Do People Really Value Adirondack Wildness?

Since the 19^th century, people have visited the Adirondacks in search for wilderness. They seek to escape from the bustle of cities, suburbs, and civilization. Paradoxically, these tourists demand both wilderness and infrastructure. For example, New York State has constructed campgrounds, cabins, dams, bridges, and roads to help the public access and enjoy the park (Jenkins 2004). Therefore, an important lingering question remains: has the Adirondack wilderness retained its authentic wildness (i.e. the extent that something is not humanized)? More importantly, do people value recreation over wildness? In my opinion, the general public does not think too deeply about questions of wildness and only a few philosophers contemplate it.

            Stocking rivers with fish is a quintessential example of wildness and human biological interventions. In 1999, approximately 1,500,000 hatchery fish were released in the Adirondacks to meet the demands of Adirondack fishermen (Jenkins 2004). Some of the fish species were native to the Adirondacks, however the rest were introduced to the region through human intervention. According to Jenkins, the state, fishermen, and many fish hunting animals such as otters, mink and herons were grateful for this stocking of the Adirondack’s rivers. The supply of this fish was beneficial to all parties. Yet Jenkins calls attention to the lack of wildness of biological intervention. He writes, “The only people it distresses are a few grumpy ecologists, who find it incongruous that the largest wilderness in the east has almost no natural fisheries.”

            In their paper “Wildness and Ecocentrism: A Defense of Valuing Nature for Its Naturalness”, philosophers Ned Hettinger and Bill Throop argue that wildness plays a central role in the nexus of human values (1999). Although Hettinger and Throop have probably never met Jenkins in real life, the ideas of Hettinger and Throop provide an explanation for Jenkins’s concerns about the lack of natural fisheries in the Adirondacks. For example, Hettinger and Throop write, “There are important reasons to distinguish human activity from the activity of wild nature. Human transformations of the land are different in evaluative relevant ways from transformations imposed by nonhuman species or processes”(1999). However, as Jenkins comments, few people reflect upon the loss of wildness in the Adirondacks, and they are not disturbed by biological intervention. Instead, most visitors are more worried about the aesthetic beauty of the park. The NY state constitution requires Adirondack lands be “forever kept as wild forest lands,” but does the “forever wild” clause really imply the preservation of Adirondack wildness?

Sources:

Jenkins, Jerry, and Andy Keal. The Adirondack Atlas: A Geographic Portrait of the Adirondack Park. Syracuse, N.Y: Syracuse University Press, 2004. Print.

Hettinger, Ned and Bill Throop. “Refocusing Ecocentrism: De-emphasizing Stability and Defending Wildness,” Environmental Ethics 21, no. 1 (Spring 1999): 3-21