Wilderness

Phillip Vannini, April Vannini

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317568278
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Biological Sciences

Wilderness provides a multidisciplinary introduction into the diverse ways in which we make sense of wilderness: how we conceptualise it, experience it, interact with, and imagine it. Drawing upon key theorists, philosophers, and researchers who have contributed important knowledge to the topic, this title argues for a relational and process based notion of the term and understands it as a keystone for the examination of issues from conservation to more-than-human relations.

The text is organized around themed chapters discussing the concept of wilderness and its place in the social imagination, wilderness regulation and management, access, travel and tourism, representation in media and arts, and the use of wilderness for education, exploration, play, and therapy, as well as its parcelling out in parks, reserves, or remote "wastelands". The book maps out the historical transformation of the idea of wilderness, highlighting its intersections with notions of nature and wildness and teasing out the implications of these links for theoretical debate. It offers boxes that showcase important recent case studies ranging from the development of adventure travel and eco-tourism to the practice of trekking to the changing role of technology use in the wild. Summaries of key points, further readings, Internet-based resources, short videos, and discussion questions allow readers to grasp the importance of wilderness to wider social, cultural, political, economic, historical and everyday processes.

Wilderness is designed for courses and modules on the subject at both postgraduate and undergraduate levels. The book will also assist professional geographers, sociologists, anthropologists, environmental and cultural studies scholars to engage with recent and important literature on this elusive concept.

1 Introduction

Phillip Vannini and April Vannini

DOI: 10.4324/9781315736846-1

Brady's Beach, Bamfield (Photo: April Vannini)

The most difficult aspect of writing a book is the first paragraph. Hours, days went by as new opening paragraphs were drafted, evaluated, and then quickly discarded. The writer’s block seemed to drag on forever. Frustrated, tired, and anxious at the impasse we eventually resolved to put books, journals, and computers away and headed out for a leisurely walk in the woods hoping for inspiration.

It was an overcast autumn afternoon. The late September rains had begun wetting the forest floor after a long summer drought and the first wild mushrooms of the season, our favorite chanterelles, had sprung to life. Upon sighting their long-awaited arrival I (Phillip) ran back to our parked vehicle and grabbed a cloth bag in order to collect them. These delectable wild things can grow in unpredictable quantities wherever they please, without a care in the world for paths, trails, or any other instruments for channeling human mobility, so soon enough we were traipsing deep in the bush and filling our bag one mushroom at a time, careful enough to respect the forest’s thick undergrowth with our steps, but determined to find and bring home as many as possible.

Two hours later, our reason for being in the bushes in the first place—curing writer’s block—had dissipated in the silent darkness of the Pacific temperate rainforest. Our concerns with this book’s introduction and with a million other mundane scholarly preoccupations had been rendered utterly meaningless by our primal hunger—well, appetite, really—for freshly harvested food and for a deeper, however momentary, connection with the wild. Our habitual tendencies to rush through the day’s list of multiple tasks and chores had been slowed down, almost magically, by the slow-growing ancient cedars and hemlocks we walked around. It was in this way that, almost magically, our reason for bothering to write this book in the first place had resurfaced. Simply put: we love wilderness and all things wild. Therefore it was precisely in the wild—we realized upon our return to the office—that this book should set off.

But were we actually in the wild? Were we in a place we could properly call wilderness? Together with some 4,500 souls we call home a 56 km² island in British Columbia’s Georgia Strait—one of the continentally renowned Canadian Gulf Islands, just north of America’s equally famed San Juan Islands. The precise area we roamed in our search for mushrooms is a patch of undeveloped land, roughly 300 acres in size, owned by the Crown and currently subject to a long and somewhat controversial claim dispute with a local First Nation.

Well, “undeveloped,” to a degree. There are many different paths and trails in the bushes, there are remnants of not-so-old human presence, as well as all kinds of traces of frequent human use: from a dozen geocaches scattered around to an abandoned washing machine in the middle of nowhere—a littering curiosity even marked by a dedicated trail. This particular Crown land, to be clear, enjoys no discernible environmental protection of any kind, yet its uncertain legal status makes it impossible for any one person or group to own, exploit, or develop. Walking around in it is not so clearly legal itself, as there are multiple signs at the edges of the land urging people to keep out (nearby there is also a sign informing us about the presence of a “Wilderness Watch” in effect) and even a metal bar preventing access—strangely standing right next to an inviting, official-looking trailhead.

In addition, how wild was our activity? Though we abandoned the trail, our car was never more than an hour’s walk away. To make our foray into the bushes easier we had brought along with us more than a few trappings of civilization, beside our cloth bag: from sturdy hiking boots and rain-repellent clothing to a Swiss Army knife and even a GPS. Throughout the time we walked deep in the forest we could always hear the distant roar of automobiles driving on the island’s main road, and the odd jet making its final approach into Vancouver’s International Airport. Had we owned and carried a mobile phone with us, we might have even been able to send a text or post pictures of our fresh mushrooms on Facebook, maybe with a link to a recipe. As for the fungi, sure enough they seemed wild, but their presence amidst the moss and trees had only been possible through the choices local authorities had made to refrain from authorizing residential building—for the time being at least—and therefore to unwittingly protect the habitat which they needed in order to grow.

So, did this book truly begin in the wilderness? Or did it begin in a place and time only wild in an illusionary sense of the word—a place more knotted through with deeply binding social ties than with wild evergreen roots? To be honest we highly doubt a conclusive answer to those questions can be found in our book, or anyone else’s—or at least one that will convince everyone. And yet, as the next pages will hopefully reveal, the very act of asking those types of questions—and of considering multiple and perhaps equally satisfactory answers—is something of immense value for our understanding of wilderness and wildness. But let us back up for a moment and begin by examining not so much what wilderness and wildness are—more on that shortly—but rather where they might be, and who might own, access, and control them.

The nature of wilderness

In the beginning, everything was wilderness—we might be tempted to quip. But such a pronouncement would be rife with problems. The notion of wilderness as an incipient and pristine land free of human interference—with the implicit connotation that the onset of human civilization somberly marks nature’s fall from grace—is so incredibly problematic and useless that it is undoubtedly a lot easier to begin from the present condition and then gingerly work our way backwards in time. In doing so we could say that today, in the most basic terms, the worldwide status of wilderness is that of a twofold entity. Wilderness is alternatively (1) an area protected by public authorities (or, arguably, private parties), or (2) an area that is not officially designated as such or legally protected, but is nonetheless considered to have ad hoc ¹ wild characteristics. As the latter designation is a controversial one, let us describe officially protected wilderness first through some examples, and then show the necessity of expanding the first definition in order to add the idea carried by the second one.

In Canada, where the two of us live, wilderness is an officially recognized legal term. Canadian law recognizes wilderness through the definition and management of protected areas, which, following the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) (see Box 1.1), are understood as: “a clearly defined geographical space, recognized, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values” (International Union for Conservation of Nature, 2008). As a result of this definition and under the aegis of Canada’s Wildlife Act, at the present time the Canadian government holds massive expanses of allegedly “intact natural areas” that are renowned worldwide for their biological diversity and aesthetic appeal.

Box 1.1 THE INTERNATIONAL UNION FOR CONSERVATION OF NATURE

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) was founded in 1948 as the world’s first global environmental organization, and today it is the largest professional global conservation network. It encompasses 1,200 member organizations including over 200 governments and nearly 1,000 non-government organizations (NGOs). Almost 11,000 voluntary scientists and experts based in 160 countries provide their services to the IUCN. They are supported by over 1,000 staff in 45 offices and hundreds of partners in public, NGO, and private sectors around the world. The Union’s headquarters are located in Switzerland.

The IUCN describes itself as a “neutral forum for governments, NGOs, scientists, business and local communities to find practical solutions to conservation and development challenges” (International Union for Conservation of Nature, 2008). Its work is focused on thousands of field projects and activities around the world. It is funded by governments, bilateral and multilateral agencies, foundations, member organizations, and corporations, and it enjoys an “Official Observer Status” at the United Nations General Assembly.

The IUCN has created a very influential system for the classification of protected areas. The categories have been recognized by the United Nations and many countries’ governments, and have therefore been incorporated into various forms of legislation. They are as follows:

1a Strict nature reserve

Category 1a designates strictly protected areas set aside to protect biodiversity and also possibly geological/geomorphic features, where human visitation, use, and impacts are strictly controlled and limited to ensure protection of the conservation values. Such protected areas can serve as indispensable reference areas for scientific research and monitoring.

1b Wilderness area

Category 1b protected areas are usually large unmodified or slightly modified areas—retaining their natural character and influence without permanent or significant human habitation—which are protected and managed so as to preserve their natural condition.

2 National park

Category 2 protected areas are large natural or near-natural areas set aside to protect large-scale ecological processes—along with the complement of species and ecosystems characteristic of the area—which also provide a foundation for environmentally and culturally compatible spiritual, scientific, educational, recreational, and visitor opportunities.

3 Natural monument or feature

Category 3 protected areas are set aside to protect a specific natural monument, which can be a landform, sea mount, submarine cavern, geological feature such as a cave, or even a living feature such as an ancient grove. They are generally quite small protected areas and often have high visitor value.

4 Habitat/species management area

Category 4 protected areas aim to protect particular species or habitats and management reflects this priority. Many Category 4 protected areas will need regular, active interventions to address the requirements of particular species or to maintain habitats, but this is not a requirement of the category.

5 Protected landscape/seascape

A protected area where the interaction of people and nature over time has produced an area of distinct character with significant ecological, biological, cultural, and scenic value; and where safeguarding the integrity of this interaction is vital to protecting and sustaining the area and its associated nature conservation and other values.

6 Protected area with sustainable use of natural resources

Category 6 protected areas conserve ecosystems and habitats together with associated cultural values and traditional natural resource management systems. They are generally large, with most of the area in a natural condition and a proportion under sustainable natural resource management, where low-level non-industrial use of natural resources compatible with nature conservation is seen as one of the main aims of the area.

Source:International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) (2008). Protected areas. www.iucn.org/about/work/programmes/gpap_home/gpap_quality/gpap_pacategories (last accessed October 24, 2014).

Through a variety of federal departments (e.g. Environment Canada, Fisheries and Oceans, and Parks Canada) the Canadian government plays an essential role in the protection of such wilderness, chiefly by defining certain habitats as sufficiently important in terms of national ecological value. The designation of an area as “protected” consequently results in policies and programs that aim for the conservation of species at risk and migratory birds. To date, the network of protected areas totals 12.4 million hectares, 85% of which are classified as “wilderness areas.”

Many countries around the world have a similar approach to defining and protecting wilderness. In the United States it is Congress that holds the power to designate an area as wilderness, following the legislation contained in the 1964 Wilderness Act (see Box 1.2). There are currently around 43.5 million hectares of land protected in America, about 5% of the land mass of the 50 states (a little over half of that land is found in Alaska alone). These 756 wilderness areas range in size from the five acres of Florida’s Pelican Island to the nine million acres of Alaska’s Wrangell-St. Elias wilderness reserve. As is the case in Canada and elsewhere, in the US wilderness protection results in public access restrictions and in strict regulations prohibiting mechanized mobility, development, and even many forms of recreation.

Box 1.2 THE US WILDERNESS ACT

The US Wilderness Act is one of the most historically meaningful pieces of legislation on the matter of wilderness worldwide. The document was chiefly written by Howard Zahniser from the Wilderness Society, though it was the cumulative effort of over half a century of environmental activism and the final iteration of over sixty drafts. It was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on September 3, 1964 and enacted by the 88t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Illustrations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Thinking through wilderness
• 3 Representing wilderness
• 4 Experiencing and practicing wilderness
• 5 Conserving and managing wilderness
• 6 Utilizing and exploiting wilderness
• 7 Reassembling wilderness
• Index
• Index