--photos by Katelyn Musgrave and Joanna Sprout

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The concept of wilderness has become one of the most contested and problematic for environmentalists and environmental thinking over the past two centuries. The question of how and whether wilderness should be saved or preserved; the question of whether there can be such a thing as wilderness any longer in a GoogleEarth-mapped, and GoogleEarth mouse-accessible, earth; the question as too why wilderness should be saved for wealthy Sierra Club members while its resources are needed by subsistence-level human populations; the question of who will pay to sequester trees and their carbon when those resources are also needed to provide food, fiber, fabrics, and framing timbers for homes: all of these questions--and more like them--pose a series of challenges that the next few generations will have to engage head-on if they are to produce a more livable, less ever-about-to-be-forever-consumed planet.

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What is Our Relationship to Wilderness?

“We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks . . .We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.” --Thoreau

"[I]f you know wilderness in the way that you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go. We are talking about the body of the beloved, not real estate." --Terry Tempest Williams

"The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders." --Edward Abbey

Reineman Wildlife Sanctuary, Perry County, Pennsylvania --photo by Katelyn Musgrave

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Here is the challenge as it occurs in one of the world's best-known wilderness areas:

Industrial Fisheries Threaten Ecological Integrity of the Galapagos Islands (by Merry Camhi)

Wilderness can even become a life or death issue when the stakes are raised sufficiently:

Sea Shepherd Investigates Galapagos Tortoise Killers

In this case, the questions is not about the rights of tortoise-killers, but rather--what conflicts between wilderness preservers and local populations could cause individuals to

take up tortoise-slaughter as a form of political protest.

See also: http://videobeta.aol.co.uk/video-detail/tourist-killers-bbc-environment/2019185784

"Thousands of tourist visitors to the environmentally fragile Galapagos islands threaten the survival of the animals they travel to see. Giant tortoises are infected with human diseases they have avoided for hundreds of years due to their isolation from the mainland. Learn more about these conservation issues in this short video from BBC wildlife show 'Lonesome George and the Battle to Save Galapagos'." --from the BBC Environment Web

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Or consider two well-meaning American preservationists who have run afoul of another culture's values and needs:

"Sweet Chile o' Mine: Two Americans take political heat for preserving Chilean wilderness"null

Here is the original NYT story:

"An American in Chile Finds Conservation a Hard Slog"

In this instance, the founder of the North Face and Esprit clothing companies has purchased acreage totaling more than the land-area of Rhode Island and wants to turn it into a wilderness preserve, much to the dismay of the local Patagonian population. "If I were to go to the United States and buy a big area of Florida as an environmental preserve and tell people they can't go here or there, I think the U.S. would kick me right out of there," said Antonio Horvath, a Chilean senator. "Every nation wants some degree of protection of its territory, and Chile is no different."

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Finally, consider the conflict between nature-lovers who long to experience their own version of pristine wilderness in conflict with indigenous local people who have no money and no need for back-packs, GoreTex or scenery. Such tensions arise not only in isolated spots in the developing world, as is evident in the titles of two recently published books about challenges to the idea of American wilderness:

Contested Lands: Conflict and Compromise in New Jersey's Pine Barrens

The End of Wilderness: Conflict and Defeat of Wilderness in the Grand Canyon

This latter title suggesting that we may be approaching an end. So, finally:

Here is a widely-read and highly controversial essay:

"The Trouble with Wilderness" (William Cronon)

and here is an except from an equally widely-discussed Donald Waller's reply to Cronon:

"Getting Back to the Right Nature: (Donald Waller)

(A Reply to William Cronon's "The Trouble With Wildreness")

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Thoreau and Wilderness Essay #2 Nichols

Read all of the material and links on our wiki-page on Wildernes (this page):

Link : http://sites.google.com/site/thoreauandwilderness/Wilderness

Now take a side: Do you favor "preservation" or do you favor "wise use"?

1) Should wilderness areas--so far untouched by human activity--be kept just as they are for future generations?

--or—

Should they be used in ways that will make them beneficial to more than just the most robust of hikers and backpackers?

2) Are there places on earth that should be completely off-limits to human beings and human activity?

--or--

Are their places where humans should get to divide up the wilderness for varying human uses: hiking, biking, canoeing, dirt-biking, motor-biking, snow-mobiling, ATV-ing, automobiling, motor-boating, water-skiing?

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Your final short-essay assignment is to say whether you support “preservation” (leave the wilderness alone) or “wise use” (wilderness is an arbitrary category, and we should use wild lands for human purposes). One way to think about this question is to read Cronon's essay "The Trouble With Wilderness" and Waller's reply and then explain where you place yourself in the debate between these two environmental writers. We can simplify the debate by saying that Cronon believes that "wilderness" and "wildness" are concepts created by human culture, while Waller believes that these ideas are embodied in our biological and evolutionary make-up as humans.

You do need to place yourself somewhere on the continuum represented by the debate between preservation and wise use. In order to do this, you will also need to do sufficient research beyond our wiki-page, into the wider debate about wilderness, so that you can produce a "Works Cited" (no fewer than fours [4] articles, essays, or books) at the end of your essay.

Summary: Read or wiki-page on “Wilderness,” determine your own position, find at least four (4) additional research sources that helped you to support your view, and prepare a well-argued, well-organized, and well-written essay to defend your position.

Length: 5-7 pages (12 pt. Times New Roman, one-inch margins, double-spaced, title page)

Due: Wednesday, April 29, at the start of class (1:30 p.m.). No late papers.