For me, wilderness both resonates of human potential and also describes the ultimate expression of humanity. No other state of relations can be more admirable. Far from the notion of humankind and wilderness being mutually exclusive, I believe we must rather aspire to change for the benefit of wilderness and in so doing, restore to ourselves, integrity.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
beautiful.
Thoreau wrote about ascending the highest mountain in Maine (1850):
I caught sight of a dark, damp crag to the right or left; the mist driving ceaselessly between it and me. It reminded me of the creations of the old epic and dramatic poets, of Atlas, Vulcan, the Cyclops, and Prometheus. Such was Caucasus and the rock where Prometheus was bound. Æschylus had no doubt visited such scenery as this. It was vast, Titanic, and such as man never inhabits. Some part of the beholder, even some vital part, seems to escape through the loose grating of his ribs as he ascends. He is more lone than you can imagine. There is less of substantial thought and fair understanding in him, than in the plains where men inhabit. His reason is dispersed and shadowy, more thin and subtile, like the air. Vast, Titanic, inhuman Nature has got him at disadvantage, caught him alone, and pilfers him of some of his divine faculty. She does not smile on him as in the plains. She seems to say sternly, why came ye here before your time? This ground is not prepared for you. Is it not enough that I smile in the valleys? I have never made this soil for thy feet, this air for thy breathing, these rocks for thy neighbors. I cannot pity nor fondle thee here, but forever relentlessly drive thee hence to where I am kind. Why seek me where I have not called thee, and then complain because you find me but a stepmother? Shouldst thou freeze or starve, or shudder thy life away, here is no shrine, nor altar, nor any access to my ear.
http://thoreau.eserver.org/ktaadn05.html
These guys would be living the paradigm:
http://browsekid.wordpress.com/2008/05/30/uncontacted-tribes-in-amazon/
Which begs the question; is wilderness a symbol of humanity’s boundless potential or an indication that potential is limited and constrained by forces greater than us?
Thomas Hardy’s characters only found a measure of fleeting contentment if they did not struggle against the AEschylian phase; I wonder whether he would have changed his mind today if he saw mankind’s technological development?
Nietzsche would have felt vindicated, to an extent; the culture and overman he saw in humanity still is evanescent, and he would see the conflict depicted in his 2 observations:
“Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest”
The best of humanity inevitably involves a relegation, to some an arrogation, of nature.
“If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you”
The mesmerising quality of nature is that it can absorb the self and its worries; but it is a 2-edged sword; does that submersion involve a loss of what fundamentally defines humanity?
Good posts Wes and Cohenite. I once had to explain to a southerner that there was less “art” in Queensland because we had mud crabs, snapper, and fish and chips at sunset over Wellington Point. And after sampling same, he agreed that, indeed, art was a poor substitute, practiced by the less fortunate.
But now we have the SEQ megapolis, fewer muddies, area restrictions on the bay and a long queue for fish and chips after the sun has set over Wellington Point. And we are now told what an artistic, vibrant city we have become.
Great stuff all three!
I reckon the body paint is possibly parasite repellant, but they must be aware of the big bad world out there and feel desperately vulnerable.
Ian, as a kid I slept wet and cold on the beach at King Is., off Wellington Pt. and watching the moon rise through the spreaders, I remember thinking, “It doesn’t get any better than this”.
I have met fellers who really embraced the wilderness thing.
They tempted fate at every chance and wore a hair shirt lined with razor blades.
Lived for masochism and hardship; natural galley slaves.
It didn’t make them joyful but somehow quietly satisfied them.
And I’m not just talking about husbands either.
To be an old time hand-to-hand combat soldier you would have to be a bit like that.
spangled drongo,
A relationship with wilderness needn’t be so adversarial.
I live with wilderness and find it far more kindly than life, as I recall, in an environment quarantined from wilderness.
My kids are thriving under the influential stimuli of wilderness and when we holiday, it is into wilderness of alternative expressions.
I do too, Neil. Couldn’t live without it. I was talking about fellers that enjoy challenging a hostile wilderness.
Like one bloke I knew who would go to sea with no food and starve till he caught a fish. Then eat it raw.
I remember giving him a little fully gimballed gas stove that I designed and built for difficult conditions.
He probably threw it overboard when I was out of sight.
Apparently, there are two definitions of wilderness at work here.
There is the classical one, which still dominates the dictionaries, in which wilderness is defined as an uninhabited and often inhospitable region or a place that was neglected or abandoned and figuratively as a place of disfavour, as in “Kant led philosophy out of the wilderness…” or “…his wilderness years.” Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness wasn’t because it was a nice place to have a holiday. By definition, wilderness was an untamed place, often strikingly beautiful, but dangerous, nonetheless. And very often the apex predators in wilderness were decidedly non-human.
Of late, wilderness has acquired a kind of fuzzy, happy face, eco-tourist dimension to it. A nice family holiday experience. Adventure has been commercialised and packaged, it’s no longer the sole domain of the Thoreau to Shackleton types.
Maybe, this is because in our age of cheap airfares, cellphones and myriad of outdoor technogear we can go just about anywhere almost as safely and comfortably as we can navigate the back garden. Maybe it’s because there is so little real wilderness left it has become tamed and contained as national park.
A parallel cultural phenomena is the way that Australian Geographic and the American National Geographic Society have morphed from being largely about, well, geographical-related issues to spending a lot of time on extreme sports—mountain climbing, oceanic canoeing and other unnecessarily painful and pointless endeavours, at least from a science POV.
>cheap airfares
???!
wes george,
Equipped with photographic equipment, I stepped this morning from my porch into the wilderness.
About half an hour into my hike, I was alerted to the sound of a nearby cassowary – a ten-year-old male. I followed cautiously, hoping for footage in high quality habitat. Another sound behind, some twenty-feet distant, the adult female stood aloof. Quickly settling the tripod, I began to film.
There is always a degree of risk in wilderness, but danger often increases in pursuit of greater rewards, such as unobstructed cassowary footage in the wild. This danger can compound very quickly, if the male, for example, displaced by my insertion between he and his prospective mate, should return to challenge my resolve.
Twenty minutes further on, two cassowaries erupt into combat, out of sight but near enough to hear every brutal blow and thunderous outburst. The forest in the vicinity is too densely cluttered to hope for safe vantage, so I strategically progress. Another ten minutes or so pass and combat resumes; the same cassowaries, I presume.
The forest is spectacularly alive with bird-song. Orange-footed scrubfowls are yodelling at the upper echelons of volume. The shrill insistence of Honey-eaters complement the pitch-perfect melodies of Rufous Shrike-thrush. The unmelodious squawk of a male Victoria’s Rifle Bird contrasts with the occasional rumblings of rainforest ratites.
At any instant, I could diverge to dangerous heights or depths of immersion, but on this particular morning I have other responsibilities, requiring a return to my house at around lunchtime. My capacity to do so is made possible through familiarity with the lay of the land, but there can be no doubt about the authenticity of wilderness.
Last December, in celebration of my son’s seventh birthday, he and I were dropped off in the next catchment north to traverse rainforest wilderness, up and over Mt Emmett, in just on 8-hours; a truly superb birthday present.
Good on ya. I also live joined to a primary forest, a national park with no public access, but through adjoining properties like mine. It’s a great lifestyle. This is the “of late” definition of wilderness. The clue is that you “stepped this morning from your back porch into the wilderness…” Really?
My apologies if I am becoming unduly semantic.
Imagine what it would be like to step into your rainforest 90 years ago and not to have familiarity with the lay of the land or even the fauna but rather to immerse yourself into something infinitely deep, boundless and utterly unknown. The hulking mountains as yet unnamed (at least by your people) and the next catchment unexplored. The wisdom of the Gympie Gympie as yet unexperienced. A primeval genetic memory of megafauna haunting your imagination as you trek in well beyond the last black stump.
Wilderness is wonderful to be surrounded by provided you have the luxury of not being at its mercy.
Tonight it is raining, blowing, cold and wet and I am happy to be inside [sign of old age].
I set up cameras to monitor fauna at night but tonight I’d rather be me than the fauna.
Who watched this item on landline?
“Rob Pennicott always reckoned he had one of the best jobs in the country, even when the fish weren’t biting off Tasmania’s spectacular south coast.
Around 10 years ago, the former professional fisherman packed away the craypots and nets, but still put to sea every day for a spin around the soaring cliffs and inlets of Bruny Island. Now, around 20,000 tourists a year tag along with him for the ride, and, this week, his adventure company scored a couple of Tassie’s major business awards”
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s2260762.htm
In a wilderness, stepping from freehold to National Park, is irrelevant to inhabitants. While much of the country’s protected area estate contains wilderness values, it would be very wrong to regard national park and wilderness as interchangeable. Most of Australia’s wilderness would be held under private interests and particularly indigenous landholdings.
The pretense of a conservation declaration might be to proclaim statutory dominion over nature, but the only variable that is even remotely manageable is the informed, law-abiding segment of visiting humans.
I suspect we would achieve a great deal more managing ourselves for the benefit of wilderness than persevering with the pretense of managing wilderness for the benefit of humanity.
Neil, I don’t think either scenario is too hopeful but there is often better biodiversity in “wilderness” where humans are involved than where they are excluded.
Politics prevent authorities from coming to grips with the real problems.
Take AGW as a for instance…..
[couldn’t let that one pass, Travis].
This doesn’t make sense.
The picture shows a body of water, surrounded by heavy plant growth. How is this an “ultimate expression of humanity”? If it displays a “state of relations” that is “admirable”, it is the relations between water and plants.
I don’t see a human being in the picture. In fact, a human being in the picture would certainly not make a home in this place.
Perhaps the point is that the “ultimate expression of humanity” is humans *not being there*. Except to take pictures, of course.
However, this contradicts the author’s claim that “humankind and wilderness” are not “mutually exclusive”.
Senseless. So to restore our integrity, we must picture a planet with no people in the picture?
Bosh.
Wilderness is why people build cities and live in them. Living in a pond in the jungle is unreasonable.
It would be far more reasonable to say, “wilderness is Kodak moments, and civilization is beer and pizza”.
Dicrurus,
>there is often better biodiversity in “wilderness” where humans are involved than where they are excluded.
Where are the biodiversity ‘hotspots’ on the planet?
>Take AGW as a for instance…..
[couldn’t let that one pass, Travis].
Huh? Do I regularly comment on AGW?
Schiller,
>Bosh.
Yep, that’s what you write here and try to sell to us. Where’s the Arctic seal stuff?
Schiller,
The picture doesn’t make sense to you, but thanks for asking.
I prefaced the entry as belonging to me and declared that, wilderness resonates of human potential.
Humankind has shown a capability for the most fantastic achievements, but in terms of priority, it remains unable to take responsibility for its own impacts. Very clearly, the health of the planet is suffering from the excesses of human population growth and over-exploitation.
Where did we go wrong? In the What is Wilderness (part 8) thread, Ian Mott posed, “…the interesting issue of how much of the real wilderness we are capable of detecting with our limited sensory arrays.”
I reckon every plant and animal is subconsciously detectable through pheromones, particularly when amplified by the size of the local population. For a people living within wilderness, the shared exposure to the symphony of all pheromones provides a bio-feedback mechanism that simply doesn’t exist in an artificial environment that was once occupied by wilderness.
Obviously the global population can’t be restored to wilderness, but it is also important to acknowledge that people living within wilderness are not the ones destroying the planet.
Schiller, the fact that you cannot see a human being in the picture does not mean that there are none there. Neither can you see the myriad of other inhabitants, but I can assure you that the watercourse in the image drains the catchment at the centre of Australia’s most diverse terrestrial bio-region. It is also home to hundreds of people.
I described the state of relations between humankind and wilderness as admirable. I believe that our greatest potential will be to restore integrity unto ourselves through our growing relationship with wilderness, NOT through a self-imposed extinction.
Hope this helps.
I think what Neil poetically meant is that it is all clear, we were meant to be here from the beginning…
Travis, you do not agree that including humans in wilderness management generally leads to better results than excluding them?
Exclusion only breeds pirates and rapists.
Spangled Drongo,
>you do not agree that including humans in wilderness management generally leads to better results than excluding them?
In many cases it has become absolutely necessary, but I do not agree entirley with your initial statement ‘ there is often better biodiversity in “wilderness” where humans are involved than where they are excluded.’ It is a discussion similar to what was had on the wildlife plummeting thread.
Neil,
Thanks for discussing, instead of foaming, like Travis.
I appreciate your sentiments, but dialogue these days is so polarized that it’s nearly impossible to make sense of how “wilderness resonates of human potential.”
Sure, real estate magnates with the World Wildlife Fund For Nature could look at this and think of a government-sponsored lock-up and eco-tourism possibilities. Other real estate magnates could envision condominiums wreathed in leaves and gardened by “people living within wilderness”.
Those who garden on behalf of the WWF or the condos, as dwellers in the wilderness, will necessarily be unable to afford a more affluent lifestyle, and will necessarily be *intruding* on wilderness.
Saying that humans can intentionally improve on biodiversity suggests we should build zoos everywhere, or spread invasive species everywhere, or both.
Now, this isn’t necessarily a criticism of your viewpoint, but rather, a statement–when it’s universally accepted that every human intervention is *bad*, how can a “beneficial” human presence be explained in this framework?
(Travis, no, I am *not* talking about remediation.)
Schiller,
Disregarding genetic engineering, the only way that humankind can intentionally improve on biodiversity is by taking away its own degrading impacts.
I simply disagree with your claim of the universally accepted statement, that every human intervention is *bad*. But it does raise an important consideration, between good and bad or right and wrong, for it is within each an every one of us that we must deal with our own inner conflict. How do we reconcile our most basic instinct for survival with the knowledge of our own inevitable mortality?
There are those who take solace in religion, replete in the promise a loophole to this otherwise irreconcilable conundrum. Others resign themselves to the deadlock, with perhaps a greater determination to reap the rewards of the one and only crack at life. And I’m sure there are innumerate alternative philosophies within and beyond the over-simplification of my observations.
Living with wilderness, however, offers all the magnificent detail of the spiritual landscape, held for the honour and the occupancy of the departed, but within the minds of the not-yet-departed. I have seen indigenous elders step into the wilderness and seamlessly, it would seem, into the spiritual landscape of immortality.
Who knows, maybe the symphony of wilderness pheromones unlocks the vaults of genetic investment in the reproductive process. But regardless of the process, the engagement of wilderness, for me in my search, resonates of human potential.
Travis wrote:-
>Yep, that’s what you write here and try to sell to us. Where’s the Arctic seal stuff?
So Schiller writes:-
>Thanks for discussing, instead of foaming, like Travis.
Foaming? Where have I ‘foamed’ here Schiller? MORE misrepresentations. Speaking of which…Schiller you know full well what I am on about with regards to coming clean with supporting evidence for your persistent theory of Arctic seal survival in a ‘warmer world’. You continually evade and shirk responsibility and expect to be taken seriously.
>(Travis, no, I am *not* talking about remediation.)
Seriously Schiller, I don’t think you know what you are talking about. When you can back up your insulting and childish arguments such as that on the PB thread, you may get some respect for at least trying. Failing that an ‘I don’t know’ will suffice.
>I have seen indigenous elders step into the wilderness and seamlessly, it would seem, into the spiritual landscape of immortality.
I’ve seen indigenous kids, in flanelette shirts and baseball caps, seemingly caught in a dead zone between their world and ours, display a fine-tuning within their immediate environment that was mesmerising. No ‘tripping up’ or ‘umming and arring’ or uncomfortable pauses, but an extension of the dust and the spinifex and the sharp pebbles and the tracks of tiny animals. Only a ‘dead heart’ in the eyes of a European, but to these kids it was their soul.
The best way to “manage” wilderness is to leave it alone but that hasn’t happened so a lot of well managed and energetically supervised strategies are sorely needed to re-establish this “wilderness”.
What looks pristine can be very deceiving.
We are all legitimate embracers of wilderness, regardless of our race. Some are just more inclined than others for all sorts of reasons.