What is Wilderness? (Part 10)

Comments

1. Libby says

   May 31, 2008 at 2:36 pm

   There are a lot of great comments, mainly involving terrestrial wilderness. The middle of an ocean is no less a wilderness, and when you are on it, or in it, you are surely living it.

   An ocean can be as flat as a mirror, with a haziness smudging the line of the horizon so that you feel you are floating in silvery blue air. Dive below, in 5000 metres of sea, and you are in an aquatic inner space, where it’s hard to judge which way is up except by following the trail of your bubbles. Everything is purple-blue, and weightless, but you are a creature of the land, and this wilderness can only be truly explored with the aid of technology and tools.

   At the other end of the spectrum is the wildness we associate with the sea, where waves create their own skyscrapers, lashed by gale force winds and highways of currents. This wilderness is one we truly fear.

   It is possible to be at sea for weeks and not see another ship or a plane flying overhead. Days are measured by the chart on board and the ever parading clouds, sunsets and sunrises and shifting waves. If you are lucky, and conditions are right, you may see the green flash. You may see flocks of birds, sprinting tuna, resting whales, or you may feel so alone and vulnerable where no apparent life exists and all is so silent. Underneath, in calm weather and foul, life goes on for the resident and transient creatures, so many of them unknown to us.

   As they say, the Earth seen from space has large tracts of blue and should surely have received an aquatic name, but our name for it reflects our own world of air and soil.

2. spangled drongo says

   May 31, 2008 at 7:33 pm

   When humans [or humanoids] lived in trees, I wonder whether they preferred rainforest or dry forest?
   I suspect rainforest because of the greater fruit, insect and small animal diversity.
   Since then we have generally rejected the jungle as a hostile habitat.
   Henry Kendall loved the rainforest and Henry Lawson the dry.
   I think I enjoy a Two Henry personality but I sure am not immune to the scrub parasites.

3. gavin says

   May 31, 2008 at 9:07 pm

   Having read most of the comments on Jennifer’s ‘WILDERNESS’ threads I reckoned it was time to refer to some standard or definition so I did a global Google “wilderness UNESCO definition” and turned up this link – (enjoy one of my favourite places for starters) –

   http://mediateca.educa.madrid.org/reproducirFS.php?id_video=wkt2gui6sdrwl4h1

   It was near the top in this lot

   http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=wilderness+unesco+definition&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

   Then we on to find this “Few places on earth boast such spectacular wilderness”

   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/main.jhtml?xml=/travel/exclusions/Supplements/tasmania/nosplit/tasmania-wilderness.xml

   Ignoring a few other Australian coastlines and inland desert areas for a moment I can recall it was only Patagonia, perhaps bits of New Zealand too that could be compared to the above in the Southern Hemisphere.

   A lot of comment on this blog trivialises the great natural assets we have in and around Australia. Defining “wilderness” should be easy enough for most of us who have had the chance to get out and about.

4. gavin says

   May 31, 2008 at 9:22 pm

   “Cape York and World Heritage

   If the whole of Cape York Peninsula was listed as World Heritage, it would become the largest land-based World Heritage Area on the planet. Combined with the Great Barrier Reef and the Wet Tropics (Daintree) World Heritage Areas, it would be one of the wonders of the world.

   Why World Heritage? The answer is simple – because it provides the best protection nature can receive.

   The World Heritage Convention is an international agreement, ratified by the United Nations which aims to identify and protect the best places on earth.

   Created in 1972 the list includes 830 places including things as unique and diverse as the wilds of East Africa’s Serengeti, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China and the glaciers of Alaska.

   Cape York should be on this list. It is one of the last great wild places on earth. In 1982 the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the body which advises the World Heritage bureau on World Heritage nominations, produced a list of the 219 natural sites worldwide deserving World Heritage protection. Reflecting the richness of Australia’s natural beauty and heritage 13 sites were identified in Australia including Cape York. More than 25 years later, our opportunity to give Cape York the world’s highest recognition and protection is now”

   http://capeyork.wilderness.org.au/world-heritage.shtml

5. cinders says

   May 31, 2008 at 11:14 pm

   “Wilderness is a remote area essentially unaffected and unaltered by modern industrial civilisation and colonial society”

   that is the definition of an Australian environmental organsation founded in the lounge room of the current leader of the Greens Party in the Senate and named the wilderness society.

   currently an area of Tasmania dubbed the “Tarkine” (a transliteration and truncation of the aboriginal word referring to the family group that lived in the area) is being promoted as wilderness of National and international significance.

   This area is between the Arthur and Pieman Rivers, and in its heart (but outside the boundary) is the savage river mine, for a picture of this open cut mine see http://www.mrt.tas.gov.au/portal/page?_pageid=35,831264&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL

   another environment group the WWF proposed tourism to replace timber harvesting in the region and in the 2004 election the then Federal Government banned timber harvesting along the pipeline carrying iron slurry from the mine and allocated a million dollars for tourism development. So far there appears to be no increase in tourism to the area.

   perhaps when the mine is closed, the mine and its related infrastructure will be dug up and rehabilitated, but then how will the tourists get in?

6. Ian Mott says

   June 2, 2008 at 10:07 am

   The greens have been flogging eco-tourism as an alternative to forestry for yonks. And almost every case this has been exposed as nothing but a cheap throw away line of zero substance.

   And that was when oil was only $30 barrel. The self serving posturing of the tourism industry, especially in regions where they sided with outside interests at the expense of local jobs, has now been found seriously wanting courtesy of high energy prices (airfares) a strong dollar and the recession the US had to have.

   These “saviours” of the local economy are now all wandering, stunned, through empty, excess capacity with debt loads greater than the real value of the assets.

7. gavin says

   June 2, 2008 at 3:10 pm

   I doubt cinders or motty have visited that region now known as the Tarkine. Many of its bits and pieces were once mined or logged From the Milkshake Hills and Wes Beckett to Hellyer Gorge there have been many intrusions including the iron ore pipeline from Savage River to Port Latta. Then there is the historic Emu Bay Railway from Burnie to Zeehan and beyond through the APPM pulp wood concession area. I almost forgot the giant Pieman Hydro scheme but much of it is still a wild place. It’s rugged, but not as spectacular as the denuded glaciated areas of the higher ranges and plateaus inland.
   While exploring the Lower Pieman area including the Donaldson and Savage Rivers for the Government Forestry Department my father was in close contact with the Thylacine. Having worked and played throughout the region at various times since I can say; the Tasmanian Tiger is now extinct and the remaining forests threatened, any UNESCO recognition and associated national obligation is worthwhile even at this late stage. Also the bush straggles back given time however the multitude of old tracks and tramways are our best access despite the encroachment. Tourism benefits from retaining relics. One of the best West Coast attractions was the early mine haulages, railways. lakes, bridges and the odd tunnel.

   http://www.environment.gov.au/land/forestpolicy/tbp/index.html#whatis

8. Schiller Thurkettle says

   June 4, 2008 at 7:28 am

   This “wilderness” bit is just eco-whackos getting into the tourism industry, with a bit of real-estate speculation thrown in.

   And you can get carbon credits visiting a whacko-approved real-estate venture if you buy the proper package tour.

   P.T. Barnum (‘sucker born every minute’) would be a Greenie today, for sure. Why move the circus animals and tents, when you can move the people instead, and make them pay the freight, too?

   Gack.

9. Travis says

   June 4, 2008 at 7:57 am

   >P.T. Barnum (‘sucker born every minute’)

   This certainly appears to be a moniker by which you live. You hope we are all suckers to your rants and wont challenge you for facts.