Forever Wild Post
Elias Clough
“How
much human intervention can a place stand before it loses its essence?” (71)
Bill
McKibben explores the often-uneasy relationship between human beings and the
Adirondack region. With a romanticized view towards the undeveloped, McKibben
laments the negative ways in which mankind has altered the landscape around
him. He explores how the tendencies of foreign settlers in the 1600s to
“reshape the landscape of New England” (97) are continued by private landowners
and ATV drivers today. Although there are still vast expanses of land protected
under state laws, human presence in the parks dilutes what was originally “pure
wilderness” (102). One of the questions that McKibben tries to address in his
book, Wandering Home, is how much of
a presence we can have in the Adirondack region without stripping the land of
its wildness. In his descriptions of the vast, land-consuming vacation homes
and trails destroyed by dirt bike tires, McKibben seems fairly pessimistic
about the possibility of us coexisting peacefully with the wilderness. This mood is short lived, however, for
McKibben also describes Nature’s ability to regenerate itself, which he calls
the “power of renewal” (120). He describes old logging sites that were
abandoned and have since been reclaimed by the wildlife that mankind had
originally driven away. This resurge of wilderness provides hope for the future
of an Adirondack Region, which is currently plagued by private housing and
recreational overuse. Perhaps, McKibben suggests, if we begin to rollback
housing developments and logging grants the Adirondack region will return to
its original wild glory. Abstaining from overusing the Adirondack region,
McKibben continues, is essential not only for the future of the park but also
for our species as a whole; “we need to set aside land from our use simply to
prove to ourselves that we can do it, that we don’t need to be in control of
everything around us” (103). Despite our
tendency to infringe upon the wildlife around us, McKibben seems hopeful that a
future does exist in which mankind and nature can maintain a symbiotic
relationship.
I like the title here, which you spelled out nicely in the body of your post. At what point is the wild no longer the wild? We've talked briefly about conservation practices to try to "re-wild" the landscape, like restoring animal/plant populations to their past levels or limiting human settlement in the area. But would those practices really make the Adirondacks more wild, more natural? Or is it the opposite - that maintaining nature's integrity would be to consider humans as part of the equation and a new player in the ecosystem?
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