Is wilderness out there?  Turner would say it is, at least on the outskirts somewhere.  Meyer would argue that wilderness might return in millions of years.  Plumwood does not explicitly say wilderness exists, but her near death crocodile experience might have convinced her that wilderness exists despite our best efforts.  I think wilderness exists in the sense that Turner describes it as “quality” (107).

People can be wild; however acting too wild can place one on the outskirts of society.  While we are unwilling to act as wildlings or savages, we are also unwilling to play by the rules put forth by the land we live on as described by Wendell Berry.  This hypocrisy, has put us into a perpetual cycle where “‘the business of America is business”’ (Berry, 199).  Wild can mean lacking supervision or restraint.  In this sense does capitalism not promote wild behavior when it comes to extracting as many natural resources as possible to increase profits?  Does this fact not become even more ominous when it seems the “business of the American government is to serve, protect, and defend business” (Berry, 199)?

This cycle has led us into the lifestyle that Berry warns destroys our land because it forces us to rely on larger and larger factory farming.  It also correlates to what Plumwood describes as reducing animal lives “in factory farming systems that treat them as living meat” (8).  We separate ourselves from nature or wilderness, but we act erratically and often hypocritically.  For example as Plumwood lays forth, we look at animal attacks on humans as an atrocity as if we are not and never were part of the food chain.  We could never see ourselves in the same situation we force upon our supply of chickens and cows.  When an animal attacks a human we respond by trying to shoot it.  If that does not sound like the definition we give for wild or savage I don’t know what does.

However, I prefer to look at wild as a description of quality.  Perhaps I will never see the true quality of wilderness but I think I can understand the essence or spirit of the word.  In a sense it describes freedom, it can even describe health or a healthy state.  The word sustainable comes to mind when I think of wild because while we can stifle wilderness I don’t think we will ever be able to rid ourselves of the feeling, state, or being.  If we were to let the world act in a wild state, it would work in cycles where life blooms and decays and blooms again.  We as humans tend to bloom using resources from distant lands, then decay in a tightly sealed box where we do not become part of the nutrient cycle (or at least we try our best to separate ourselves).

Looking back on this semester, there have been many instances showing how we try to control nature and treat it, as Turner put it, as a patient.  Humans constantly simplify things and often end up making matters worse.  For example, applying widespread pesticides to the invasive fire ants ended up causing collateral damage.  We looked for the simple, uniform answer and it ended up backfiring.

One criticism I have with Turner is that he thinks we cannot solve our problems scientifically.  I think we need to take more time and look at the whole rather than a control group.  This seems to be different than most science we have been exposed to, but the truth is we need a new science to solve the complex problems.  We need to understand that not only are we dealing with a complex system but also a system that changes and adapts to its surroundings.  The dynamic nature or “wild-ness” of these ecosystems means either backing off or thinking in a different sense.  Maybe we need to understand the world more like the aborigines brought up in Plumwood’s article.  Maybe we need to change the way we think about science.  Maybe we need to just back off and let wilderness take its course.  The latter seems unrealistic to me because we have already made a lasting impact and if we were to take this course Meyer could be right when he says it would take millions of years for wilderness to return.

The readings for this week, especially Meyer’s book The End of the Wild, left me questioning my place in this world and has made me want to do everything I can do to save it.  But, the sad reality is that there is only so much I can do as a 21 year old.  Yes I can live sustainably by using a reusable bottle of water and biking or walking to class every day, but as a college student I cannot do much more.  There are actually few people in the world that can really have an impact.  This is most prominent when it comes to endangered or “relic” species that Meyer’s mentions in his book.  According to Meyer’s, every year 3,000 different species of plants or animals becomes extinct, and at the same time only 1 new species is discovered.  This is especially alarming because there are some species we don’t even know about that we are killing.

There have been efforts to save endangered species though.  As inhumane as some zoos can be, they can actually help.  When our class went to a zoo the other week, we were all saddened by the lives and actions we saw with the animals.  While I do not think animals like tigers or hyenas should be kept in zoos, the smaller jaguar that was there was actually benefiting the species.  There are about 300 of these jaguars in zoos, and only 120 in the wild.  You may be asking why is it good for the majority of them to be in zoos, and the answer is easy but hard to cope with … the main reason they are becoming extinct is because of habitation loss.  Humans will always develop undeveloped land for either the resources or real estate (as we see with the Tiger Salamander).

Not all of these animals are staying permanently in the zoos; some zoos are a temporary healing zone for injured or sick animals, and eventually they get released. Some successful efforts Meyer’s highlights are the flock of “relic” geese that were raised in a contained setting and eventually taught their natural migratory routes, as well as the white wolf that has been making a comeback recently.  Something that is limiting the wolfs comeback is regulations set forth by the US government.  The US government has been reintroducing wolfs in the northeast, but they also say farmers are allowed to shoot any wolf that attacks their animals.  This is an example of what Meyer’s calls “human selection,” rather than the regular “natural selection.”  We see this human selection all over the world with deer in the US, the decline of lions in Africa to protect game animals, and the efforts put forth to protect pandas because they are “cute.”

Meyer’s is not completely pessimistic though.  While he thinks we have lost our wilderness, he does think we can save some of what we have left.  The suggestion he makes for this is a heavily managed wild.  “Relic” species or animals in danger will have to be monitored, and I hate to say it, may have to be kept in zoos until a suitable natural location can be found for them (but how natural will that location be?).

In this uncertain world we live in, there is something we can be certain about: Change is certain.  So humans as a species have to unite and try and make that change a positive one; if we don’t it will truly be the end of the wild.

Here is the video Virginia and I talked about:

http://www.upworthy.com/what-made-this-die-hard-fox-news-fan-believe-in-climate-change?c=3501

The fairly depressing view that Meyer takes in his book, The End of the Wild is complimented by Wendell Berry’s article, Conservation and Local Economy. The ladder describes a way in which our culture can make efforts to better our world rather than acknowledge that our world is in a devastated state and still not make changes to it. Meyer makes it clear that our society is needs to improve the way we live and treat the environment, however, he gives little direction for how people should right our wrongs. In Conservation and Local Economy Berry understands that our world is in a state of turmoil and he offers a solution. Both authors recognize that nature’s wounds are a result of the way our culture has designed us to think and therefore act. After reading both of these articles it is apparent that a paradigm shift is essential if we want our earth and our communities to regain their strength. Although a shift from a consumer society to a society not based on the acquisition of material goods may seem idealistic, the concept of local economies that Berry describes seems necessary to stabilize the future of our world.

I truly agree with Meyer when he says that the end of the wild is not about the environment or about ourselves, but it is about the things we value, our priorities, and our cultural norms. He also says, “The end of the wild is about how we have chose to live and how those choices relate to the world around us”(Meyer, 74). It is so important that we as humans know that our choices really do matter. Even if we are not going out into the rainforest and chopping the trees down ourselves, we should be cognizant of each purchase we make.  We should know the origin of our food and reassess our comfortable living habits for these habits surely make an impact on the natural world.  As Meyer states, “…the wild is about us. Demanding instant-on appliances, out-of-season vegetables, and ten-mile-per-gallon armored transports to move groceries home means drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.” (Meyer, 75) Entities like grocery stores, microwaves, and disposal dishware are so engrained in our culture that it becomes difficult to turn the blame onto us because we know nothing different. We are hesitant to tell ourselves that we are in fact a part of the problem, but we have enough sense to know there are other options. Our society has brought us up in a guilt-free throwaway culture and it is our responsibility to make a change. Wendell Berry’s article provides us with some inspiration to be the change.

Instead of listening to the standards that our culture has set, it is time that we listen to the limits that nature implores we obey. Berry suggests that we advocate for change in global economies to local economies. Our society does not value nature or the people that produce for the economy, both are objects of labor. Berry would agree with Meyer that in order to salvage what is left of the wild or of nature we need to make a change in our culture. Berry states,  …we need to substitute ourselves, our neighborhoods, our local resources, for expensive imported goods and services…(Berry, 204) We have removed our manual labor from being present in the world and have been replaced with products of labor like technology with nature and humans contributing to this. It is not to say that we have to stop the advancement of technology or make our feet our main source of transportation, but it is important to recognize the end of the wild is in our hands. By listening to nature’s pleas we can make efforts to rebuild a new kind of wild. As Berry says, standards were never set by us but by nature. We have ignored nature for so long that many of the blessings of the natural world that were once available to us have been exploited to the point of extinction. We need to appreciate the treasures in the trees that we pass every day but still do not value.

Livingston

Well, I don’t know what to say anymore. As we conclude this quest to understand the human place in nature, it appears that there is no nature left, and of the animal kingdom only pest-types may remain. We have been discussing the wild and all of it’s intrinsic bounty since week 1, and Thoreau since 1851, yet we continue to gobble it up, and it appears as Jack Turner put it, that what we do preserve is not being done correctly. We are the smartest animal on the earth according to Meyer, yet we are blind to see the effect we have had upon our ecosystems.

What is to be done in a system in which so much has already been done? I found Berry’s article to have a soothing and well thought out approach. Berry wrote about how our standards must shift in order to live amongst nature. The notion that we cannot degrade the natural world at the expense of our false economic structure. This is what we as humans have hung our hat on! How do we get away from this? Berry goes on to talk about making people landowners, and instilling in everyone a sense of worth of the land. If they care about this land, and see that it may provide for them and for future generations then landscapes will be preserved and ecosystems will re-develop. It wouldn’t be the same as un-touched preserves, but instead we may enter into our each own ecosystems.

I think we all need to enter the prey-predator relationship. It has seemed to do wonders for the ecological outlook of Val Plumwood. Reading Plumwood’s article about her crocodile encounter really put everything into perspective. This whole semester we have been reading about our quest for dominion over nature, our impact on every single species (End of Wild), and how we have beheaded this mystic creature called nature.It was good to go to a single person, on a canoe, accepting the fact that they have become prey because they are in an ecosystem which permits it. A crocodile will eat you. You are not going to be able to buy it off, drastically change its landscape to weaken it, or even wrestle it (contrary to popular belief) . The respect for the natural process and the respect for the animal that Plumwood had was inspiring and made me think what the heck, it would be an honor to become a superior hunting species prey, atleast then I could say I contributed something to the ecosystem. My energy flow ended on a positive note. Not everyone could say that.

Man, I hope this course hasn’t left me wanting to get eaten. But the pessimistic outlook I have now on nature and what we consider natural has forever been changed. I know what we have done to this world, and I know where our efforts presently fall short. I hope to contribute more solutions than just becoming a meal. However, I do think that human ambition has lead us here. The standards need to be shifted. We need some more crocodile attacks.

The Power in Localization:

Today’s world is quite obviously conflicted with a slew of environmental issues. As we continue the process of identifying, evaluating, and attempting to find solutions for these, those invested in our environment are faced with a complex and dynamic set of societal hurdles to overcome. Everything from economic ideals to cultural mentalities adds up to a monstrous web of complications burdening our progress in positive environmental movements. While numerous factors play into this difficulty, one that stands out as a major obstacle is our current system of globalization. In The End of the Wild and The Art of Commonplace Stephen Meyer and Wendell Berry both look into what has resulted from our evolution into a globalized world and what are some solutions of minimizing or reversing the impacts of this well established system.

In Meyer’s exploration of the end of the wild, he uses a myriad of viewpoints to explain and demystify the issues inherent in our current extinction crisis. With perspectives in biology, economics, ecology, and even sociology, Meyer lays out how both our historical and current actions are completely obliterating our natural world, and most specifically the species living on this planet. Today, much of our human activity revolves around concepts routed in globalization. Whether it is the extensive international transportation of goods, or the cultural mentalities and behaviors that have resulted from such an elaborate and interconnected global system, we are seeing the negative effects of globalization on our biological world.

Berry looks at the issue through more of a land use perspective, but still hauntingly connects the dots between globalization and much of our environmental degradation. He makes the shocking yet, honest declaration that “very little of our land that is being used…is being well used”. This has been a grave error in our movements from rural, self-sustaining societies to dead rural communities with severe disconnects from global economies. We are now living in a world of disconnects; detached from nature, the wild, sustainability, communities, and economic self-proficiency. Berry offers a comforting solution in the form of healthy, local-focused communities. Berry is able to push past much of the conceptual hurdles we have placed between us and our hopes for a healthy environment and does so through an emphasis on re-establishing localization. Berry states, “if the place is well preserved, if its entire membership, natural and human, is present in it, and if the human economy is in practical harmony with the nature of the place, then the community is healthy”.

As seen through Berry’s views as well as in some of the ideas Meyer presents on the extinction crisis, we have major faults in the current structure and cultural mentalities engrained in our globalized world. Meyer comments on our conceptions of nature, “coexisting with nature has always meant taming it- consuming it”. It is time to move away, and far away, from this mentality and towards one more focused in positive and beneficial relationships with nature, land, and resources. As Berry states, “we must learn again to see the present world for what it is. The health of nature is the primary ground of hope – if we can find the humility and wisdom to accept nature as our teacher”. Taking the lessons from nature involves not dismantling our environment into one focused on global production and exchange or specific species, but rather internalizing nature into local communities and the wonderful functions nature provides for us. “We must discover new ways to do old things”, as Meyer wisely stated.

These lessons go beyond solely this week’s themes in the readings, but rather represent an accumulation of thoughts and ideas that have been building throughout the semester. While environmental issues can be a headache (quite literally), we need to find solutions despite the uncomfortable and difficult realizations we stumble upon. Often, I feel as if many of my own mental road blocks stem from the simple magnitude of our global problems. This has especially come to light in such a time where I am attempting to find my place in this environmental scheme and where I foresee the most positive impact occurring through my own contributions. My thoughts on nature and understanding our place in it, will no doubt evolve and be redesigned throughout my life, but I am comforted in the fact that I continually return to and am drawn to the ideas of meaningful planning, local communities, balance with nature and its systems, and the strength in establishing a sense of place. Meyer, Berry, and countless authors have touched upon these ideals and I feel fortunate to have benefited from their works and to continually work off of them.

In Turner’s piece Wildness and the Defense of Nature he makes the clear distinction between wildness and wilderness.  By using terms such as “autonomous” and “self-willed” to describe facets of wildness he endows Thoreau’s term with a meaning antithetical to our conservation-centered understanding of wilderness (107; 108).  He further defines our current understanding of wilderness as working towards the goal of further removal from human systems, defining it “as a benchmark for natural processes against which the health of man’s trammeled world might be measured” (110).

Turner brings up the very points we have been grappling with all semester: What is human’s place in nature?  How do we define nature? How should we treat nature? 

These questions cannot possibly be answered.  Perhaps they should not be. Perhaps the place of humans in nature is to debate theories, think critically and interact intellectually with nature through “humble, careful, non-intrusive practice[s]” that ultimately place humans in  the same state of disequilibrium and chaos that causes life to evolve (124; 123).  The place of humans in nature should perhaps be to emulate the wildness in its intense and radical understanding of autonomy and self-will; exhibiting the sentimentality behind wild as “a project of the self” (107) in every sense of the word.  Our role in nature should not be to categorize nature, study it and ultimately claim it as ours but to learn from it, respect it and act in harmony through the radical exhibition of self-determination and will.

Every text we’ve read this semester has come up with theories of action.  Whether it be smaller manipulative practices such as urban planning, wildlife management, or the establishment of preserves and natural parks or radical approaches such as the Wildlands Project (110; Meyer 58) no human action will restore nature to a state devoid of human influence.  We can relocate peoples, change their consumptive patterns and develop “green communities” but their impacts will still be felt.  Fatalism is the name of the game and perhaps the only thing to do now is sit back and watch.  This sounds cruel, but is it truly?

Is letting nature reclaim its space and processes once more truly neglectful? Does nature need us and furthermore does characterizing nature as in need of care and stewardship negate its true value as a self-sustaining system?

Personally I don’t think nature needs us.  Through both small and large scale reclamation projects we are fostering human control and will over nature, forming it into a ‘created environment’ that expresses human domination in a manner so coy, it can be camouflaged as natural (109).  We are acting unnaturally by doing so.  Nature is a cruel place that can function in erratic ways, though ultimately an ecological stasis is reached.  Nature will reclaim its natural form without our help, and it will reclaim a “new” natural form because of our unnatural inputs.  Nature is far from stagnant… it is resilient, constantly evolving and changing.  Nature should not be infantilized as something in need of our care (especially our ill-advised, highly self-motivated and highly Western understanding of care).  It does a disservice to both the environment we are trying to aid and to people.  In our separation from the environment we have lost the wildness Thoreau once described as well as our embodiment of this wildness. We have become not only the alienating factor but the product of alienated thinking.  What we need to do is not save the bears, save the whales or any variety of trees… but save ourselves.  We are the factor here that needs fixing.  The wilds of nature will reclaim themselves, fix our damage and outlive humanity.  Our role as stewards is ultimately self-defeating and will always be because of our environmental ethic.  This brings me back to humans’ place in nature.  Humans’ place in nature is to think! We need to act only after cognizant reflection.  We need to act less, seek to control less, and ponder more.

If we were to think more, work less, produce less what would our world look like?  My thoughts return to Thoreau’s writing on Walden Pond and his deep respect for the natural world.  It was not based on the conservation of any certain species but a holistic sense of wonder and respect for a system that accommodated him but was not reliant on him for survival.  We need to return to this environmental ethic first and foremost before we act to “save” any aspects of the environment.  We need to realize the immensity of natural systems and processes in a way that is non-scientific but full of a kind of wonder that places human and natural systems on the same plane.   We need to embody this understanding of wildness in a way that is radical and truly wild.

Have we lost the “wild” that was once ominous, and unknown to man? Are we exploiting resources for the sole purpose of human consumption? Is it possible for humans to live one with nature in the future?  These questions and more environmental concerns are all addressed in Stephen Meyer’s book, “The End of the Wild.” He provides a purely pessimistic view towards human’s involvement in the wild, counting on all of the extinctions, and introductions of invasive species that have occurred throughout history.  While Meyer believes that we have lost the meaning of the “wild” for now, he does provide some suggestions as to how we can interact with nature in a more intelligent, and caring fashion than we have in past centuries.

Meyer begins his book with a startling few paragraphs speaking about the increase in extinction rates.  He states that the extinction rate today surpasses 3,000 species per year and is continuing to increase at a rapid rate.  He begins the book by saying that we have lost with all of our efforts to save biodiversity, structure, and organization among the natural world.  This statement was really hard to continue past as it set a negative tone for the rest of the book.  This was exactly the case for most of the remaining pages as Meyer gave numerous examples of extinct species, invasive species, and numerous attempts by humans to make up for their past environmental mistakes with remediation efforts.  Meyer truly discounts any efforts that have been made by humans to mitigate environmental problems, and restore nature to its original form.

Meyer does denounce the notion that humans should let nature take its intended course, but does believe there is no avoidance of the manifestations of the end of the wild in centuries ahead.  While Meyer believes we have “lost” the wild, he does provide some examples of how we can live in a more harmonious manner with the natural environment.  He states that we need to create moral linkages with nature and recognize a shared existence.  Humans have not demonstrated this oneness with nature, but rather humans have taken advantage of all of natures offerings.  Natural ecosystems have been disturbed for centuries, and natural communities have gone extinct for this reason.  This is where the precautionary principle comes into hand; when we need to think of our human actions before building a housing complex on an wetland for instance.

One suggestion that Meyer makes is his call for more intensive management of the wild.  Vulnerable species will have to be actively and heavily managed.  He states that native species must be conserved, while alien species must be rigorously managed.  The common thought is that human interaction will be detrimental to the conservation of the natural world.  What Meyer suggests is that humans, who have modified the natural world to meet their benefits, must also manage what is left, and restore native species as need be.  We as humans need to find a better way to coexist with nature. We cannot commodify everything in nature; this only creates a market that destroys the environment.  The “wild” as Meyer may think of it will hardly ever be restored to its original state.  Therefore, we must take action now as humans to halt extinction of plants and animals, live holistically with nature, and use the precautionary principle when considering our footprint on the natural world.