Wilderness and nature
KGA172 Space, Place and NaturePresented by Associate Professor Elaine StratfordSemester 2
Photo by Rob Blakers from Endangered Viking
LOOKING BACK, LOOKING FORWARD
Part 1
Revising Lecture 3.2
1. What does Tattersall mean when he refers to human adaptive capacity as exaptive?
2. What evidence can you bring to bear to support the argument – advanced by Tattersall, that “As climates changed at the end of the last Ice Age, the new technophile proclivity was expressed in a shift toward agriculture and sedentary lifestyles: a shift that precipitated a fundamentally new (and potentially self-destructive) relationship with nature.”
3. Describe the general pattern of the spread of humans around the world, referring to Diamond’s work to assist you.
4. What does the archaeological evidence suggest about the lifestyles of gathering and hunting communities? How did those lifestyles change with the advent of agriculture and pastoralism? Why might that be so?
5. What is meant by the term Pleistocene overkill? Neolithic Revolution? Hydraulic civilizations?
A Woman Thinking
Learning Objectives
Module 3 Lecture 3
• be able to– define current concepts of
wilderness and address the historic background to wilderness areas, and the contemporary use of the term
– explain why the concept of wilderness has been questioned
– explain why effective wilderness conservation and management are worthy goals
KGA172• Know and be able to (a) employ basic
geographical terminology and concepts, (b) find, evaluate, analyse and reference appropriate literature, (c) contribute to debates about development and sustainability
• Comprehend and be able to explain spatial patterns, generate basic maps, field sketches and graphs, and communicate in written and graphical forms
• Apply key academic skills and (a) engage in critical thinking, discussion and listening, and in self-reflection and reflection upon the viewpoints of others and (b) research, plan and conduct fieldwork to collect data
• Analyse and interpret basic spatial, numerical and qualitative information
• Synthesize and integrate knowledge of social and Earth systems
Textbook Reading
Cronon, W. (1995) The trouble with wilderness; or getting back to the wrong nature. In Cronon, W. (ed.), Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature. New York, W.W. Norton, 69-90, 80-81.
Kirkpatrick, J.B. (2006) Science and nature conservation in the wilderness. In Brown, I. (ed.), Celebrating Wilderness. Envirobook, Canterbury NSW, pp. 78-89.
Critical reading1.What is the author’s purpose?2.What key questions or problems does the author raise?3.What information, data and evidence does the author present?4.What key concepts does the author use to organize this information, this evidence?5.What key conclusions is the author coming to? Are those conclusions justified? 6.What are the author’s primary assumptions?7.What viewpoints is the author writing from?8.What are the implications of the author’s reasoning?[from Foundation for Critical Thinking] Old Woman Reading a Lectionary, Gerard Dou
DEFINING WILDERNESS – HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
Part 2
Hebrew words for wilderness desolatearidwasteland
He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.Deuteronomy 32:10 (King James Bible)
A waste and howling wilderness,Where none inhabitedBut hellish fiends and brutish menThat devils worshipped.Michael Wigglesworth 1662
St John the Baptist Entering the WildernessGiovanni di Paolo, 1417–1482
Christ in the Wilderness Kramskoy, Ivan 1837-1887
And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.
Mark 1:12-13
Satan’s Home?
Wilderness wordsConcise Oxford Dictionary
1) desert, uncultivated and uninhabited tract2) part of garden left uncultivated3) confused assemblage
On-line Free Dictionary1) an unsettled, uncultivated region left in its naturalcondition, especially:
a. a large wild tract of land covered with dense vegetation or forestsb. an extensive area, such as a desert or ocean, that is
barren or empty; a wastec. a piece of land set aside to grow wild
2) something characterized by bewildering vastness, peril, or unchecked profusion
The Garden of EdenThomas Cole 1828
Wilderness images? From wild and threatening to the sublime
Home in the WoodsThomas Cole 1847
A home in the wilderness?
'And in future what a splendid contemplation ... preserved in their pristine beauty and wildness, in a magnificent park,
where the world could see for ages to come, the native Indian in his classic attire, galloping his wild horse, with sinewy bow,
and shield and lance, amid the fleeting herds of elks and buffaloes ... A nation's Park, containing man and beast, in all
the wild and freshness of their nature's beauty!’
George Catlin, 1841 (1989): The Manners and Customs of the North American Indians. Penguin, Harmondsworth, p.vii.
Natives and NationThe perceived link between wilderness and indigeneity
Grand Canyon of the YellowstoneThomas Moran 1872
Second half of the nineteenth centuryFrom the sublime to the … dedication of National Parks?
Mt Olympus, Lake St ClairWC Piguenit, 1888
Solitude“In wildness is the preservation of the world”
“It is as solitary where I live as on the prairies. … I have, as it were my own sun and moon and stars, and a little
world all to myself”
Henry David Thoreau 18541997: Walden, 119, 121
“land retaining … outstanding opportunities for solitude”US Wilderness Act 1964
“Wilderness solitude … a mental freedom … where visitors experience nature essentially free of the reminders of society”US Fish & Wildlife Service 2001
“To provide opportunities for solitude” The Wilderness Society (Australia)
Bob Brown’s House, NE Tas
Brown 2004: Memo for a Saner WorldBradley 1998: Wisconsin Academy Review; Meine 1988 Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold
MODERN PERSPECTIVES ON WILDERNESS
Part 3
Taroko National ParkTaiwanE Stratford
Types of natural and protected areasI. (a) Strictly Nature Reserve (only), (b) Wilderness AreaII. National Park (NP)III. National Monument IV. Habitat / Species Management AreaV. Protected Landscape / SeascapeVI. Managed (multiple-use) Resource Protection Area (RPA)
Taroko, Taiwan, E Stratford
Types of natural and protected areas
Elephant Rock, at Mornington Peninsula National Park, southeastern Australia. See Matysek, Stratford and Kriwoken (2006)
Purpose and function ofwilderness and natural area reserves
Lava tube cave, Maui, Hawaii, E Stratford
Contemporary concepts of wilderness• Founded in both science (ecology) and ethics (social science/values)• Broad objectives of management:
– Appropriate protection and use (conservation) of natural resources and environments in ecologically sustainable ways
– To enhance environmental, social, cultural and economic well-being of all peoples alongside the sustainable protection and use of those natural resources
– Wilderness conservation and protection, not necessarily preservation
Christ figure in the wilderness, Vatican, E Stratford
The trouble with wilderness?
“This, then, is the central paradox: Wilderness embodies a dualistic vision in which the human is entirely outside the
natural ... We thereby leave ourselves little hope of discovering what an ethical,
sustainable, honourable human place in nature might actually look like.
Worse: 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, just to that extent
we give ourselves permission to evade responsibility for the lives we actually lead.”
Bill Cronon (pictured far right)
PROBLEMS, HAZARDS AND THREATS TO MANAGEMENT
Part 4
The challenge
Hallasan National Park, Jeju Island, South KoreaE Stratford
Conceptual Approaches to Wilderness Conservation
Classical anthropocentric view of life its environmental problems
and events
Ecocentric view of life and environmental problems and
events
Human needs and wants are privileged and at the centre of importance
Sees humanity as ‘apart from’, and in charge of nature and its resources, which are to be accessed through science, technology and management
Human needs and wants are seen as part of a larger set of imperatives to be accounted for
Requires sustainable use and protection of the Earth’s natural and living resources
Near Pearshape LagoonKing IslandE Stratford
Benefits of an ecocentric view
Reproduction of a painting of a thylacine by John Lewin, circa 1817, Linnean Society of London
Is wilderness a state of the natural environment or a state of the human
psyche or perhaps both?
Dove Lake, Cradle Mountain National Park
Nature conservationThe benefits of remoteness
lack of artificial movement barriers
lack of movement channels for exotics
small proportion of area with edge effects
Corridors and edge effects
The problem of streams
The problem of coasts
The virtues of size and heterogeneity
Species at high trophic levels
Jon Marsden-Smedley
Resilience to climatic change
Management intervention for biodiversity conservation
Jon Marsden-Smedley
Science and wilderness
The problems of cost and regulation
The destruction of mystery
The virtue of landscape benchmarks
The virtue of ‘natural’ processes
Jon Marsden-Smedley
Photo by Rob Blakers from Endangered Viking
Wilderness art – where are the people? Should they be there?
Photo by Rob Blakers from Endangered Viking
Is this better?
Or this? Or is that the right question in the first place?
Breeden and Wright 1989, Kakadu, Simon & Schuster NSW, cover photo