Wilderness Ethics: An Emerging Perspective

Nature is too enormous to encapsulate or control. It is wise to remain mindful that wilderness is potentially dangerous. I am concerned that the glowing presentation of the benefits of wilderness experience will inspire people to head for the hills, venturing naively and recklessly into challenging situations, unprepared and uneducated.

I am saddened when I hear accounts of people who die rock climbing without ropes, get hypothermia from lack of adequate clothing, are buried in snow avalanches, or become separated from the rest of their party and get lost. The remote terrain of certain areas is something to be approached thoughtfully. Even the most experienced of mountaineers encounter unexpected circumstances, when the weather turns dramatically for the worse or an accident occurs, when lives are threatened and even lost. A little bit of education and intelligent preparation can go a long way in saving lives. Included in this chapter is one contribution that deliberately warns us — and several others that more indirectly remind us—of the power, enormity, and unpredictability of being in the great outdoors.

Bringing the book full circle in its intent to portray a holistic point of view, the contributions in this section reflect the perspective of deep ecology and ecopsychology, where humans are seen as but one part of the complexity of nature, neither more than nor less than other beings. We are recognized as strands of the web of a wide and intricate tapestry of the animated earth and expanding cosmos. Seeing ourselves and our relationship to wilderness from within the web places us in a frame of reference that naturally holds us in modesty, awe, and respect for the diversity, magnitude, and beauty of life. Naturally, in the perpetuation and support of life, we prioritize and serve the well-being and continuation of the whole, which includes our personal reward and survival.

In the not-so-distant past, many native peoples had little concept of “wilderness”; wilderness was their home. Wilderness fed and nourished life. People established ways of surviving in balance and with reverence for their surroundings. Culture, religion, and lifestyles developed intimately around their unique connection to their environment.

In todays world, we tend to be far more removed from nature, both within and outside ourselves. Most of us spend most of our time indoors, sometimes in apartments many floor levels above the ground. We usually do not know where our food comes from or who cultivated it. We have become estranged from the earth, from our bodies, and from the other beings who inhabit the earth. There is great fear and misunderstanding about wilderness. In general, we lack a familiar and close relationship to the very source of life that sustains us.

On a very practical level, one way of restoring balance is to breathe fresh air more, often. Wilderness has a way of creeping into and penetrating the fabric of our lives, organically bringing us into a more harmonious relationship with the entirety of life. Wilderness, as a magnificent and wondrous force of healing, has the potential to transform and renew us completely. Wilderness leads us back to our center. Even the knowledge that wild places exist consoles and frees the human spirit.

At another level, I want to ask, What is already free and wild and has no need of recovery? I wish to suggest that the spaciousness we encounter while in nature also permeates the world of our everyday lives. It is my hope that our individual and collective consciousness enlarges and relaxes to the point where we are able to recognize wilderness wherever we are. In this process, we shed our notions of what is and is not wilderness. Then wilderness is freed to be wilderness, as it always has been anyway. We see the uncontrollable, uncontainable, and impossible-to-possess wildness and inherent freedom that rests within the wilderness of who we are. We rejoice in this seeing. The new frontier is right here, right now.