CHAPTER 1 Paradise Lost, or the Conquest of the Wilderness.

CHAPTER 1

Paradise Lost, or the Conquest

of the Wilderness

“The whole face of the country was covered with herds of Buffaloed, Elk, and Antelope; deer are also abundant, but keep to themselves more concealed in the woodland”

- Meriwether Clark

Journals of Lewis and Clark

“For us the wilderness and human emptiness of this land is not a source of fear but the greatest of its attractions. We would guard and defend and save it as a place for all who wish to rediscover the nearly lost pleasures of adventure…mental, spiritual, moral, aesthetic and intellectual adventure

- Edward Adder

1.1 Introduction: Why WildernessText: the concept of wilderness highlights the historical

process as human society has pushed back the boundaries around settled, developed and “humanized” areas until only residual areas of wild land are left (p. 10)

For this we have to differentiate the concepts of frontier and wilderness

Frontier – historically states were separated by undeveloped and/or uncontrolled regions; regions beyond integration of a particular state; a region of potential expansion (Glassner)

Wilderness – “area where the Earth and its community of life have not been seriously disturbed by humans and where humans are temporary visitors” (Miller)

or

“designation of land use for the exclusive protection of the area’s natural wildlife; thus no human development is allowed”

(Enger & Smith)

This expansion of settled areas has long had important implications for both society and environment

- economic globalization has reached the level that we are close to frontier closure

… a very significant concern for environmentalists and preservationists

With increasing expansion of settlement – “cultural landscapes” – there will be increasingly little land left as a “safety net” for populations, societies, etc.

(1) land for human expansion

(2) resources and diversity necessary for

humans / bio-systems / etc.

Text: again, we are encountering the issue of representation and values

- Today wilderness is seen in a positive vein

- For much of human history, wilderness was not seen this way

- It is only since the return to an attitude that wilderness is good / necessary / required / etc. that it had been argued to protect and value wilderness

Text: “A central argument of this chapter is that, as human societies have developed progressively more powerful technologies of production, distribution and consumption, there has been a parallel evolution of representation of the relationship between society ans nature and of the values which influence change.”

(p. 10)

… one argument… that while no simple correlation exists, it seems that societies with different attitudes have tended to evolve different attitudes and values towards the natural world

(1) production methodologies

(2) religious beliefs / tenets

(3) cultural / social history

(4) scientific bend

1.1.1 The Significance of Wilderness

Alluded to previously, some explain the current proliferation of environmental problems to attitudes drawn from Western religious practice and the Bible – and carried into the modern industrial period

“be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth”

“subdue it”

“have dominion over the fish / fowl / every living thing that moveth upon the Earth”

Conversely, some researchers counter that other elements are more confused or undecided- Adam as the image of God, but made of the Earth

(Adam and Eve are expelled for fears they are becoming too “god-like”)

- Eden – idyllic hunter-gather lifestyle vs highly productive irrigated agriculture

(We expanded to a generally more positive attitude to nomadic pastoralism vs settled agrarian / urban

lifestyle)

Text: “Given this ambiguity, some Christians have read Genesis as giving humans domination over nature, and this domination of nature has been emphasized throughout most of Christian history” (p. 12)

One of the most notable theses on human domination over nature was presented by historian

Frederick Jackson Turner (1893)

Turner’s Frontier Hypothesis

Turner did much to promote the idea of the rise of institutions west of the Appalachians that are particularly “American”

… European settler-to-American Pioneer

Turner argues that the nature and character of U.S. population / culture / cultural landscape / etc, are the result of American experience with the wilderness frontier

Turner’s Frontier Hypothesis, cont

Turner argued that the environment (frontier / wilderness) created individuals who exhibited strong individualistic traits and who resented seemingly senseless social controls(1) promoted unregulated resource use west of the Mississippi(2) high value attached to land ownership

--- in comparison to Europe--- root of “Democracy-in-Action” resource use


(3) non-landowners felt that through perseverance and diligence land could be acquired; or more could

be attained

Text notes that Turner’s thesis on the American experience is significant and that his later literature fills in some of his gaps and expands its tenets beyond the frontier:

For example:(1) U.S. became the world’s dominant power and played a key role in establishing competitive capitalism as the ideology and practice of the global economy(2) industrial and agrarian trends … and our experiment as a Global Landlord(3) most recently the U.S. emergence as a center for environmental debate

Aside

- Central to Turner are:(1) the “American” individual [who “is”?] (pp 13-14)(2) “American” institutions (p. 14)

(how did they come into existence?)- Look at the illustration and caption on p. 14… use the

r.r. grade to divide it into developed and tamed and nature and wilderness… wilderness is to be conquered, settled and civilized with all possible speed (p. 15)


Turner ignored factors at least as important as settler / frontier interaction:

(1) slavery;

(2) shift from agrarian to industrial dominance;

(3) mass migrations [NW European-to-So and

E European-to-E Asian];

(4) practical, economic need to conquer settle and “civilize”


Viewed in hindsight:(5) too heavily environmental determinist(6) frontier/wilderness was more than a “place” or “process”, it was a systemic interaction between physical environment and social organization(7) downplays emergent regionalism and sectionalism – no single concept of American culture developed (8) seems to totally ignore the process of urbanization(9) doesn’t fit later “frontiers”

Possibilism

A somewhat related thesis, presented by British historian Arnold Toynbee, who hypothesized that the frontier experience was one of challenge and response

… i.e: the environment presents physical and psychological challenges, we create our

response to them

History spawned other viewpoints to the role or importance of the frontier / wilderness

George Catlin H.D. Thoreau

John W. Powell J. Muir

We also have had environmental conferences, agencies at all levels, dividing and subdividing of responsibilities

… compounding this is our belief in conservation and desire to have it available whenever and however we want it

(multiple use)

Aside

- Editors say that, “American conflict between exploiters and preservers of nature is now being played out at an international scale”

… on one level I understand what they mean, on another level I resent their statement

WE (Americans) did not invent wilderness taming and removal

… I also resent their use of the phrase “American capital”

… international capitalism came long before American mercantile expansion

1.2 Pressures on Wilderness

Simmons, Changing the Face of the Earth (1989)

[a study of how human society has altered the physical environment]

characterizes five kinds of regions that remain close to their wild / “climax” states

1.2 Pressures on Wilderness, contpolar regions(*) hot desertstropical forests(*) high mountain chainssome small remote islands

(*) each has its own unique experience / concern; section examines these two forms; justification is that both are experiencing rapid change over which often hostile debate is taking place: (1) population pressure / external commercial interest (2) expanded resource exploration and indigenous population conflicts

Tropical Forests and Deforestation

- 1981 to 1990 est. 9% of world tropical forests disappeared

[a rate for total disappearance in a century]

- The richest terrestrial biome

7% of Earth land area

50%-90% of world species

… 65+% plant species

… 30% of terrestrial vertebrates

… 96% of arthropods

Tropical Forests and Deforestation, cont

- Important for:

natural resources;

support of diverse human cultures;

regulation of biological, geological and chemical cycles

Geographically As late as 1945, tropical forests covered much of the Equatorial zone; most extensively: the Amazon, West Africa; islands of South East Asia

Structurally High temperature; high total annual precipitation; dense, canopied vegetation; many species – low density - individuals of species widely scattered; vegetation mass zone and initial soil horizons may be fertile, but heavily leached and frequently sterile soil in subsequent horizons; cutting forests alter the hydrologic cycle as well as altering the albedo of the Earth surface and altering wind, rain and ocean currents

Interesting

Globally, we recognize the increasing rate of deforestation… but, we really have no idea how much tropical rainforest has been cleared; remains; or what this rate of removal actually is (p. 17)

Conversely, we have historical evidence that some forests have exhibited greater strain – ex: the

wet-dry tropical forest of the Central American Pacific Coast has declined by 98%

Aside on Rainforest Destruction

Global Rates of Rainforest Destruction- 2.47 acres / second (two U.S. football fields)- 150 acres / minute- 214,00 acres / day (area larger than NYC)- 78 million acres / year (area larger that Poland)- Est. 137 lifeform species become extinct daily; 50,000

annually

(The Rainforest Action Network)

1.2.1 Deforestation and the Philippines- As late as 1945, tropical forests covered much of the

Equatorial zone; most extensively the Amazon, West Africa, the islands of South East Asia (p. 17)… structurally different in particulars; generally similar ecologically

- Commercial exploitation of this resource accelerated through the 19th C; became a concern in the 1960s; a global issue 1980s+

* The text proposes to use the situation of the Philippines to highlight the issues of causality; consequence; implication of tropical deforestation *

1.2.1 Deforestation and the Philippines, cont… island archipelago with 300,000 sq. km;… 1st visited by Europeans, 1521… from the 1500s to the latter 1980s, percentage of forested land area was reduced from 90% to less than 25%… it was the earliest and worst case of deforestation in South East

Asia (p. 19)

1.2.1 Deforestation and the Philippines, cont

… many of the social and environmental problems characterizing rainforest deforestation here are identifiable for rainforest regions globally

- Text relates that many casual studies of Philippine deforestation have been carried out… most frequently cited sources

are: (1) shifting cultivation

(2) settled agriculture

(3) commercial logging

1.2.1 Deforestation and the Philippines, cont- Kummer, Deforestation in the Post-War Philippines (1991) argues that traditional “culprits” may not wholly assign blame; proposes:

(1) shifting cultivators have not proven to be a major forest threat

(2) the threat is one that combines the commercial logger and settled small plot agriculturalist

(3) corruption in licensing and permitting system of commercial logging constitutes a deforestation threat

1.2.1 Deforestation and the Philippines, cont- From these points, Kummer proposes three elements

to the deforestation problem:(1) ineffective permit regulations make it impossible to

control for illegally cut and exported timber

(2) logged lands settled by subsistence farmers

(3) role of physical geography in the deforestation issue

1.2.1 Deforestation and the Philippines, cont- Text proposed some significant generalizations about

the Philippines and the global rainforest situation:(1) Philippines do not necessarily represent the situation of

other tropical forests

(2) despite any Philippine-global forest differences, commonalities exist

(3) pressures on logging remain intense, indications are that the future need not be as exploitative as the

past

1.2.2 The Last Frontier: Alaska“Since its acquisition, its settlement and exploitation has been

hindered by its distance from the rest of the nation, the climate and terrain, and the slowness of communications. Many problems still stand in the way of immigration and economic development, and Alaska continues to be the country’s last frontier.” (p. 21)

1.2.2 The Last Frontier: Alaska, cont- It is fitting I think that in some aspects, Alaska is viewed as a

continuation of the American frontier… mental image- “new, vast, unexplored”; assumption that it needed was

population and development; images of Northern Exposure; Jack London – Call of the Wild; images of Eskimos; walruses and whales; grizzlies and polar bears; men with no last names; gold; mosquitoes and black flies

* This mentality is even more pronounced in the Far North regions of Canada or Siberian Russia *

1.2.2 The Last Frontier: Alaska, contThe “discoveries” of Alaska:

(1) Migrating Neolithic Asian populations[? From Asia or Europe? – Jon Erlandson, Un. of Oregon]

(2) Danish explorer Vitus Bering (1741) for the Tsar(3) Modern American settlement / environmentalists /

resource contractors / etc Aside: generally accepted that Pro-Indians came to N.A. by this

route, I really wonder about the why of it

1.2.2 The Last Frontier: Alaska, cont- Over 15,000 years the emergence of four distinct

hunter-gather cultures:

(1) Tlingit

(2) Aleut

(3) Inuit (“The People”) [once Eskimo]

Kalaajlit

Inupiate

1.2.2 The Last Frontier: Alaska, cont

(3) Inuit (“The People”) [once Eskimo]

--- a “staged” culture:

“proto-Inuit”;

Dorest;

Thule;

Contemporary

(4) Athabaskan / Metis


I. Economic and Resource Interest

- As with much of recent history, early

Anglo-European exploration and exploitation economically motivated

--- fishing/fur bearing mammals (semi-permanent)

--- gold (permanent)

… male dominated

… not predicated on available agriculture

1.2.2 The Last Frontier: Alaska, contI. Economic and Resource Interest--- By WWII – gold, copper, timber, fish, coal, etc. were being withdrawn from the territory

Interestingly: military expansion provided the territory with a major percentage of its permanent population … as well as the impetus (with mineral exploitation) for transportation and communications infrastructure


I. Economic and Resource Interest

--- Soon after statehood deposits of petroleum were discovered in Cook Inlet and on the Kenai Peninsula

Interesting: (text) despite these discoveries, the state remained a drain on the national economy until the discovery of petroleum on the North Slope

1.2.2 The Last Frontier: Alaska, contI. Economic and Resource Interest--- North Slope represented the greatest

economic vs environmental debate to that point in U.S. history

… TAP (opened 1977)… current concerns Arctic National Wildlife

Refuge (ANWR)


II. Environmental Interests

--- “opening” of Alaska coincide with the 1st wave of environmentalism

… with its mental map / location / mystic / flora and fauna / etc, it would naturally become a

center-piece in environmental protection and wilderness designation

--- wilderness experiences / hunting and fishing / recreation / etc. as revenue


II. Environmental Interests

--- federal govt also utilized its power to protect fragile and unique environments

ex: national monuments – 7 million acres wilderness

reserves (U.S. Fish and Wildlife)-19 mill. acres

federal lands into parks/refuges/wilderness areas-

104 mill acres


III. Indigenous Interests

--- indigenous peoples and their interests remain the least integrated into the goals and direction of Alaska

--- here, as elsewhere, contact with the Europeans has pretty much damned the native cultures


III. Indigenous Interests

- in reaction to the decline of indigenous cultures and the Anglos inability to figure out what to do with native peoples

… Alaskan Federation of Natives (AFN; 1966)

… Alaskan Native Claims Settlement Act

(ANCSA; 1971)

Aside

The success of the AFN and the ANCSA did not go unnoticed among the indigenous peoples of Canada

--- James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (1975)

--- Northeastern Quebec Agreement (1978)

--- Western Arctic Claims Settlement Act (1984)

--- Dene Nations / Metis Agreement (1990)

--- Council for Yukon Indians (1990)

--- Tungavik Federation of Nunavut (1990)

1.3 The Transformation of Nature

1.3.1 The Growth and Spread of Human Impacts on Environments

- Text: “The extent and severity of human impacts on environments depend on the way societies organize production.” (p. 26)

- Historically, three broad production systems existed:

(1) hunter-gatherer – out of Africa to all parts of the world except Antarctica


hunter-gatherers, cont--- somehow have an image of indigenous H-G

cultures as environmentally benign / “natural” / “pure”

… reality is that such cultures are very good at altering physical and biological environments both deliberately and non-deliberately

Example

The most technological advanced thing that the Australian Aborigines had was fire. They used it to:- “flush” and drive animals- promote the growth of plants they wanted / that

were sought by the animals they hunted

H-G contribute to the extinction of species; altering the mix of flora and fauna; clearing of land; selective cleaning of land; diverting and irrigating land; etc

We tend to think of H-G cultures as being static and non-evolving, when by necessity they may be the most adaptive and evolving


(2) agricultural – post 10,000 B.C. out of the Middle East, particularly in the temperate regions of the world… and later appearing pastoralism

--- more systemic in altering the environment--- many of the same selective alternations and

deforestation techniques seen in H-G


agricultural – deforestation has been the greatest human impact in the temperate latitudes

… of course, deforestation frequently leads to soil erosion; altering drainage patterns; changing soil infiltration patterns

agricultural societies have transformed landscapes through both adding water to a location

(irrigation) and its removal (drainage / diking / etc)


agriculturalbecause of factors comparative advantage settled

agriculture encouraged increasingly complex patterns of trade and communication

(ex: early eastern U.S.)These lines of trade and communication made possible

transition into Industrial Production system

Additionally

Remember impact of hydraulic civilizations- Not all agricultural civilizations were hydraulic

Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indus, Wei – yesMayan, Aztec, Inca – no

generally, large-scale irrigation increased production efficiency, therefore increasing output/man/hour

irrigation made possible large non-farming populations / social stratification / labor specialization / urban growth / generally higher standard of living for the society

… all of these factors gave rise to increasing economic, political and social power… historically it also created cosmologic civilizations


(3) industrial – U.K and Europe, diffused to North America and ultimately the greater part of the world

- characterized by increasingly complex spatial linkages (trade and communications) building on those of the agricultural

production system


industrial – patterns both directly and indirectly fostering greater consumption

(look at measures of GNP or standard-of living)

- productive patterns stressing greater efficiency / mechanization

- unfortunately, also greater patterns of pollution

(decreasing with time but becoming more toxic)


industrial

- peripheral to industrialization is the growth of urban centers and population growth

(back to J-curve and Demographic Transition)

- latter period brought first environmentalism

Aside: alludes to a good point when mentioning that we have become dependents of continued industrial growth – old Malthusian Trap concept


- What about (4) Post-Industrial systems?

… what will such a production system

look and act like?

1.4.1 Hunter-Gatherers

- The editors are correct in telling us that we really know little or nothing about the thought processes of Paleolithic H-G

… much of our understanding is taken from

(i) physical / anthropological artifact information

(ii) second-hand information

(iii) the individual researcher’s particular perceptions and prejudices

1.4.1 Hunter-Gatherers

- It is clear that H-G were typically nomadic; a small kin-group migrating across a large geographic area seeking food sources, or exploiting “feast-and-famine” slash-and-burn supplemental agriculture

--- population and density must have remained low

--- likely animistic in beliefs

--- concept of landownership seems to be missing

--- frequently hold creation myths

1.4.2 Agricultural Society- Because of their nature we have greater information about these societies:

(i) they are much more abundant (ii) they produced numerically larger permanent

settlements(iii) they left written records

* I would add:(iv) they left a chronological pattern of pollution and

environmental degradation

1.4.2 Agricultural Society- Domestication of plants and animals opens up the first permanent separation of Man and the environment

(i) species now intrinsically defined according to theirvalue to mankind [our definition of resource]

(ii) domestic species and their perpetuation take precedence over environmental harmony

(iii) Man becomes dominant as the altering agent of the physical environment

1.4.2 Agricultural Society

- Fact is that settled agriculture initiated a self-perpetuating feedback system… societally; economically; technologically; environmentally

- Societies become more complex, more stratification occurs, the call for more resources and greater agricultural production increases… and we keep going

* Look at the “Historical Perspectives” civilizations

1.4.2 Agricultural Society- Also significant is the fact that such cultures were polytheistic rather than animist

--- “Nature” is demoted to the control of Gods in human forms / with human traits

[soon after, in nomadic cultures of the Middle East monotheism would develop]

Text: Two significant developments occurred in the eastern Mediterranean several thousand years ago

(1) the emergence of Judaism and direct child Christianity

(2) the rationalism of Greek culture and philosophy

… Early Judaism is grounded in the rural landscape / arid wilderness regions (Sack’s “one-ness”)

… Contact with Greek culture dooms this… what emerges is an attitude that urban (village, etc) is positive and the

wilderness is bad

This is what Clarence Glacken (Traces on the Rhodesian Shore, 1967) is saying with:

“what is most striking in concepts of nature, even mythological ones, is the yearning for purpose and order; perhaps these notions of order are, basically … [here is what is important for us] … analogies derived from the orderliness and purposiveness in many outward manifestations of human activity; order and purpose in roads, in the grid of village streets and even in winding lanes, in a garden or a pasture, in the plan of a dwelling and its relation to another

… “one-ness of God’s creations is lost; completes divorce of human culture from nature

… sacred place changes… gender and social divisions become crystallized

It has been argued that all of this is a product of Greek dualism – the Greek concept of opposition… the inferior to the superior (master)… the inherent existence of Good and Evil

- Under Christianity, a rigid hierarchy of “place” emerges:

(i) at the very top – the construct of Heaven

(ii) settled places – towns, cities, agricultural regions

(iii) the rural countryside

(iv) the wilderness

* This will subconsciously find its way into the contact diffusion of Christianity

Glacken recognizes three major themes that backhandedly argue that thus separation of

Man-God-Nature is not absolute

(1) teleology

(2) environmental determinism

(3) human society as an agent of environmental change

* I would insert possibilism

Asian agricultural societies developed a somewhat different attitude to nature, the environment and their role in it

(i) less affected by monotheistic religion

(ii) they shared the concept of fundamental unity and harmony between Man and nature

- For a spectrum of Eastern attitudes you might look at:(1) Hinduism

--- very ambiguous to the environment--- animist roots; polytheism; ahimsa

(2) Buddhism--- most widespread Eastern religion--- practices ahimsa--- religion without a named “God”, its underlying tenet is the living of a good life and working to reduce

greed and suffering (the Four-Noble Truths)

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CHAPTER 1 Paradise Lost, or the Conquest of the Wilderness.

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