Should we protect the wilderness?
A recent op-ed in The New York Times about wilderness areas raises important questions about the ethics of public access and environmental preservation in the national park system. Its author sharply criticizes what he feels is overzealous enforcement of the 1964 Wilderness Act.
Citing cases of deaths caused by lack of signage and vast expanses of wilderness, the article suggests that the laws once intended to preserve areas of natural beauty and promote easy access to them have instead needlessly endangered lives. Further preservation efforts, enacted as recently as 2009, only exacerbate the problem:
“… agencies have made these supposedly open recreational areas inaccessible and even dangerous, putting themselves in opposition to healthy and environmentally sound human-powered activities, the very thing Congress intended the Wilderness Act to promote.”
There is significant ideological tension between encouraging access to wilderness and the efforts to preserve it. Activists talk about the vital importance of the wilderness experience, but realistically, the only way to preserve that experience is through limiting access to it. But how much space do we really need?
A conflict inevitably arises. On one side, there is a kind of wilderness elitism. Its goal is to maintain the purity of large swaths of the natural environment for the privilege of a select few. It is, on a basic level, impossible to sustain for everyone. Its counterpart is wilderness populism, which maintains that these natural areas should be easily accessible for everyone. This idea of mass access, while egalitarian, threatens to destroy the qualities that make the wilderness so precious to enthusiasts.
So far, the government has struck a good balance, and accomplished great things with wilderness preservation. Refusing to put up signs, however, needlessly endangers people. More than that, it isn’t helping anyone to more fully experience the solitude of the woods.
-Ethan
Image used under a Creative Commons Attribution License from Flickr user Jagger
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“… agencies have made these supposedly open recreational areas inaccessible and even dangerous, putting themselves in opposition to healthy and environmentally sound human-powered activities, the very thing Congress intended the Wilderness Act to promote.”
I live in an area that has large areas of “wilderness”, and I love it. It is (to me) far less dangerous than the majority of the populated places in this world. Yes, some of these areas are hard to access, but isn’t that the point?
If a person can’t handle the hike or the ability to ride a horse or mule in, then they really shouldn’t go. There are many areas that do allow atvs and such, but they are still supposed to stay on the trails, so again walking is important. The ability to read a map and/or know how to use a G.P.S is a must( as is having them on your person, not back in the car). Wild animals are just that, wild. Mother nature can be and often is a big old bitch. Even people with back country know-how get lost, hurt and die, it happens here on a regular basis. I personaly have found people miles from their car, no map, no food or water, no way to start a fire, just going and going off trail with no idea of were they are or how to get back, moving because of fear. You want to give them a big open handed smack to the forehead, but getting them back to “home” is usally enough.
We need these spaces to offset the growth of suburbia and to give nature some breathing room.
We should not have to pave the trails and put up “you are here” signs every half mile so some big city folk can get in and out of the woods, thats what the parks are for.