What makes the wilderness?

[Adrienne Marshall, ERG graduate student]

As a new ERGie last September, I -- along with the rest of my cohort -- took “Interdisciplinary Analysis in Energy and Resources” with professors Isha Ray and Dan Kammen. Part of the course was a close reading and discussion of environmental classics selected by the ERG faculty. Inspired by faculty leadership and in-class discussions with my peers, I want to share a discussion of one of my own favorite environmental classics, Wilderness and the American Mind, by Roderick Frazier Nash.

The ERG library: Full of environmental classics and fodder for discussion. [Adrienne Marshall]

Like many other ERGies, I find renewal and inspiration in wilderness exploration. In Wilderness and the American Mind, Nash offers a critical look at the origins of the wilderness concept, and the history and future of wilderness in the United States. When I first read it, the book helped me to shift my perspective: a concept that I thought was fixed and objective turned out to be slippery and elusive, the product not of physical reality but rather a collective cultural imagination.

When I first read it, the book helped me to shift my perspective: a concept that I thought was fixed and objective turned out to be slippery and elusive, the product not of physical reality but rather a collective cultural imagination.

Nash begins his work with the Norse and Teutonic origins of the word “wilderness” (apparently related to uncontrollable, unruly, and disordered). He offers a history of the wilderness idea in Europe that suggests that wilderness was seen primarily as a dangerous and scary place, the home of nefarious creatures. Nash points out Judeo-Christian roots as well; Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden into a wilderness. From these European roots, Nash follows American settlers into the New World and through the expansion of the frontier, documenting the ways that the wilderness concept reflected both European traditions and the physical and cultural environment of the settlers.

As the frontier shrank and urban comfort expanded, the idea of a desirable wilderness began to develop. Nash argues that "wild country lost much of its repulsiveness. It was not that wilderness was any less solitary, mysterious, and chaotic, but rather in the new intellectual context these qualities were coveted." As wilderness became both more desirable and scarce, efforts to protect it expanded, convening in the modern system of official wilderness designations.

The Sawtooth Range, deep in the Yosemite Wilderness [Adrienne Marshall]

With this history in place, Nash points out a few of the relatively recent conflicts around the ideas of wilderness. He argues that for defenders of wilderness “wilderness appreciation was a faith,” but that they often used rational, economic arguments out of perceived necessity. This debate highlights some of the difficulties of wilderness: Does it have intrinsic values? And can those values be used to justify its conservation? How does our understanding of wilderness as a social construct influence our desire to preserve it? To my reading, Nash’s work brings up these questions by providing historical context, but ultimately leaves their answering to the reader.

I have found Nash’s historical perspective to be invaluable in understanding both my personal and the American cultural relationships to wilderness. I want to pause, however, to point out two problems. The first is that the “American mind” that Nash discusses is the culturally and politically dominant American mind. The book largely ignores the narratives of marginalized people relative to wilderness. Perhaps we could argue that those would be outside the scope of the book, but I think that this point at least drives us towards further reading or scholarship.

The Clark Range in Yosemite Wilderness, named for Galen Clark, an early defender of preservation of public lands before the popularization of wilderness [Adrienne Marshall]

The second area where I respectfully take issue with Nash’s arguments is his characterization of the future of wilderness. In the epilogue to the fourth edition of his book, he suggests that our growing population has left limited space for wilderness. As a solution, he advocates what he calls “island civilization,” an “implosion” of development in which we dispose of pastoral or suburban landscapes, and people choose to live either in highly dense urban environments, or to return to a primeval lifestyle in the wilderness.

Personally, I benefit greatly from the semi-wild recreational opportunities in the hills of the East Bay. In the island civilization vision, what potential is there for semi-wild areas for education, recreation, and renewal?

On first reading these suggestions, I disagreed but wondered if my own disagreement was the result of a personal dislike for the suggestion. On further reflection, I still disagree with this vision for the future. I think it misses a couple of important points. One that Nash himself makes earlier in the book is the need for balance. Personally, I benefit greatly from the semi-wild recreational opportunities in the hills of the East Bay. In the island civilization vision, what potential is there for semi-wild areas for education, recreation, and renewal? This is not to mention, of course, the role of these areas in biodiversity conservation and provision of ecosystem services.

What, also, of agriculture and industry? Perhaps, in Nash’s island civilization, our technology is so advanced that we somehow have no land use requirements for agriculture, mining, or forestry. I find it difficult to imagine technology that would accomplish this without breaking a few laws of thermodynamics. If it is somehow possible, it seems like an idea so ungrounded in our current reality that it is not very useful for current planning.

So, if “island civilization” isn’t the answer to wilderness preservation needs, what is? What does wilderness mean on an individual or cultural level? When we consider that wilderness is a construct, and our wildlands have been influenced by humans for thousands of years, how do we deal, intellectually and practically, with the impacts of climate change on our wilderness areas? What future do we want for wilderness, and how do we achieve it? Share your thoughts in the comments!


TOP IMAGE: Aspens with fall colors in the La Garita Wilderness in southern Colorado [Adrienne Marshall]

All art and photos copyright Adrienne Marshall
Citations are from: R.F. Nash. (2001) Wilderness and the American Mind. New Haven and London: Yale University Press (original work published 1967).


Note: The views expressed here belong solely to the author of each entry and are not representative of the position of the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley.