a collection of more than thirty inscriptions on the Pillars of Ashoka, as well as boulders and cave walls, attributed to Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire who reigned from 268 BCE to 232 BCE. Ashoka used the expres ...
around the 3rd century B.C. In the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
, the
Kings of England
This list of kings and reigning queens of the Kingdom of England begins with Alfred the Great, who initially ruled Wessex, one of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which later made up modern England. Alfred styled himself King of the Anglo-Sax ...
initiated one of the world's first conscious efforts to protect natural areas. They were motivated by a desire to be able to
hunt
Hunting is the human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/ hide, bone/tusks, horn/antler, et ...
wild animals in private hunting preserves rather than a desire to protect wilderness. Nevertheless, in order to have animals to hunt they would have to protect wildlife from subsistence hunting and the land from villagers gathering firewood.
Similar measures were introduced in other European countries.
However, in European cultures, throughout the Middle Ages, wilderness generally was not regarded worth protecting but rather judged strongly negative as a dangerous place and as a moral counter-world to the realm of culture and godly life.
[Kirchhoff, Thomas/ Vicenzotti, Vera 2014: A historical and systematic survey of European perceptions of wilderness. Environmental Values 23 (4): pp.443–464, here p. 446, doi:(10.3197/096327114X13947900181590] "While archaic nature religions oriented themselves towards nature, in medieval Christendom this orientation was replaced by one towards divine law. The divine was no longer to be found in nature; instead, uncultivated nature became a site of the sinister and the demonic. It was considered corrupted by
the Fall (''natura lapsa''), becoming a vale of tears in which humans were doomed to live out their existence. Thus, for example, mountains were interpreted
.g,_by_Thomas_Burnet.html" ;"title="Thomas_Burnet.html" ;"title=".g, by Thomas Burnet">.g, by Thomas Burnet">Thomas_Burnet.html" ;"title=".g, by Thomas Burnet">.g, by Thomas Burnetas ruins of a once flat earth destroyed by the Flood, with the seas as the remains of that Flood."
"If paradise was early man's greatest good, wilderness, as its antipode, was his greatest evil."
15th to 19th century
Wilderness was viewed by colonists as being evil in its resistance to their control.
[Hogan, L. (1994). Department of the Interior. In P. Foster (Ed.), Minding the Body.] The puritanical view of wilderness meant that in order for colonists to be able to live in North America, they had to destroy the wilderness in order to make way for their 'civilized' society.
Wilderness was considered to be the root of the colonists' problems, so to make the problems go away, wilderness needed to be destroyed.
One of the first steps in doing this, is to get rid of trees in order to clear the land.
Military metaphors describing the wilderness as the "enemy" were used, and settler expansion was phrased as "
onqueringthe wilderness".
In relation to the wilderness, Native Americans were viewed as savages.
[Dunbar-Ortiz, R. (2014). An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States. Beacon Press] This dehumanization gave colonists an excuse to feel no mercy when attacking and killing Native Americans.
The relationship between Native Americans and the land was something colonists didn't understand and didn't try to understand. This mutually beneficial relationship was different from how colonists viewed the land only in relation to how it could benefit themselves by waging a constant battle to beat the land and other living organisms into submission.
The belief colonists had of the land being only something to be used was based in Christian ideas.
If the earth and animals and plants were created by a Christian God for human use, then the cultivation by colonists was their God-given goal.
However, the idea that what European colonists saw upon arriving in North America was pristine and devoid of humans is untrue due to the existence of Native Americans.
[Stewart, O. C., Lewis, H. T., & Anderson, K. (2002). Forgotten fires: Native Americans and the transient wilderness. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.] The land was shaped by Native Americans through practices such as fires.
[Kantor, I. (2007). Ethnic Cleansing and America's Creation of National Parks. Public Land & Resources Law Review, 28, 41-64.] Burning happened frequently and in a controlled manner.
The landscapes seen in the US today are very different from the way things looked before colonists came.
Fire could be used to maintain food, cords, and baskets.
One of the main roles of frequent fires was to prevent the out of control fires which are becoming more and more common.
The idea of wilderness having intrinsic value emerged in the
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and state (polity), states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania. in the 19th century.
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
artists
John Constable
John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romanticism, Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedha ...
and
J. M. W. Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbulen ...
turned their attention to capturing the beauty of the natural world in their paintings. Prior to that, paintings had been primarily of religious scenes or of human beings.
William Wordsworth's poetry described the wonder of the natural world, which had formerly been viewed as a threatening place. Increasingly the valuing of nature became an aspect of Western culture.
[History of Conservation](_blank)
BC Spaces for Nature. Retrieved: 20 May 2006.
By the mid-19th century, in Germany, "Scientific Conservation", as it was called, advocated "the efficient utilization of
natural resources
Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. O ...
through the application of
science
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
and
technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...
". Concepts of forest management based on the German approach were applied in other parts of the world, but with varying degrees of success.
[Akamani, K. (nd)]
"The Wilderness Idea: A Critical Review."
A Better Earth.org. Retrieved: 1 June 2006 Over the course of the 19th century wilderness became viewed not as a place to fear but a place to enjoy and protect; hence came the
conservation movement
The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental, and social movement that seeks to manage and protect natural resources, including animal, fungus, and plant species as well as their habitat for the f ...
in the latter half of the 19th century. Rivers were rafted and mountains were climbed solely for the sake of recreation, not to determine their geographical context.
In 1861, following an intense lobbying by artists (painters), the French Waters and Forests Military Agency set an "artistic reserve" in Fontainebleau State Forest. With a total of 1,097 hectares, it is known to be the first World nature reserve.
Modern conservation
Global conservation became an issue at the time of the dissolution of the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
in
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
in the late 1940s. The British established great
wildlife preserves there. As before, this interest in conservation had an economic motive: in this case,
big game hunting
Big-game hunting is the hunting of large game animals for meat, commercially valuable by-products (such as horns/ antlers, furs, tusks, bones, body fat/oil, or special organs and contents), trophy/taxidermy, or simply just for recreation ( ...
. Nevertheless, this led to growing recognition in the 1950s and the early 1960s of the need to protect large spaces for wildlife conservation worldwide. The
World Wildlife Fund
The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the Wo ...
(WWF), founded in 1961, grew to be one of the largest conservation organizations in the world.
Early conservationists advocated the creation of a legal mechanism by which boundaries could be set on human activities in order to preserve natural and unique lands for the enjoyment and use of future generations. This profound shift in wilderness thought reached a pinnacle in the US with the passage of the
Wilderness Act
The Wilderness Act of 1964 () was written by Howard Zahniser of The Wilderness Society. It created the legal definition of wilderness in the United States, and protected 9.1 million acres (37,000 km²) of federal land. The result of a lon ...
of 1964, which allowed for parts of
U.S. National Forests to be designated as "wilderness preserves". Similar acts, such as the 1975
Eastern Wilderness Areas Act
The Eastern Wilderness Areas Act () was signed into law by President Gerald Ford on January 3, 1975. The Act designated 16 new wilderness areas in the Eastern United States, including of wilderness on national lands in 13 states. ...
, followed.
Nevertheless, initiatives for wilderness conservation continue to increase. There are a growing number of projects to
protect tropical rainforests through conservation initiatives. There are also large-scale projects to conserve wilderness regions, such as Canada's
Boreal Forest Conservation Framework The Boreal Forest Conservation Framework, was adopted December 1, 2003 to protect the Canadian boreal forest. The vision set out in the Framework is "to sustain the ecological and cultural integrity of the Canadian boreal region, in perpetuity." I ...
. The Framework calls for conservation of 50 percent of the 6,000,000 square kilometres of boreal forest in Canada's north. In addition to the World Wildlife Fund, organizations such as the
Wildlife Conservation Society
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is a non-governmental organization headquartered at the Bronx Zoo in New York City, that aims to conserve the world's largest wild places in 14 priority regions. Founded in 1895 as the New York Zoological ...
, the
WILD Foundation
The WILD Foundation is a non-profit organization, belonging to category 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, that was founded in 1974 by South Africans Ian Player (conservationist) anMagqubu Ntombela(Zulu chief, friend, and colleague), ...
,
The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. it works via affiliates or branches in 79 countries and territories, as well as across every state in the US.
Founded in 1951, The Natu ...
,
Conservation International
Conservation International (CI) is an American nonprofit environmental organization headquartered in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia.
CI's work focuses on science, policy and partnership with businesses, governments and communities. The organ ...
,
The Wilderness Society (United States)
The Wilderness Society is an American non-profit land conservation organization that is dedicated to protecting natural areas and federal public lands in the United States. They advocate for the designation of federal wilderness areas and othe ...
and many others are active in such conservation efforts.
The 21st century has seen another slight shift in wilderness thought and theory. It is now understood that simply drawing lines around a piece of land and declaring it a wilderness does not necessarily make it a wilderness. All
landscape
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...
s are intricately connected and what happens outside a wilderness certainly affects what happens inside it. For example,
air pollution
Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different types ...
from
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
and the California Central Valley affects Kern Canyon and
Sequoia National Park
Sequoia National Park is an American national park in the southern Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada east of Visalia, California. The park was established on September 25, 1890, and today protects of forested mountainous terrain. Encompassing ...
. The national park has miles of "wilderness" but the air is filled with pollution from the valley. This gives rise to the paradox of what a wilderness really is; a key issue in 21st century wilderness thought.
National parks
![El Toro Wilderness](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/El_Toro_Wilderness.jpg)
The creation of
national park
A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...
s, beginning in the 19th century, preserved some especially attractive and notable areas, but the pursuits of
commerce
Commerce is the large-scale organized system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions directly and indirectly related to the exchange (buying and selling) of goods and services among two or more parties within local, regional, nation ...
,
lifestyle
Lifestyle often refers to:
* Lifestyle (sociology), the way a person lives
* ''Otium'', ancient Roman concept of a lifestyle
* Style of life (german: Lebensstil, link=no), dealing with the dynamics of personality
Lifestyle may also refer to:
Bu ...
, and
recreation
Recreation is an activity of leisure, leisure being discretionary time. The "need to do something for recreation" is an essential element of human biology and psychology. Recreational activities are often done for enjoyment, amusement, or pleasur ...
combined with increases in
human population
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
have continued to result in human modification of relatively untouched areas. Such human activity often negatively impacts native flora and fauna. As such, to better protect critical habitats and preserve low-impact recreational opportunities, legal concepts of "wilderness" were established in many countries, beginning with the United States (see below).
The first National Park was
Yellowstone
Yellowstone National Park is an American national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowston ...
, which was signed into law by U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant on 1 March 1872. The Act of Dedication declared Yellowstone a land "hereby reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people."
When national parks were established in an area, the Native Americans that had been living there were forcibly removed so visitors to the park could see nature without humans present.
National parks are seen as areas untouched by humans, when in reality, humans existed in these spaces, until settler colonists came in and forced them off their lands in order to create the national parks.
The concept glorifies the idea that before settlers came, the US was an uninhabited landscape.
This erases the reality of Native Americans, and their relationship with the land and the role they had in shaping the landscape.
Such erasure suggests there were areas of the US which were historically unoccupied, once again erasing the existence of Native Americans and their relationship to the land.
In the case of Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and Yosemite, the 'preservation' of these lands by the US government was what caused the Native Americans who lived in the areas to be systematically removed.
Historian Mark David Spence has shown that the case of Glacier National Park and the Blackfeet people who live there is a perfect example of such erasure.
The Blackfeet people had specifically designated rights to the area, but the 1910 Glacier National Park act made void those rights.
The act of 'preserving' the land was specifically linked to the exclusion of the Blackfeet people.
The continued resistance of the Blackfeet people has provided documentation of the importance of the area to many different tribes.
The area is home to the Blackfeet people.
The world's second national park, the
Royal National Park
The Royal National Park is a protected national park that is located in Sutherland Shire in the Australian state of New South Wales, just south of Sydney.
The national park is about south of the Sydney central business district near the local ...
, located just 32 km to the south of
Sydney
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, was established in 1879.
The U.S. concept of national parks soon caught on in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, which created
Banff National Park
Banff National Park is Canada's oldest National Parks of Canada, national park, established in 1885 as Rocky Mountains Park. Located in Alberta's Rockies, Alberta's Rocky Mountains, west of Calgary, Banff encompasses of mountainous terrain, wi ...
in 1885, at the same time as the transcontinental
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway (french: Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique) , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadi ...
was being built. The creation of this and other parks showed a growing appreciation of wild nature, but also an economic reality. The railways wanted to entice people to travel west. Parks such as Banff and Yellowstone gained favor as the railroads advertised travel to "the great wild spaces" of North America. When outdoorsman Teddy Roosevelt became president of the United States, he began to enlarge the U.S. National Parks system, and established the National Forest system.
By the 1920s, travel across North America by train to experience the "wilderness" (often viewing it only through windows) had become very popular. This led to the commercialization of some of
Canada's National Parks with the building of great hotels such as the
Banff Springs Hotel
The Fairmont Banff Springs, formerly and commonly known as the Banff Springs Hotel, is a historic hotel located in Banff, Alberta, Canada. The entire town including the hotel, is situated in Banff National Park, a national park managed by Park ...
and
Chateau Lake Louise
The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise is a Fairmont hotel on the eastern shore of Lake Louise, near Banff, Alberta. The original hotel was gradually developed at the turn of the 20th century by the Canadian Pacific Railway and was thus "kin" to its ...
.
Despite their similar name, national parks in
England and Wales
England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is Eng ...
are quite different from
national park
A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...
s in many other countries. Unlike most other countries, in England and Wales, designation as a national park may include substantial settlements and human land uses which are often integral parts of the landscape, and land within a national park remains largely in private ownership. Each park is operated by its own
national park authority
A national park authority is a special term used in Great Britain for legal bodies charged with maintaining a national park of which, as of October 2021, there are ten in England, three in Wales and two in Scotland. The powers and duties of all suc ...
.
The United States philosophy around wilderness preservation through National Parks has been attempted in other countries.
[Guha, Ramachandra. ""Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique" (1997)." ''The Future of Nature''. New Haven: Yale UP, 2017. 409-32. Web.] However, people living in those countries have different ideas surrounding wilderness than people in the United States, thus, the US concept of wilderness can be damaging in other areas of the world.
India is more densely populated and has been settled for a long time.
There are complex relationships between agricultural communities and the wilderness.
An example of this is the Project Tiger parks in India.
By claiming areas as no longer used by humans, the land moves from the hands of poor people to rich people.
Having designated tiger reserves is only possible by displacing poor people, who were not involved in the planning of the areas.
This situation places the ideal of wilderness above the already existing relationships between people and the land they live on.
By placing an imperialistic ideal of nature onto a different country, the desire to reestablish wilderness is being put above the lives of those who live by working the land.
Conservation and preservation in 20th century United States
By the late 19th century, it had become clear that in many countries wild areas had either disappeared or were in danger of disappearing. This realization gave rise to the
conservation movement
The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental, and social movement that seeks to manage and protect natural resources, including animal, fungus, and plant species as well as their habitat for the f ...
in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, partly through the efforts of writers and activists such as
John Burroughs
John Burroughs (April 3, 1837 – March 29, 1921) was an American naturalist and nature essayist, active in the conservation movement in the United States. The first of his essay collections was ''Wake-Robin'' in 1871.
In the words of his bio ...
,
Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold (January 11, 1887 – April 21, 1948) was an American writer, philosopher, naturalist, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his ...
, and
John Muir
John Muir ( ; April 21, 1838December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, a ...
, and politicians such as
U.S. President
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
Teddy Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
.
![Cook Lake Bridger Wilderness](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Cook_Lake_Bridger_Wilderness.jpg)
The idea of protecting nature for nature's sake began to gain more recognition in the 1930s with American writers like
Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold (January 11, 1887 – April 21, 1948) was an American writer, philosopher, naturalist, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his ...
, calling for a "land ethic" and urging wilderness protection. It had become increasingly clear that wild spaces were disappearing rapidly and that decisive action was needed to save them. Wilderness preservation is central to
deep ecology
Deep ecology is an environmental philosophy that promotes the inherent worth of all living beings regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs, and the restructuring of modern human societies in accordance with such ideas.
Deep ecolo ...
; a philosophy that believes in an inherent worth of all living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs.
Two different groups had emerged within the US environmental movement by the early 20th century: the conservationists and the preservationists. The initial consensus among conservationists was split into "utilitarian conservationists" later to be referred to as conservationists, and "aesthetic conservationists" or preservationists. The main representative for the former was
Gifford Pinchot
Gifford Pinchot (August 11, 1865October 4, 1946) was an American forester and politician. He served as the fourth chief of the U.S. Division of Forestry, as the first head of the United States Forest Service, and as the 28th governor of Pennsy ...
, first Chief of the United States Forest Service, and they focused on the ''proper use of nature,'' whereas the preservationists sought the ''protection of nature from use.''
Put another way, conservation sought to regulate human use while preservation sought to eliminate human impact altogether. The management of US public lands during the years 1960s and 70s reflected these dual visions, with conservationists dominating the Forest Service, and preservationists the Park Service
Formal wilderness designations
International
The
World Conservation Union
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...
(IUCN) classifies wilderness at two levels, 1a (
strict nature reserves) and 1b (Wilderness areas).
There have been recent calls for the World Heritage Convention to better protect wilderness and to include the word wilderness in their selection criteria for Natural Heritage Sites
Forty-eight countries have wilderness areas established via legislative designation as IUCN protected area management Category 1b sites that do not overlap with any other IUCN designation. They are: Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Bermuda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Canada, Cayman Islands, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Estonia, Finland, French Guiana, Greenland, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Mongolia, Nepal, New Zealand, Norway, Northern Mariana Islands, Portugal, Seychelles, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Tanzania, United States of America, and Zimbabwe. At publication, there are 2,992 marine and terrestrial wilderness areas registered with the IUCN as solely Category 1b sites.
Twenty-two other countries have wilderness areas. These wilderness areas are established via administrative designation or wilderness zones within protected areas. Whereas the above listing contains countries with wilderness exclusively designated as Category 1b sites, some of the below-listed countries contain protected areas with multiple management categories including Category 1b. They are: Argentina, Bhutan, Brazil, Chile, Honduras, Germany, Italy, Kenya, Malaysia, Namibia, Nepal, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Philippines, the Russian Federation, South Africa, Switzerland, Uganda, Ukraine, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Venezuela, and Zambia.
Germany
The German National Strategy on Biological Diversity aims to establish wilderness areas on 2% of its terrestrial territory by 2020 (7,140 km
2). However, protected wilderness areas in Germany currently only cover 0.6% of the total terrestrial area. In absence of pristine landscapes, Germany counts national parks (IUCN Category II) as wilderness areas. The government counts the whole area of the 16 national parks as wilderness. This means, also the managed parts are included in the "existing" 0,6%. There is no doubt, that Germany will miss its own time-dependent quantitative goals, but there are also some critics, that point a bad designation practice: Findings of disturbance ecology, according to which process-based nature conservation and the 2% target could be further qualified by more targeted area designation, pre-treatment and introduction of
megaherbivores
Megaherbivores (Greek μέγας megas "large" and Latin ''herbivora'' "herbivore") are large terrestrial herbivores that can exceed in weight. This polyphyletic group of megafauna includes elephants, rhinos, hippos, and giraffes. The largest b ...
, are widely neglected. Since 2019 the government supports bargains of land that will then be designated as wilderness by 10 Mio. Euro annually. The German minimum size for wilderness candidate sites is normally 10 km
2. In some cases (i.e. swamps) the minimum size is 5 km
2.
Finland
![Tsarmitunturin_erämaata_07](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Tsarmitunturin_er%C3%A4maata_07.JPG)
There are twelve wilderness areas in the
Sami native region in northern
Finnish Lapland
Lapland ( fi, Lappi ; se, Lappi; smn, Laapi; sv, Lappland; la, Lapponia, links=no) is the largest and northernmost region of Finland. The 21 municipalities in the region cooperate in a Regional Council. Lapland borders the region of North O ...
. They are intended both to preserve the wilderness character of the areas and further the traditional livelihood of the Sami people. This means e.g. that reindeer husbandry, hunting and taking wood for use in the household is permitted. As population is very sparse, this is generally no big threat to the nature. Large scale reindeer husbandry has influence on the ecosystem, but no change is introduced by the act on wilderness areas. The World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) classifies the areas as "VI Protected area with sustainable use of natural resources".
France
Since 1861, the French Waters and Forests Military Agency (Administration des Eaux et Forêts) put a strong protection on what was called the « artistic reserve » in Fontainebleau State Forest. With a total of 1,097 hectares, it is known to be the first World nature reserve.
Then in the 1950s, Integral Biological Reserves (Réserves Biologiques Intégrales, RBI) are dedicated to man free ecosystem evolution, on the contrary of Managed Biological reserves (Réserves Biologiques Dirigées, RBD) where a specific management is applied to conserve vulnerable species or threatened habitats.
Integral Biological Reserves occurs in French State Forests or City Forests and are therefore managed by the
National Forests Office
The National Forests Office (french: Office national des forêts), or ONF, is a Government of France agency that manages the state forests, city forests and biological reserves. ONF is based in Paris.
The office is responsible for the sustaina ...
. In such reserves, all harvests coupe are forbidden excepted exotic species elimination or track safety works to avoid fallen tree risk to visitors (already existing tracks in or on the edge of the reserve).
At the end of 2014, there were 60 Integral Biological Reserves in French State Forests for a total area of 111,082 hectares and 10 in City Forests for a total of 2,835 hectares.
Greece
In Greece there are some parks called "ethniki drimoi" (εθνικοί δρυμοί, national forests) that are under protection of the Greek government. Such parks include
Olympus
Olympus or Olympos ( grc, Ὄλυμπος, link=no) may refer to:
Mountains
In antiquity
Greece
* Mount Olympus in Thessaly, northern Greece, the home of the twelve gods of Olympus in Greek mythology
* Mount Olympus (Lesvos), located in Les ...
,
Parnassos
Mount Parnassus (; el, Παρνασσός, ''Parnassós'') is a mountain range of central Greece that is and historically has been especially valuable to the Greek nation and the earlier Greek city-states for many reasons. In peace, it offers ...
and
Parnitha
Mount Parnitha ( ell, Πάρνηθα, , Katharevousa and grc, Πάρνης ''Parnis''/''Parnes''; sometimes Parnetha) is a densely forested mountain range north of Athens, the highest on the peninsula of Attica, with an elevation of 1,413 m, and ...
National Parks.
New Zealand
There are seven Wilderness Areas in New Zealand as defined by the
National Parks Act 1980 and the
Conservation Act 1987
The Conservation Act 1987 is New Zealand's principal act concerning the conservation of indigenous biodiversity. The Act established the Department of Conservation (who administer the Act) and Fish and Game, and complements the National Parks ...
that fall well within the IUCN definition. Wilderness areas cannot have any human intervention and can only have indigenous species re-introduced into the area if it is compatible with conservation management strategies.
In
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
wilderness areas are remote blocks of land that have high natural character. The
Conservation Act 1987
The Conservation Act 1987 is New Zealand's principal act concerning the conservation of indigenous biodiversity. The Act established the Department of Conservation (who administer the Act) and Fish and Game, and complements the National Parks ...
prevents any access by vehicles and livestock, the construction of tracks and buildings, and all indigenous natural resources are protected. They are generally over 400 km
2 in size.
Three Wilderness Areas are currently recognised, all on the
West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to:
Geography Australia
* Western Australia
*Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia
* West Coast, Tasmania
**West Coast Range, mountain range in the region
Canada
* Britis ...
:
Adams Wilderness Area
Adams may refer to:
* For persons, see Adams (surname)
Places United States
*Adams, California
*Adams, California, former name of Corte Madera, California
*Adams, Decatur County, Indiana
*Adams, Kentucky
*Adams, Massachusetts, a New England town ...
,
Hooker/Landsborough Wilderness Area and
Paparoa Wilderness Area
Paparoa is a settlement in Northland, New Zealand. The Paparoa Stream flows from the east, through the settlement, and into the Paparoa Creek to the south, which joins the Arapaoa River which is part of the Kaipara Harbour. State Highway 12 pa ...
.
United States
![Image-Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge New Jersey03](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Image-Great_Swamp_National_Wildlife_Refuge_New_Jersey03.jpg)
In the United States, a Wilderness Area is an area of federal land set aside by an
act of Congress
An Act of Congress is a statute enacted by the United States Congress. Acts may apply only to individual entities (called Public and private bills, private laws), or to the general public (Public and private bills, public laws). For a Bill (law) ...
. It is typically at least 5,000 acres (about 8 mi
2 or 20 km
2) in size.
[United States National Park Service – Wilderness – Fort Pulaski National Monument https://www.nps.gov/fopu/learn/nature/wilderness.htm] Human activities in wilderness areas are restricted to scientific study and non-mechanized recreation; horses are permitted but mechanized vehicles and equipment, such as cars and bicycles, are not.
The United States was one of the first countries to officially designate land as "wilderness" through the
Wilderness Act
The Wilderness Act of 1964 () was written by Howard Zahniser of The Wilderness Society. It created the legal definition of wilderness in the United States, and protected 9.1 million acres (37,000 km²) of federal land. The result of a lon ...
of 1964. The Wilderness Act is an important part of wilderness designation because it created the legal definition of wilderness and established the National Wilderness Preservation System. The Wilderness Act defines wilderness as "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammelled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain."
Wilderness designation helps preserve the natural state of the land and protects flora and fauna by prohibiting development and providing for non-mechanized recreation only.
The first administratively protected wilderness area in the United States was the Gila National Forest. In 1922,
Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold (January 11, 1887 – April 21, 1948) was an American writer, philosopher, naturalist, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his ...
, then a ranking member of the U.S. Forest Service, proposed a new management strategy for the Gila National Forest. His proposal was adopted in 1924, and 750,000 acres of the Gila National Forest became the
Gila Wilderness
Gila Wilderness was designated the world's first wilderness area on June 3, 1924. Along with Aldo Leopold Wilderness and Blue Range Wilderness, the 558,014 acre (225,820 ha) (872 sq. mi.) wilderness is part of New Mexico's Gila National Forest. T ...
.
The Great Swamp in New Jersey was the first formally designated wilderness refuge in the United States. It was declared a wildlife refuge on 3 November 1960. In 1966 it was declared a
National Natural Landmark
The National Natural Landmarks (NNL) Program recognizes and encourages the conservation of outstanding examples of the natural history of the United States. It is the only national natural areas program that identifies and recognizes the best ...
and, in 1968, it was given wilderness status. Properties in the swamp had been acquired by a small group of residents of the area, who donated the assembled properties to the federal government as a park for perpetual protection. Today the refuge amounts to that are within thirty miles of
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
.
![Latir Peak Wilderness](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Latir_Peak_Wilderness.jpg)
While wilderness designations were originally granted by an Act of Congress for Federal land that retained a "primeval character", meaning that it had not suffered from human habitation or development, the
Eastern Wilderness Act
The Eastern Wilderness Areas Act () was signed into law by President Gerald Ford on January 3, 1975. The Act designated 16 new wilderness areas in the Eastern United States, including of wilderness on national lands in 13 states. A ...
of 1975 extended the protection of the NWPS to areas in the eastern states that were not initially considered for inclusion in the Wilderness Act. This act allowed lands that did not meet the constraints of size, roadlessness, or human impact to be designated as wilderness areas under the belief that they could be returned to a "primeval" state through preservation.
Approximately are designated as wilderness in the United States. This accounts for 4.82% of the country's total land area; however, 54% of that amount is found in Alaska (recreation and development in Alaskan wilderness is often less restrictive), while only 2.58% of the lower continental United States is designated as wilderness. As of 2019 there are
803 designated wilderness areas in the United States ranging in size from Florida's
Pelican Island at to Alaska's Wrangell-Saint Elias at .
Western Australia
In Western Australia, a wilderness area is an area that has a wilderness quality rating of 12 or greater and meets a minimum size threshold of 80 km
2 in temperate areas or 200 km
2 in arid and tropical areas. A wilderness area is gazetted under section 62(1)(a) of the Conservation and Land Management Act 1984 by the Minister on any land that is vested in the Conservation Commission of Western Australia.
International movement
![Monument Valley 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Monument_Valley_2.jpg)
At the forefront of the international wilderness movement has been The
WILD Foundation
The WILD Foundation is a non-profit organization, belonging to category 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, that was founded in 1974 by South Africans Ian Player (conservationist) anMagqubu Ntombela(Zulu chief, friend, and colleague), ...
, its founder
Ian Player
Ian Cedric Audley Player Decoration for Meritorious Services, DMS (15 March 1927 – 30 November 2014) was a South African international conservationist.
Biography
Born in Johannesburg, Player was educated at St John's College (Johannesbur ...
and its network of sister and partner organizations around the globe. The pioneer World Wilderness Congress in 1977 introduced the wilderness concept as an issue of international importance, and began the process of defining the term in biological and social contexts. Today, this work is continued by many international groups who still look to the World Wilderness Congress as the international venue for wilderness and to The WILD Foundation network for wilderness tools and action. The WILD Foundation also publishes the standard references for wilderness professionals and others involved in the issues: ''Wilderness Management: Stewardship and Protection of Resources and Values'', the ''International Journal of Wilderness'', ''A Handbook on International Wilderness Law and Policy'' and ''Protecting Wild Nature on Native Lands'' are the backbone of information and management tools for international wilderness issues.
The Wilderness Specialist Group within the
World Commission on Protected Areas
The World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) is one of six commissions of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
History
In 1948, the IUCN established a Committee on National Parks. Two decades later the IUCN had been ask ...
(WTF/WCPA) of the
International Union for Conservation of Nature
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...
(IUCN) plays a critical role in defining legal and management guidelines for wilderness at the international level and is also a clearing-house for information on wilderness issues. The IUCN Protected Areas Classification System defines wilderness as "A large area of unmodified or slightly modified land, and/or sea retaining its natural character and influence, without permanent or significant habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural condition (
Category 1b)." The WILD Foundation founded the WTF/WCPA in 2002 and remains co-chair.
Extent
![Togiak Wilderness](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Togiak_Wilderness.jpg)
The most recent efforts to map wilderness show that less than one quarter (~23%) of the world's wilderness area now remains, and that there have been catastrophic declines in wilderness extent over the last two decades. Over 3 million square kilometers (10 percent) of wilderness was converted to human land-uses. The Amazon and Congo rain forests suffered the most loss. Human pressure is extending into almost every corner of the planet. The loss of wilderness could have serious implications for biodiversity conservation.
According to a previous study, ''Wilderness: Earth's Last Wild Places,'' carried out by
Conservation International
Conservation International (CI) is an American nonprofit environmental organization headquartered in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia.
CI's work focuses on science, policy and partnership with businesses, governments and communities. The organ ...
, 46% of the world's land mass is wilderness. For purposes of this report, "wilderness" was defined as an area that "has 70% or more of its original vegetation intact, covers at least and must have fewer than five people per square kilometer." However, an
IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...
/
UNEP
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system. It was established by Maurice Strong, its first director, after the United Nations Conference on th ...
report published in 2003, found that only 10.9% of the world's land mass is currently a Category 1
Protected Area
Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...
, that is, either a ''
strict nature reserve'' (5.5%) or ''protected wilderness'' (5.4%). Such areas remain relatively untouched by humans. Of course, there are large tracts of lands in national parks and other protected areas that would also qualify as wilderness. However, many protected areas have some degree of human modification or activity, so a definitive estimate of true wilderness is difficult.
The
Wildlife Conservation Society
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is a non-governmental organization headquartered at the Bronx Zoo in New York City, that aims to conserve the world's largest wild places in 14 priority regions. Founded in 1895 as the New York Zoological ...
generated a ''human footprint'' using a number of indicators, the absence of which indicate wildness: human population density, human access via roads and rivers, human infrastructure for agriculture and settlements and the presence of industrial power (lights visible from space). The society estimates that 26% of the Earth's land mass falls into the category of "Last of the wild." The wildest regions of the world include the
Arctic
The Arctic ( or ) is a polar regions of Earth, polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenla ...
Tundra
In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless moun ...
, the
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
Taiga
Taiga (; rus, тайга́, p=tɐjˈɡa; relates to Mongolic and Turkic languages), generally referred to in North America as a boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruce ...
, the
Amazon rainforest
The Amazon rainforest, Amazon jungle or ; es, Selva amazónica, , or usually ; french: Forêt amazonienne; nl, Amazoneregenwoud. In English, the names are sometimes capitalized further, as Amazon Rainforest, Amazon Forest, or Amazon Jungle. ...
, the
Tibetan Plateau
The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the Ti ...
, the Australia
Outback
The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastlines and encompass a n ...
and deserts such as the
Sahara
, photo = Sahara real color.jpg
, photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972
, map =
, map_image =
, location =
, country =
, country1 =
, ...
, and the
Gobi
The Gobi Desert (Chinese: 戈壁 (沙漠), Mongolian: Говь (ᠭᠣᠪᠢ)) () is a large desert or brushland region in East Asia, and is the sixth largest desert in the world.
Geography
The Gobi measures from southwest to northeast an ...
. However, from the 1970s, numerous
geoglyph
A geoglyph is a large design or motif (generally longer than 4 metres) produced on the ground by durable elements of the landscape, such as stones, stone fragments, gravel, or earth. A positive geoglyph is formed by the arrangement and alignmen ...
s have been discovered on deforested land in the Amazon rainforest, leading to claims about
Pre-Columbian
In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...
civilizations. The BBC's ''
Unnatural Histories'' claimed that the Amazon rainforest, rather than being a pristine wilderness, has been shaped by man for at least 11,000 years through practices such as
forest gardening
Forest gardening is a low-maintenance, Sustainable gardening, sustainable, plant-based food production and agroforestry system based on woodland ecosystems, incorporating fruit and Nut (fruit), nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and perennial vegeta ...
and
terra preta
''Terra preta'' (, locally , literally "black soil" in Portuguese) is a type of very dark, fertile anthropogenic soil ( anthrosol) found in the Amazon Basin. It is also known as "Amazonian dark earth" or "Indian black earth". In Portuguese its ful ...
.
The percentage of land area designated wilderness does not necessarily reflect a measure of its
biodiversity
Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...
. Of the last natural wilderness areas, the taiga—which is mostly wilderness—represents 11% of the total land mass in the Northern Hemisphere.
Tropical rainforest
Tropical rainforests are rainforests that occur in areas of tropical rainforest climate in which there is no dry season – all months have an average precipitation of at least 60 mm – and may also be referred to as ''lowland equatori ...
represent a further 7% of the world's land base. Estimates of the Earth's remaining wilderness underscore the rate at which these lands are being developed, with dramatic declines in biodiversity as a consequence.
Critique
![Cedar Mtn Wilderness](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Cedar_Mtn_Wilderness.jpg)
The American concept of wilderness has been criticized by some nature writers. For example,
William Cronon
William Cronon (born September 11, 1954 in New Haven, Connecticut) is an environmental historian and the Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madi ...
writes that what he calls a wilderness ethic or cult may "teach us to be dismissive or even contemptuous of such humble places and experiences", and that "wilderness tends to privilege some parts of nature at the expense of others", using as an example "the mighty canyon more inspiring than the humble marsh."
[The Trouble with Wilderness]
University of Wisconsin-Madison. Retrieved: 28 January 2007. This is most clearly visible with the fact that nearly all U.S. National Parks preserve spectacular canyons and mountains, and it was not until the 1940s that a swamp became a national park—
the Everglades
The Everglades is a natural region of tropical wetlands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large drainage basin within the Neotropical realm. The system begins near Orlando with the Kissimm ...
. In the mid-20th century national parks started to protect
biodiversity
Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...
, not simply attractive scenery.
Cronon also believes the passion to save wilderness "poses a serious threat to responsible
environmentalism
Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seek ...
" and writes that it allows people to "give ourselves permission to evade responsibility for the lives we actually lead... to the extent that we live in an urban-industrial civilization but at the same time pretend to ourselves that our real home is in the wilderness".
Michael Pollan
Michael Kevin Pollan (; born February 6, 1955) is an American author and journalist, who is currently Professor of the Practice Non-Fiction and the first Lewis K. Chan Arts Lecturer at Harvard University. Concurrently, he is the Knight Professo ...
has argued that the wilderness ethic leads people to dismiss areas whose wildness is less than absolute. In his book ''Second Nature'', Pollan writes that "once a landscape is no longer 'virgin' it is typically written off as fallen, lost to nature, irredeemable." Another challenge to the conventional notion of wilderness comes from Robert Winkler in his book, ''Going Wild: Adventures with Birds in the Suburban Wilderness''. "On walks in the unpeopled parts of the suburbs," Winkler writes, "I’ve witnessed the same wild creatures, struggles for survival, and natural beauty that we associate with true wilderness." Attempts have been made, as in the
Pennsylvania Scenic Rivers
Pennsylvania Scenic Rivers are rivers that are designated "scenic" according to the criteria of the Pennsylvania Scenic Rivers Act (P.L. 1277, Act No. 283 as amended by Act 110, May 7, 1982). The scenic rivers are managed by a variety of State age ...
Act, to distinguish "wild" from various levels of human influence: in the Act, "wild rivers" are "not impounded", "usually not accessible except by trail", and their watersheds and shorelines are "essentially primitive".
Another source of criticism is that the criteria for wilderness designation is vague and open to interpretation. For example, the Wilderness Act states that wilderness must be roadless. The definition given for roadless is "the absences of roads which have been improved and maintained by mechanical means to insure relatively regular and continuous use". However, there have been added sub-definitions that have, in essence, made this standard unclear and open to interpretation, and some are drawn to narrowly exclude existing roads.
Coming from a different direction, some criticism from the
Deep Ecology
Deep ecology is an environmental philosophy that promotes the inherent worth of all living beings regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs, and the restructuring of modern human societies in accordance with such ideas.
Deep ecolo ...
movement argues against conflating "wilderness" with "wilderness reservations", viewing the latter term as an oxymoron that, by allowing the law as a human construct to define nature, unavoidably voids the very freedom and independence of human control that defines wilderness. True wilderness requires the ability of life to undergo
speciation
Speciation is the evolutionary process by which populations evolve to become distinct species. The biologist Orator F. Cook coined the term in 1906 for cladogenesis, the splitting of lineages, as opposed to anagenesis, phyletic evolution within ...
with as little interference from humanity as possible.
Anthropologist
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
and scholar on wilderness Layla Abdel-Rahim argues that it is necessary to understand the principles that govern the economies of mutual aid and diversification in wilderness from a non-anthropocentric perspective.
Others have criticized the American concept of wilderness as rooted in
white supremacy
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
, ignoring Native American perspectives on the natural environment and excluding people of color from narratives about human interactions with the environment. Many early conservationists, such as
Madison Grant
Madison Grant (November 19, 1865 – May 30, 1937) was an American lawyer, zoologist, anthropologist, and writer known primarily for his work as a eugenicist and conservationist, and as an advocate of scientific racism. Grant is less noted f ...
, were also heavily involved in the
eugenics movement
Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...
. Grant, who worked alongside President
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
to create the
Bronx Zoo
The Bronx Zoo (also historically the Bronx Zoological Park and the Bronx Zoological Gardens) is a zoo within Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York. It is one of the largest zoos in the United States by area and is the largest metropolitan zoo in ...
, also wrote ''
The Passing of the Great Race
''The Passing of the Great Race: Or, The Racial Basis of European History'' is a 1916 racist and pseudoscientific book by American lawyer, self-styled anthropologist, and proponent of eugenics, Madison Grant (1865–1937). Grant expounds a theor ...
'', a book on eugenics that was later praised by Adolf Hitler. Grant is also known to have featured
Ota Benga
Ota Benga ( – March 20, 1916) was a Mbuti ( Congo pygmy) man, known for being featured in an exhibit at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, and as a human zoo exhibit in 1906 at the Bronx Zoo. Benga had been pur ...
, a
Mbuti
The Mbuti people, or Bambuti, are one of several indigenous pygmy groups in the Congo region of Africa. Their languages are Central Sudanic languages and Bantu languages.
Subgroups
Bambuti are pygmy hunter-gatherers, and are one of the oldest ...
man from Central Africa, in the Bronx Zoo monkey house exhibit.
John Muir
John Muir ( ; April 21, 1838December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, a ...
, another important figure in the early conservation movement, referred to African-Americans as "making a great deal of noise and doing little work", and compared Native Americans to unclean animals who did not belong in the wilderness. Environmental history professor Miles A. Powell of Nanyang Technological University has argued that much of the early conservation movement was deeply tied to and inspired by a desire to preserve the
Nordic race
The Nordic race was a racial concept which originated in 19th century anthropology. It was considered a race or one of the putative sub-races into which some late-19th to mid-20th century anthropologists divided the Caucasian race, claiming th ...
. Prakash Kashwan, a political science professor at the University of Connecticut who specializes in environmental policies and
environmental justice
Environmental justice is a social movement to address the unfair exposure of poor and marginalized communities to harms from hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses.Schlosberg, David. (2007) ''Defining Environmental Justic ...
, argues that the racist ideas of many early conservationists created a narrative of wilderness that has led to "fortress conservation" policies that have driven Native Americans off of their land. Kashwan has proposed conservation practices that would allow Indigenous people to continue using the land as a more just and more effective alternative to fortress conservation. The idea that the natural world is primarily made up of remote wilderness areas has also been criticized as classist, with environmental sociologist
Dorceta Taylor
Dorceta E. Taylor is an environmental sociologist known for her work on both environmental justice and racism in the environmental movement. She is the Senior Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Yale School of the Environment, a ...
arguing that this leads to experiencing wilderness becoming a privilege, as working-class people are often unable to afford transportation to wilderness areas. She further argues that, due to poverty and lack of access to transportation caused by
systemic racism
Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of a society or an organization. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, healt ...
, this perception is also rooted in racism.
Human–nature dichotomy
Another critique of wilderness is that it perpetuates the human-nature dichotomy. The idea that nature and humans are separate entities can be traced back to European colonial views. To European settlers, land was an inherited right and was to be used to profit. While native groups saw their relationship with the land in a more holistic view, they were eventually subjected to European property systems. Colonists from Europe saw the American landscape as wild, savage, dark,
tc.and thus needed to be tamed in order for it to be safe and habitable. Once cleared and settled, these areas were depicted as "Eden itself".
Yet the native peoples of those lands saw "wilderness" as that when the connection between humans and nature is broken.
For native communities, human intervention was a part of their ecological practices.
There is a historical belief that wilderness must not only be tamed to be protected but that humans also need to be outside of it.
In order to clear certain areas for conservation, such as national parks, involved the removal of native communities from their land.
Some authors have come to describe this type of conservation as conservation-far, where humans and nature are kept separate. The other end of the conservation spectrum then, would be conservation-near, which would mimic native ecological practices of humans integrated into the care of nature.
Most scientists and conservationists agree that no place on earth is completely untouched by humanity, either due to past occupation by
indigenous people
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
, or through global processes such as
climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
or
pollution
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the ...
. Activities on the margins of specific wilderness areas, such as
fire
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products.
At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition ...
suppression and the interruption of
animal migration
Animal migration is the relatively long-distance movement of individual animals, usually on a seasonal basis. It is the most common form of migration in ecology. It is found in all major animal groups, including birds, mammals, fish, reptiles ...
, also affect the interior of wildernesses.
See also
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Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold (January 11, 1887 – April 21, 1948) was an American writer, philosopher, naturalist, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his ...
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Adventure travel
Adventure travel is a type of niche tourism, involving exploration or travel with a certain degree of risk (real or perceived), and which may require special skills and physical exertion. In the United States, adventure tourism has grown in r ...
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Biomass
Biomass is plant-based material used as a fuel for heat or electricity production. It can be in the form of wood, wood residues, energy crops, agricultural residues, and waste from industry, farms, and households. Some people use the terms bi ...
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Biomass (ecology)
The biomass is the mass of living biological organisms in a given area or ecosystem at a given time. Biomass can refer to ''species biomass'', which is the mass of one or more species, or to ''community biomass'', which is the mass of all spe ...
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Bioproduct Bioproducts or bio-based products are materials, chemicals and energy derived from renewable biological material.
Bioresources
Biological resources include agriculture, forestry, and biologically-derived waste, and there are many other renewable ...
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Camping
Camping is an outdoor activity involving overnight stays away from home, either without shelter or using basic shelter such as a tent, or a recreational vehicle. Typically, participants leave developed areas to spend time outdoors in more nat ...
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Conservation movement
The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental, and social movement that seeks to manage and protect natural resources, including animal, fungus, and plant species as well as their habitat for the f ...
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Deforestation
Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated d ...
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Ecological footprint
The ecological footprint is a method promoted by the Global Footprint Network to measure human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy. It tracks this demand through an ecological accounti ...
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Environmental education
Environmental education (EE) refers to organized efforts to teach how natural environments function, and particularly, how human beings can manage behavior and ecosystems to live sustainably. It is a multi-disciplinary field integrating discip ...
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Forest
A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...
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Geology
Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...
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Global warming
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
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Hiking
Hiking is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century.AMATO, JOSEPH A. "Mind over Foot: Romantic Walking and Rambling." In ''On Foot: A Histor ...
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Intact forest landscape
An intact forest landscape (IFL) is an unbroken natural landscape of a forest ecosystem and its habitat–plant community components, in an extant forest zone. An IFL is a natural environment with no signs of significant human activity or habitat f ...
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John Muir Lifetime Achievement Award
The John Muir Trust (JMT) is a Scottish charity, established in 1983 to conserve wild land and wild places for the benefit of all. The Trust runs an environmental award scheme, manages several estates, mainly in the Highlands and Islands of Scot ...
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Land use
Land use involves the management and modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as settlements and semi-natural habitats such as arable fields, pastures, and managed woods. Land use by humans has a long h ...
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Last of the Wild
Last of the Wild is an initiative created in 2002 on behalf of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at Columbia University to identify the last remaining 'wild' areas o ...
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Leave no trace
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List of U.S. Wilderness Areas
The National Wilderness Preservation System includes 803 wilderness areas protecting of federal land . They are managed by four agencies:
*United States National Park Service (NPS)
*United States Forest Service (USFS)
*United States Fish and Wild ...
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List of conservationists
This is a list of people who were, are, or have been prominent conservationists. Environmentalists would also work on conservation issues.
List of conservationists A
* Edward Abbey – writer and wilderness activist
* Ansel Adams – ...
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Bob Marshall
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National Outdoor Leadership School
NOLS is a non-profit outdoor education school based in the United States dedicated to teaching environmental ethics, technical outdoor skills, wilderness medicine, risk management and judgment, and leadership on extended wilderness expeditions an ...
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National Wilderness Preservation System
The National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS) of the United States protects federally managed wilderness areas designated for preservation in their natural condition. Activity on formally designated wilderness areas is coordinated by the Na ...
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National Wildlife Magazine
''National Wildlife'' is an American magazine published bi-monthly by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), a nonprofit conservation group. In publication since 1962, and with an emphasis on wildlife conservation and natural history, it is design ...
''
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Native American use of fire
Prior to European colonization of the Americas, indigenous peoples used controlled burns to modify the landscape. The controlled fires were part of the environmental cycles and maintenance of wildlife habitats that sustained the cultures and econom ...
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Natural landscape
A natural landscape is the original landscape that exists before it is acted upon by human culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the kn ...
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Old-growth forest
An old-growth forestalso termed primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forestis a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological featur ...
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Outdoor education
Outdoor education is organized learning that takes place in the outdoors. Outdoor education programs sometimes involve residential or journey wilderness-based experiences in which students participate in a variety of adventurous challenges and out ...
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Permaforestry
Forest gardening is a low-maintenance, sustainable, plant-based food production and agroforestry system based on woodland ecosystems, incorporating fruit and nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and perennial vegetables which have yields directly us ...
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Planetary habitability
Planetary habitability is the measure of a planet's or a natural satellite's potential to develop and maintain environments hospitable to life. Life may be generated directly on a planet or satellite endogenously or be transferred to it from ...
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Protected area
Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...
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Wild fisheries
A wild fishery is a natural body of water with a sizeable free-ranging fish or other aquatic animal (crustaceans and molluscs) population that can be harvested for its commercial value. Wild fisheries can be marine (saltwater) or lacustrine/ri ...
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Wildcrafting Wildcrafting (also known as foraging) is the practice of harvesting plants from their natural, or 'wild' habitat, primarily for food or medicinal purposes. It applies to uncultivated plants wherever they may be found, and is not necessarily limited ...
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Wilderness Act
The Wilderness Act of 1964 () was written by Howard Zahniser of The Wilderness Society. It created the legal definition of wilderness in the United States, and protected 9.1 million acres (37,000 km²) of federal land. The result of a lon ...
(1964)
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Wilderness therapy
Wilderness therapy, also known as outdoor behavioral healthcare, is a treatment option for Emotional and behavioral disorders, behavioral disorders, Substance use disorder, substance abuse, and Mental disorder, mental health issues in adolescen ...
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Wilderness Area (Protected Area Management Category)
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References
Further reading
![Spiny Forest Ifaty Madagascar](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Spiny_Forest_Ifaty_Madagascar.jpg)
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Bryson, B. (1998). ''A Walk in the Woods''.
Casson, S. et al. (Ed.s).(2016). Wilderness Protected Areas: Management Guidelines for IUCN Category 1b (wilderness) Protected Areas
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Gutkind, L (Ed). (2002). ''On Nature: Great Writers on the Great Outdoors''.
* Kirchhoff, Thomas/ Vicenzotti, Vera 2014: A historical and systematic survey of European perceptions of wilderness. Environmental Values 23 (4): 443–464.
* Nash, Roderick Frazier
967
Year 967 ( CMLXVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
* Spring – Emperor Otto I (the Great) calls for a council at Rome, to present the ne ...
2014: Wilderness and the American Mind. Fifth Edition. New Haven & London, Yale University Press / Yale Nota Bene.
* Oelschlaeger, Max 1991: The Idea of Wilderness. From Prehistory to the Age of Ecology. New Haven & London, Yale University Press.
External links
IUCN Category 1a: Strict Nature ReserveIUCN Category 1b: Wilderness Areas
The Wilderness SocietyWilderness Information NetworkWilderness Articles, Survival Techniques, Edible PlantsAldo Leopold Wilderness Research InstituteWilderness Task Force/World Commission on Protect AreasCampaign for America's WildernessThe WILD FoundationArticle: The Role of the Wilderness in Storytelling
Definitions
Detailed maps of United States wilderness designations– Definition and discussion of wilderness as a human construction
– by
Roderick Nash
Roderick Frazier Nash is a professor emeritus of history and environmental studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. He was the first person to descend the Tuolumne River using a raft.
Scholarly biography
Nash received his Bache ...
The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Natureby William Cronon.
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Global natural environment
Wilderness areas
Protected areas