The Western concept of wilderness encompasses pristinEnvironmental Justice Wilderness Nature National Parks Conservation Preservation Native Americans e, untrammeled land viewed as “the last remaining place where civilization…has not fully infected the earth” (Cronon, 1995, p. 69). Indeed, many Americans possess this dualistic vision that separates nature and humanity, thus leading to the creation of preservation areas that restrict human habitation. Of course, the protection of what is perceived as “pristine” and “virgin” land completely ignores the fact that humans inhabited these lands for millennia without permanently damaging them. Instead, these preserves are created in response to the environmental degradation caused by modern society and industrialization as well as society’s modern, flawed conceptualization of wilderness. William Cronon in “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature” (1995), Mark Woods in “Wilderness” (2001), and Richard Mertens in “Can’t See the Forest for the Trees” (2008) reject the socially constructed views of nature and wilderness as well as oppose the notion that humans are separate from nature. In concert with these scholars, I argue that humans are ethically charged with the responsibility to care both for human and non-human life. website and earn money for free sit What is now Glacier National Park was originally the home of the Blackfeet tribe, although they have now been banished to a small reservation outside the park and banned from carrying on traditional activities inside the park. Cronon, Woods, and Mertens, take issue with the human conception of wildness. In particular, they discredit the traditionally Western philosophy that nature is separate from humanity and that wilderness is defined by pristine lands untouched by humans. Mertens (2008) accurately sums up the major theme that all three authors attempt to convey when he writes that there is a “myth of the pristine” (p. 38) in which “untouched forests may be more an invention of the Western mind than something found in the real world” (p. 38). Reflecting on these texts, I agree with the authors’ shared conclusion of a flawed ideal of nature and wilderness because I believe that separating humanity from nature ignores our entire human history, particularly the history of marginalized indigenous peoples. Cronon (1995) accurately calls this an “escape from history” (p. 80). Woods (2001) effectively employs the word “genocide” (p. 357) to discuss the displacement and killing of Native Americans for purposes of developing land as well as preserving wilderness areas. I also concur with Cronon (1995) when he states that “any way of looking at nature that encourages us to believe we are separate from nature – as wilderness tends to do so—is likely to reinforce environmentally irresponsible behavior” (p. 87). Furthermore, if we on

1. Humanity and Its Place in Nature:
Rethinking the Reality of 'Wilderness
https://www.digistore24.com/redir/325658/CHUS87/
By Thomas R. Smith
2014, VOL. 6 NO. 09 | PG. 1/2 | »
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KEYWORDS:
The Western concept of wilderness encompasses pristinEnvironmental Justice
Wilderness Nature National Parks Conservation Preservation Native Americans
e, untrammeled land viewed as “the last remaining place where
civilization…has not fully infected the earth” (Cronon, 1995, p. 69). Indeed,
many Americans possess this dualistic vision that separates nature and
humanity, thus leading to the creation of preservation areas that restrict
human habitation. Of course, the protection of what is perceived as “pristine”
and “virgin” land completely ignores the fact that humans inhabited these
lands for millennia without permanently damaging them. Instead, these
preserves are created in response to the environmental degradation caused by
modern society and industrialization as well as society’s modern, flawed
conceptualization of wilderness. William Cronon in “The Trouble with
Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature” (1995), Mark Woods in
“Wilderness” (2001), and Richard Mertens in “Can’t See the Forest for the
Trees” (2008) reject the socially constructed views of nature and wilderness as
well as oppose the notion that humans are separate from nature. In concert

2. with these scholars, I argue that humans are ethically charged with the
responsibility to care both for human and non-human life.
website and earn money for free sit
What is now Glacier National Park was originally the home of the Blackfeet
tribe, although they have now been banished to a small reservation outside the
park and banned from carrying on traditional activities inside the park.
Cronon, Woods, and Mertens, take issue with the human conception of
wildness. In particular, they discredit the traditionally Western philosophy that
nature is separate from humanity and that wilderness is defined by pristine
lands untouched by humans. Mertens (2008) accurately sums up the major
theme that all three authors attempt to convey when he writes that there is a
“myth of the pristine” (p. 38) in which “untouched forests may be more an

3. invention of the Western mind than something found in the real world” (p.
38). Reflecting on these texts, I agree with the authors’ shared conclusion of a
flawed ideal of nature and wilderness because I believe that separating
humanity from nature ignores our entire human history, particularly the
history of marginalized indigenous peoples. Cronon (1995) accurately calls
this an “escape from history” (p. 80). Woods (2001) effectively employs the
word “genocide” (p. 357) to discuss the displacement and killing of Native
Americans for purposes of developing land as well as preserving wilderness
areas. I also concur with Cronon (1995) when he states that “any way of
looking at nature that encourages us to believe we are separate from nature –
as wilderness tends to do so—is likely to reinforce environmentally
irresponsible behavior” (p. 87). Furthermore, if we only count the pristine as
nature than we are missing the nature that is all around us, in places we
actually live, and we lose our sense of responsibility to protect it.
Cronon (1995) points out that the banishment of Native Americans
from lands that had been their homes for centuries in order “to
create an ‘uninhabited wilderness’…reminds us just how invented,
just how constructed, the American wilderness really is” (p. 79).
In “Can’t See the Forests for the Trees,” Richard Mertens rejects the view
that nature is untrammeled and completely separate from humanity. He
identifies the notion that “the idea of pure and untrammeled nature has also
served a more spiritual purpose, preserving the image of an unfallen world,

4. untainted by war, industrialism, and other afflictions of civilization” (Mertens,
2008, p. 39). The ideal of humanity existing apart from nature simply does not
reflect reality. Humans are inexplicably bound to nature and affect it, some
more than others. Mertens explains that there are plenty of forested lands
where people live and work and that conservationists tend to ignore them
because they focus on the need to create preserves and national parks that are
separate from humanity. Mertens (2008) goes so far as to argue “that in many
parts of the world globalization and the policies that go along with it are in
fact helping to create” (p. 38) forests. Indeed, all reforestation efforts, even
those attributed to globalization and policy decisions, are commendable and
must be encouraged; still, we must not forget the real consequences that
globalization has had on the environment as a whole. Nonetheless, I agree
with Mertens (2008) when he rejects Malthus and Darwin’s principle “that
humans and human thriving are inevitably harmful to nature” (p. 39).
Population growth and human activities, some unintentional and some
intentionally greedy, have indeed placed nature in grave peril. Still, I believe
that humans, as an integral part of nature, are beginning to recognize our
ability to heal and protect nature, which includes fellow humans. I remain
optimistic that a more gentle and kind world is possible.
In “Wilderness,” Mark Woods (2001) argues that we have acquired “a
‘received wilderness idea’ that is historically shaped from western notions of
wilderness” (p. 351). To support his premise, Woods cites the Wilderness Act
of 1964, which explicitly defines wilderness “as an area where the earth and
its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor

5. who does not remain” (as quoted in Woods, 2001, p. 350). The previous
American notion of wilderness was full of hostility, inspired by manifest
destiny and characterized by a drive to tame and transform it for economic
gain. Eventually, however, by the early 1900s “so little wilderness remained
that Americans began to romanticize it and see it as something good that
should be preserved” (Woods, 2001, p. 351). As a result, we now have “more
than 600 federal, legally designated wilderness areas in the United States that
comprise 4.5 percent of the land mass” (Woods, 2001, p. 351). Of course, land
preservation is a vital component of responsible environmentalism. However,
in some cases, the creation of wilderness areas results in displacement and
oppression of Native Americans in order “to create empty landscapes that
were ‘suitable’ for wilderness designation” (Woods, 2001, p. 356). How can
we possibly justify displacing and impoverishing people as a means to create
wilderness areas that are supposedly “virgin” and “pristine?” This
emphatically ignores the fact that humans have been living and working these
lands for centuries, perhaps even longer. Woods (2001) points out that in R.
Nash’s “Wilderness and the American Mind,” written in 1982, Native
Americans are “conspicuously absent from much of his account” because the
“native inhabitants of North America are not seen by Nash as ‘civilized men’”
(p. 359). This does not surprise me; popular American history is full of gaps
and missing voices because the voices of marginalized people, including
Native Americans, are often disregarded or silenced.

6. https://youtu.be/n_HLtAPVF6w
William Cronon (1995) begins “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting
Back to the Wrong Nature” by fervently declaring that wilderness “is not a
pristine sanctuary where the last remnant of an untouched, endangered, but
still transcendent nature can for at least a little while longer be encountered
without the contaminating taint of civilization” but “is a product of that
civilization” (p. 69). The modern perception of wilderness, according to
Cronon, was spearheaded in the late 1800s by men like John Muir, William
Wordsworth and Henry David Thoreau and took hold with the convergence of
the sublime and the frontier. The two transformed the image of wilderness by
“freighting it with moral values and cultural symbols that it carries to this
day” (Cronon, 1995, p. 72) and led Cronon (1995) to proclaim “that the
modern environmental movement is itself a grandchild of romanticism and
post-frontier ideology” (p. 72). The ideology of conquering and exerting
dominion on nature was replaced by the belief that it was necessary to
preserve nature from humanity. Cronon, however, refutes the overly
romanticized notion that there is a dualism between humanity and nature.
Instead, he believes that “idealizing a distant wilderness too often means not
idealizing the environment in which we actually live, the landscape that for
better or worse we call home” (Cronin, 1995, p. 85).
Cronon (1995) asserts that “when we pretend to ourselves that our real home
is in the wilderness – we give ourselves permission to evade responsibility for
the lives we actually live” (P. 81). Further, Cronon (1995) reminds us to

7. “celebrate the wildness in our own backyards, of the nature that is all around
us if only we have eyes to see it” (p. 86).
Cronon (1995) also warns that focusing too much attention on wilderness
makes other corners of the earth “less than natural and too many other
people become less than human, thereby giving us permission not to care
much about their suffering or their fate” (P. 85). Not surprisingly, Cronon
(1995) adds that the people mostly affected by environmental problems are the
poor (p. 85). For example, while Cronon (1995) does not minimize the plight
of endangered animals, he expresses the irony of designating “sacred land” to
protect a single species like the spotted owl (p. 82) in the same country that
forcibly removes native people from their land in order to preserve wilderness.
Cronon (1995) points out that the banishment of Native Americans from
lands that had been their homes for centuries in order “to create an
‘uninhabited wilderness’…reminds us just how invented, just how
constructed, the American wilderness really is” (p. 79).Continued on Next Page »
1 2
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CITE REFERENCES PRINT 3 COMMENTS
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8. 561.5K
Cooperation in Space
Thomas R. Smith graduated in 2015 with a Bachelors degree in Environmental Studies
from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA.
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