ENVIRONMENT "In wildness is the preservation of the earth."

This is a famous quote of Thoreau, who lived in a cabin on a pond in New England for a year, sometimes visiting town to have dinner at his mother's house, and was accorded honor and reputation for writing a book about it.  Recently a friend sent me a short article by a psychotherapist, George Sciple, about the importance of being in nature.  It stimulated me to think about my own experiences and what they mean.

He begins with:  “Many times in wilderness I have found myself in touch with processes through which I am actualized, I am filled with joy and peace and fullness.” The essay is a meditation on the impact of his experiences  in the natural world.  Throughout my life, I have also sought experiences in the natural world and wanted to compare with him.  Sciple emphasizes wilderness as not the world of persons,  but for me it is nature less modified by humans. Much wilderness in the US was already occupied by native people in ways that did not entirely disrupt the natural patterns.  Sciple calls this neutrality, the natural world does not engage him. He is being present without the need to attend to the expectations of others, but this is balanced by the need to attend to the risks and dangers of nature.  Sciple wonders why he doesn't persist in being in the natural world, his commitment to civilized society, and the fear of risk is important. Primitive cultures engage with the benefits and risks of the world around them, addressing the fears.  For him, the enormity of the natural world creates this neutrality, illustrated by a story of encountering a thunderstorm without protection, and experiencing its power.  Nature produces intense sensory experiences, and people are often unprepared when they live sequestered from it.  (People might prepare for the enormity and not be surprised or overwhelmed, as in “natural disasters”.)  His second principle is dealing without meta, i.e. abstraction, and he contrasts his use of abstraction when dealing with the unexpected intimacy of a friend with attending to the danger of dealing with a coiled snake.  Nature encourages relying on primary sensory communication. His third principle is ecotone, the boundary between eco-zones which humans often disregard, creating environments that block out nature.  This is closely related to the fourth principle congruence,  alignment with nature, whatever that means, which “increases the experience of self”.  Or maybe this isn’t congruence, but awe, and spiritual awareness.  This short essay,  written in 1988, anticipates our confused and changing interest in nature.  Item: more and more automobile ads show FWD vehicles, jeeps and trucks, crashing over natural roads to distant places.  Item: national parks are now often surrounded by gated expensive subdivisions to allow certain people to have a home near the “natural beauty”.  Jackson Hole and Bozeman are now areas of intense development.  Item: the attendance at national parks is so intense that vehicle traffic and parking must be restricted by reserved admission.  

It is useful to distinguish between people who live in the natural world,  and people who come to visit the natural world from the “developed world”.  His essay, and my experiences, are about people who periodically “escape” the developed world seeking an experience in the natural one.  We often bring food,  protection, and other devices to guide and “enhance” our experience of nature,  and we observe the dramatic differences, the recognition of ecotone, as he described.  People who live in regions with limited development must cope with the environmental dangers— weather, animals, water, and food, etc.  These are about daily survival, not special opportunities for awe and personal development.

Is it possible to blend the two worlds?  Can humans live protected lives that do not completely block nature?  Historically,  the very wealthy isolated property from the use of others as “hunting preserves” or other preservation of natural resources.  This was also done with redwood preserves. Parks, forests, and garden areas now provide managed and designed interactions with plants,  and sometimes animals as well.  But the boundary between these “natural regions” and the rest of the environment must be managed, and their desirability attracts the increase of human populations.  Plans like “30 percent protected in 30 years” seem to address the idea of protecting regions, but the problem with these plans is that no one tells the plants, the animals, or the weather.  People build small cattle ranches and are ravaged by wolves finding a new food source.  They plant food crops which are invaded by “weeds” and insects that use the fertilizer and water unless poisons are used.  Tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and floods do not avoid designated human habitats. 

Creating a balance between nature and human development cannot be done by specifying rigid boundaries.  The only solution is an ecologic balance of human and other life into an integrated ecosystem in which selected parts do not destroy the others.  This is a disappointing answer.  Do humans need to give up developments in food, communication, housing, etc. in order to live ecologically?  I do not think we must give up all, but it will be necessary to revise and design the human footprint to accomodate.  Is this possible?  Is it possible politically?  Anybody got a crystal ball?

Is "Wildness the preservation of the world"?

     One of the early tenets of Thoreau,  and then Muir,  and then the Sierra Club was that "Wildness is the preservation of the world".   There is some special experience that comes from being in Nature that is essential to human nature and survival.
     Today's NYT features a discussion on base jumping from Yosemite and other National Parks.  The discussion reflects the growing emphasis on extreme sports.   Once the province of the motorcycle daredevils and tightrope walkers,  it has spread to a wider community of enthusiasts.   All these activities seem understandable as personal challenges either for courage or skill,   but are they part of the “wilderness experience”?    Once there was no “wilderness”:  people lived in nature’s world and survived as best they could.  Gradually human culture developed methods of surviving more easily in the world around them,  and a distinction developed between the “world of man” and “Nature”.   Periodic floods,  tornadoes,  hurricanes,  etc remind us that this distinction is temporary and artificial,  but it is a useful fiction that helps people feel less anxious about their day to day survival. 
    Once people stop living daily in the world of predators,  exposure to extreme climate,  and the hunger of an inconsistent food supply,  a yearning for the challenges of that life seems to return.  For some this is simply a walk in a local park or on the beach.   For others it may involve camping outdoors,  or a backpacking trip into a “wilderness” area.   These challenges all have in common the desire to test one’s ability to live in the wild for a limited period of time.   NOLS and other adventure programs have all developed programs modeled on the Native American “vision quest” to give participants controlled experiences of this challenge.  This has become a profitable way of giving people this challenge.  For some,  there seems to be a natural duality between living a protected urban life and going outside of this safe space periodically to enjoy the experience of Nature more directly. 
    What does this have to do with outdoor thrill seeking?  Another group of people want to use an outdoor experience to prove something about themselves.   The obvious examples are the explorers who went to arctic and antarctic to be the first to lay claim to being at these places.  The records of their trips show no indication of a peaceful engagement with a harsh natural environment and everything about organizing an adventure to prove that the person can achieve some daunting accomplishment.  Often they were not the "first" to reach this location,  but the first "Europeans" to report about it.   Nature is only the challenge in this version of the story,  not a meaningful experience in its own right.  This distinction  is very clear in mountaineering.   Some people arrange complex trips into the mountains,  with extended training etc,  because they want to have the experience of being in these dramatic landscapes.  The trips are not rushed and achieving the summit is only part of the goal.   For others,  climbing mountains is simply a check box on the bucket list of personal aggrandizement:  “I skydived”,  “I bungee jumped”,  “I climbed this or that peak in one day”,  etc.  This is the “wham, bam, thank you mam”  version of experiencing Nature.  The trip preparation is usually brief and focused on personal endurance,  not the environment,  and tour leaders organize and coordinate the complex details needed to guide the inexperienced climber to a (hopefully) successful outcome.  Alpine skiers and snowboarders have also developed this pattern.  From the days of the selective joy of skiing down isolated slopes in distant mountains,  and staying over in modest quaint lodges,  skiing has grown to a world wide billion dollar real estate business in which the skiing is degraded by the crowds and automation of lifts, so that the wild and natural part of the experience is effectively eliminated.  Assuring snow conditions with “snow making” equipment is the ultimate denial of the natural experience!   Faced with the reality of how they have deteriorated the environment by their activities,  skiers rich enough now use helicopters to take them to more isolated places,  gradually extending the exploitation of the natural world for their own personal thrills.  I am not attacking skiing as an activity and I enjoyed it very much at one time in my life.   But skiing is the most clear example of how people start out enjoying some outdoor activity in a relatively natural place and transform it into a commercial activity that obliterates the natural element.  Skiers complain about the crowds and lift lines,  and poor conditions due to weather and never stop to realize that it is they who have compromised the experience for themselves!
    The National Park Service sits squarely in the center of this dilemma.  The parks create a boundary around and protect areas of natural beauty and important national historical importance.  The parks are the residual of what was, quite recently,  a wild expansive natural environment in which humans struggled daily to survive.  They are maintained by our taxes,  and we as the landholders are entitled to visit them.   Yet at the same time,  if enough of us visit and stay,  the places will be transformed and no longer provide the experience of that natural world!   This is most clear in the South Rim of the Grand Canyon where millions of visitors ride up for the day,  look out,  create parking problems and crowding and then go off leaving their trash etc behind.  The contrast to the less accessible North Rim is instructive,  because the two sides of the Canyon feel so utterly different,  one almost a theme park in places,  while the other retains most of its natural beauty.   The park service must find a way to restrict the use of these special places which maximizes their access to the public,  while minimizing the impact on these treasures.   This is not an easy task!  
    Two obvious principles come to mind:
1) The parks should accommodate the maximum number of visitors possible while arranging the visits to minimize the impact on the natural features of the parks.   This involves structuring lodging,  roads, trail access,  and key vantage points so they are not overwhelmed.  The differences between the north and south rims provide examples of both!
2) The parks should not encourage or permit any activities that exploit the parks for personal aggrandizement.  Base jumping off the cliffs seems an obvious example.   But more subtle are questions about rock climbing.  There is a long history of rock climbing the sheer walls of Yosemite.  Learning to climb the cliffs to appreciate the experience of these challenging walls IS a valid experience that Yosemite provides to those who will invest the time.  But it also creates a culture of personal aggrandizement of some climbers.   This has led to “free climbing”,  i.e. climbing ascents without protective gear.   Such ascents go beyond ordinary challenges of rock climbing, to prove the expertise of the individual climbers.   Why is this a function of the park?  Shouldn’t all users of the parks concentrate on experiencing and appreciating their beauty?  Shouldn't every visitor have the opportunity to enjoy the available natural challenges of the place?  Is proving how much risk you can take with your skill and athleticism is NOT about exploring the park,  but about exploring yourself,  and this can be achieved at less precious sites in other parts of the country.  Similarly for base jumping,  for acrobatic skiing,  etc.  There should be places for people who want to test their special skills and athleticism,  but not in the National Parks.