Wilderness:

History

From the very beginning of this nation's history, wilderness has been a fundamental ingredient. The first European settlers found and battled against it upon their arrival. The western explorers and wagon trains sought to wrestle farmland from the wilderness's grip to build cities, farms and homes. It was not until the reality of its finite availability, that it was viewed as anything other than an opponent and menace. These changing attitudes began a new battle for preservation and protection of the wilderness that remained. The nation's attitude transformation was testimony to a new focus and value for wilderness. This new disposition declared that the preservation and maintenance of wilderness is instrumental to our own emotional, spiritual and biological survival.

The first European settlers began an extensive nation wide war on wilderness upon their arrival on the eastern shore. The war continued for many years and set the tone for America's relationship with its wilderness lands. Many of the nation's first European arrivals brought with them very Puritanical views regarding the appropriateness of order and disorder as well as fundamental Christian views (Kropf, 1997). In their minds, the unsettled and unestablished lands of the New World symbolized lack of order and therefore the absence of God. Along with disorderly lands there existed native inhabitants who, because they had not subdued the land-putting it to strict agricultural use-were innately inferior. All these attributes assigned to the Indians and the wilderness led the early settlers to firmly believe that the wilderness was the dwelling place of Satan. As God fearing Christians, their greatest calling was the elimination of Satan in whatever form it possessed, wilderness or Indian. Also, the difficulty of clearing land for farms confirmed that Satan was working in the wilderness against their efforts. They viewed the situation as a threat to development, further verifying their beliefs.

As the country aged, the lands west of the original colonies drew more curiosity and became the new focus of national development. With initiative similar to that which condemned the undeveloped land and the Indians, explorers set forth, fueled by a perceived blessing from God and a notion called Manifest Destiny (Kropf,1997). This ideal claimed that the Christian dominance of the nation was God ordained, therefore giving them license to do as they saw fit. Their mission was to settle and subdue the wilderness in the West. During the western settlement, incidents like the discovery of gold in California and small pox plagues which killed thousands of Indians propagated the ideals of Manifest Destiny. Throughout the nineteenth century, Manifest Destiny was the driving force of westward expansion and the war on wilderness.

Wilderness Act of 1964

While all of the exploration and expansion continued, different areas gained recognition for their remarkable wild and scenic beauty. In the 1850's Yosemite state reserve was recognized, and in 1872, Yellowstone was declared the first national park (Nash,1984). This area was preserved as a "public park or pleasuring ground," to be kept "in the natural condition." Another significant step in national history and land preservation was the declaration in 1890 that the frontier was closed. This confirmed that wilderness and national land in the west had a finite extent.

To some people this declaration came as a surprise and to others, merely a confirmation of a pre-existing finity. This era prompted a growing sadness, as a result of the loss of wilderness, movements to preserve wild lands were led by John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold and George Catlin, a few of the primary leaders (Hendee, Stankey & Lusas, 1990). This sentiment soon reached the managing bodies of national land management organizations. In 1919, Arthur Carhart, a Forest Service employee, was sent to survey Trapper Lake in Colorado's White River National Forest as a site for vacation homes (Nash, 1984). His response upon return was that the best use of that lake and surrounding area was to leave it alone. At the same time in New Mexico, another early leader of the wilderness movement, Aldo Leopold, surveyed and wrote about the need to preserve areas of national forests as roadless areas. The local forest manager in that region was moved by some of Leopold's work. The area was declared a 574,000 acre plot of "roadless area" in 1924. While only a bureaucratic and not legal declaration, Leopold's was the first designation of any large land area, not available for development. Leopold's influence in New Mexico set in motion a movement toward more rigid wilderness preservation guidelines.

The first serious movement toward that goal was the formation of the L-20 regulations in 1929. This was a Forest Service policy with an accompanying set of management regulations. It allocated 72 primitive areas which functioned as a research area for scientists and a recreational center (Nash, 1984).

There were, however, two major defects to this management option. Few commercial activities were prohibited from these lands and this management movement was not bound by law, it was only policy. In 1939, a more strict set of rules called the U-Regulations followed. This new set of regulations tightened protection of approximately 14,000,000 acres of National Forest land by designating it into three categories: wilderness, wild areas and roadless areas (Hendee, Stankey & Lucas, 1990). This set of regulations set the stage for more formal protection of wild lands.

In the years following the development of the U-Regulations, the desire for formal legislative protection of wilderness grew. At this time, Howard Zanhiser wrote a wilderness bill and after several revisions it was introduced by Hubert Humphrey to the Senate (Nash, 1984). During the bill's time with United States legislators, it was revised and resubmitted 66 times. The prolifery of revisions were caused by fear of the potential permanence of the bill, which ultimately demanded considerable compromise before the bill finally passed. Some of compromises included allowances for mineral and water development, dependence on an act of Congress to designate a new wilderness area and the reduction from 163 to 54 areas for immediate designation with the original bill. The bill was finally signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 3, 1964. Currently, through this designation and subsequent designations, approximately 4% of national lands are designated wilderness. This equates to >100,000,000 acres with slightly more than 50% of that in Alaska (Hendee, Stankey, & Lucas, 1990). This finally and currently affords legal protection to some of the wilderness remnants left from our nation's natural heritage.

One important definition which came out of the law making discussion was a formalized understanding of what wilderness actually was. In section 2c of the Wilderness Act it states (Hendee, Stankey & Lucas, 505):

A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape,is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act, an area of undeveloped land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.

This definition set the basis for management, administrative decisions and also told the nation what these new protected areas were.

Not only did this definition help establish what exactly we were dealing with, it also signified a change in the views of Americans toward wilderness. The Wilderness Act of 1964 was one of the most important milestones in the changing attitude of Americans toward their wilderness areas (Nash, 1984). This action indicated that the remaining wilderness of the United States was no longer something to fight and destroy, rather it was a symbol of what this country was, or had been. The law also showed the value people gave to a wilderness experience and what it meant to be outside the grasp of civilization.

Social and Emotional Importance

To some, the greatest value of wilderness is the experiential opportunities, both past and present. The experience of the pioneers, early inhabitants of the woods and modern wilderness experiences help create understanding of national heritage and the land's history (Hendee, Stankey & Lucas 1990). Some would say that wilderness is one of the best places to connect with the country's past, because of wilderness's influence and shaping character toward the national identity (Nash, 1967). One of the early wilderness advocate and conservationist, John Muir, thought that the essence of wilderness was the freedom, solitude and beauty of the mountains (Hendee, Stankey & Lucas, 1990). When these things were grasped, the experience could satisfy all human needs, not only emotionally but spiritually-a place to reconnect one's self with nature. Another early leader, Robert Marshall, had many of the same sentiments. He also had a firm belief in the wilderness as a special place containing restorative powers; a place which could help prevent moral deterioration. Without a way to connect to our heritage and escape from the tensions of civilized and citified life, Mashall feared that people might turn to the "thrills" of crime and war. The experiential value of wilderness was well documented by current and past wilderness advocates.

Another value, though less documented, is wilderness's value as teacher of humility. By the nature of wilderness, it is a place where the comforts of civilized life are not found, but a place for primitive recreation and minimal human manipulation. Because of these elements, people venturing into the back country encounter a different set of risks than someone on the street. Wilderness removes the comfort of civilization and forces one to be self-dependent. The value of this experience is that without the comforts of home, people are reminded that they are but a small part of the natural scheme of things, regardless of their lives outside the wilderness boundary. The reflections from this sort of experience have the potential to be powerful and recentering. In the twentieth century this sort of experience can be important to one's mental health.

On a similar line of reason, wilderness is a place to reconnect with the non-human world. As our culture continues to separate itself from the natural world through our industrialization and development, places to reconnect with the land are increasingly valuable. While most people will not gain close understanding and connection to nature like Muir did-by lashing himself to a tree during a windstorm-any interaction with the wild will bring about new insights and understandings on humanity's place in this world (Hendee, Stankey, & Lucas, 1990). Even though the values of experience, humility and connectiveness are important wilderness values, other non-human values exist and are of equal importance.

Biological Importance

Wilderness for the sake of science and biology is an extremely important value due to wilderness's generally undisturbed nature. It may contain organisms of unknown medicinal properties among other things, and it holds value because of its ability to protect endangered plants and animals. As human development consumes more land and changes ecosystems, wilderness is invaluable as a template to measure against humanity's change (Drabelle, 1984). Because wilderness ecosystems are largely undisturbed, they are an important source of information and basis for comparing how the world around us has evolved, how the impacts of civilization have altered natural systems and how an unmodified environment functions and what it contains. Currently of the nation's 261 ecotypes, 157 are included in the National Wilderness Preservation System, with hopefully more to be added.

Another special attribute of wilderness is what its plants may contain for humans. According to E. O. Wilson, "Natural products have been called the sleeping giants of the pharmaceutical industry." An estimated 50% of the prescription drugs on the domestic market, worth 14 billion dollars annually, have their origins in wild organisms (Hendee, Stankey, & Lucas, 1990). When wilderness and unstudied organisms are destroyed, the capacity for new discovery and the extension of our biological understanding becomes more limited.

One other important value for wilderness and biology is its ability to support species which would be extinct without large undisturbed tracts of land. Grizzly bears and wolves would currently either be extinct or very threatened without the space wilderness areas afford them (Hendee, Stankey, & Lucas, 1990). Large wild areas are needed and essential to animals' survival. Wilderness areas may also harbor specific species and be established for that very reason. Examples are reserves like Joshua Tree National Monument and Key Deer National Wildlife Refuge, which were created to preserve specific species.

Spiritual Importance

A final value of wilderness, has much less to do with utilitarian purposes like refuges for wildlife or scientific studies or even as a place to build relationships with nature, and more to do with what the intangible effects may be of what a land without wilderness might mean to the human psyche. Since wilderness has been a part of this nation's formation, and it is also what humans have evolved in, one must ask what the world would be like if it were destroyed? Environmentalist, David Brower, likens it to a cage-something you can not find refuge in nor get away from (Brower, 1996). Wallace Stegner also states that, "Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed . so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human automotive waste" (Hendee, Stankey & Lucas, 1990). The idea of a land completely modified by humanity is a scary proposition, while a land with refuges is much more comforting. Perhaps that is part of the beauty of the Wilderness Act. It not only preserves land from humanity, it also preserves humanity from itself. The existence of wilderness reflects self-imposed limits on the technological imperative that we must subdue all the earth just because we can (Hendee, Stankey & Lucas, 1990). So, perhaps one of the greatest values of wilderness is that it saves humans and animals from one trait of human nature-a desire to master and subdue everything.

Management and Christian Perspectives

An examination of different ways to approach environmental ethics and wilderness preservation, in the context of Christian faith is essential to this discussion. The two most obvious and possibly opposite approaches to this subject are biocentrism and anthropocentrism.

Biocentrism contends that non-human biological organisms and humans have similar rights to exist. Biocentrists claim that wilderness areas should be preserved for reasons like, the intrinsic value of life, independent of any instrumental human motives (Oelschalger, 1991). Biocentrists also observe a level of organization and integration within wild nature that is independent of human purpose, giving the land and organisms intrinsic value. Human values must be brought into harmony with the intrinsic values of nature. Humanity's actions toward nature must be reevaluated to eliminate damaging actions which may pain the human relationship with the natural world, equally as valuable as humans. Relating this to wilderness management and designation means that the focus should be on the preservation of natural order (Hendee, Stankey & Lucas 1990). Nature becomes the one in charge and determinate of ecological outcomes. Furthermore, human desires for recreational use come second to the maintenance of the natural order.

Anthropocentrism by comparison, believes humans are the highest beings and have the most rights to land and resource use. Humans may decide how things ought to work, in what condition and to serve what purpose (Hendee, Stankey & Lucas, 1990). The needs of the natural systems are secondary to the desires of humanity. In wilderness management, recreation and comfort take the highest priority because of their service to humans. This philosophy may move humanity and natural systems further from their original status, but it's OK because human interests are the highest value.

To incorporate Biblical teaching, one must ask which of these philosophies is best for Christians to embrace-to be true to their faith-and, at the same time support the wilderness values previously outlined. From a strict Biblical teaching it seems as though God's intention is for humans to be the superior beings, to look after the earth and to be helpful to God by being stewards of the land insinuating some degree of anthroporcentism. The problem currently is that people have typically taken that mandate to the extreme ends of anthropocentrism. This has left humanity with less wild land and compromised wilderness values. Each time more wilderness is lost, the chances for connection to a wild landscape and the national shaping factors are gone. Furthermore, the biological values of wilderness are severely compromised. Loss of wild land means lost habitat and potential for more lost species. These compromised values take wilderness further from its original definition and meaning by removing its. In short, anthropocentric management cuts both the biological and human world short by limiting the biological world in the name of human interest.

Biocentrism on the other hand, does not always seem to fit completely within the scope of Biblical teaching. It puts humans on the same level as non-human organisms, which seems somewhat contrary to God's teaching. On the other hand, a biocentric ethic can provide some important support to a Christian land ethic. God's word in Genesis says that the human dwellers of earth are to be stewards of the earth and its resources. I believe that God's original intention with this mandate is an exercise of stewardship closer to biocentrism than anthropocentrism. God's intent is not for humans to dominate and subdue the earth's resources but rather, that humans should live in harmony with the earth and use its resources carefully. As humans managing wilderness values what does this mean?

It means that to manage and be stewards of wilderness and other land resources, we must extend the loving respect that the Bible instructs, God extends to humans, and who further extends to the earth. This takes a mixture of biocentric and anthropocentric philosophy. Humans need to value themselves enough to believe in God's word and believe they are special because of that relationship. But, humans also need to be biocentric so that God's demand for humans to be caretakers and stewards of the earth is not overshadowed by potentially dangerous anthropocentrism, which lacks any care for the natural world. If this loving embrace and philosophical view is not extended at some level, the wilderness's values will be cut short and the contents of wilderness and humanity will suffer. Furthermore, the contents of this continent which have shaped and influenced this nation will be forever lost.

Bibliography

Brower, David. (1996). Let the Mountains Talk, Let the Rivers Run. San Fransisco:
Harper Collins Publishers.
Drabelle, Dennis. (1984, Summer). Feral Explorations. Wilderness, pp.24-26.
Hendee, John C., Stankey, George H., & Lucas, Robert C. (1990). Wilderness
Management. Golden: North American Press.
Kropf, Jesse A., "Images of the Overland Trail and Manifest Destiny: A Distortion of
Reality". History 369: Dan Flores, University of Montana. Spring 1997.
Nash, Roderick. (1967). Wilderness and the American Mind. New Haven: Yale UP.
Nash, Roderick. (1984, Summer). Path to Preservation. Wilderness, 5-11.
Oelschlager, Max. (1991). The Idea of Wilderness. New Haven: Yale University Press.