National Parks Promoting Wilderness (original) (raw)
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Salvaging Wilderness from the Tomb of History: A Response to The National Parks: America’s Best Idea
In the age of industrialism, wilderness is the counterbalance to human excesses and the inspiration for environmental activists. Today, wilderness is even more important and contested as people face multiple environmental crises on a planet with an exploding human population and voracious consumer appetite. Too often obscured by the technosphere that engulfs us, wilderness awaits its ecoteur filmmakers to give it greater presence on the public screens of the technoscape. After The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, wilderness still waits. By treating wilderness as an historical relic and vacation spot, the film saps it of its vital relevance and political power. Audiences must understand the foundational role of wilderness in their lives, instead of being pacified with an history drained of color that disconnects them from wilderness. As people wonder if there is a future for industrial civilization, wilderness provides the last best hope for rethinking our place on earth.
Wilderness Ideologies in a Settler Colonial Society: A case study of the Everglades National Park
2012
In this thesis, I discuss the production of wilderness ideologies in a settler colonial society, based in part upon the dichotomization of nature from culture. Specifically, I analyze the effects of settler colonialism in the creation of America's National Park system, looking at the Everglades National Park as a unique case study that both perpetuates and breaks away from the traditional construct of National Parks. To do so, I use magazine narratives of the Everglades region and National Park from the 1930s-1960s. This work serves to contribute to the field of settler colonial studies by highlighting the interconnections between settler colonialism and American ideologies of wilderness.
Idealizing Inhabited Wilderness: A Revision to the History of Indigenous Peoples and National Parks
History Compass, 2014
Whereas most histories of national parks and indigenous peoples have largely focused on dispossession of resident populations in the making of uninhabited wilderness areas, this article surveys the perhaps equally problematic history of the idea of preserving human communities today referred to as ‘indigenous’ in parks. In the very first-ever call for a national park, as well as in frequent proposals for nation parks throughout the nineteenth, twentieth and now the twenty-first century, protected areas have been envisioned as places of conservation, study and display not only of endangered species, but also of human groups perceived to be endangered. Drawing on cases from the early US, colonial Africa, Indonesia and India, as well as on histories of international conservation policies emerging around WWI, the article argues that this alternative conception of what national parks should look like has been pervasive, perennial, and deeply problematic. The problem is not only that indigenous groups have long been perceived as in danger of becoming extinct, and therefore paternalistically projected as in need of protection. It is also that these peoples, who have long suffered dehumanizing animal analogies, are envisioned as endangered like wildlife, and in need of protection in parks.
Public Lands in the Western US: Place and Politics in the Clash between Public and Private, 2020
The philosophies and views of nature prevalent in the 19th century West shaped the early National Park Service, and continue to influence park policy today. Park-builders incorrectly viewed early parks as untouched “wilderness,” even as Native peoples continued to occupy, revere, and actively manage lands and resources on these lands. This misapprehension fostered the creation and enforcement of park regulations meant to protect wild spaces, resulting in the displacement of both Native peoples and the culturally significant habitats that they had helped sustain for millennia. Among these regulations, federally imposed restrictions on burning and other traditional plant community management, as well as on plant gathering have been noticeably disruptive to the cultural and natural heritage of park lands. We address Native plant habitat management traditions, and their disruption through land conservation efforts, in one of the world’s premier national parks: Yosemite National Park. In addition, we explore new mechanisms that seek to restore the Native presence and the impress of Native ecological practices on the land – including NPS-sponsored burning programs and plant gathering rules. While federal recognition and facilitation of plant gathering seems a positive step, these developments continue to be contested by stakeholders across the political spectrum.
The Case for Wilderness Preservation
The Case for Wilderness Preservation "In Wildness," Thoreau famously declared, "is the preservation of the World." 1 America is blessed with an extensive system of federally designated wilderness areas, amounting to nearly 5% of the land mass of the United States. Each year, millions of hikers, backpackers, and other wilderness enthusiasts venture into the American backcountry to experience nature in its primeval, undeveloped state. The idea of setting aside large tracts of scenic, nearly pristine public lands for national parks and protected wilderness areas has been called "America's best idea" by documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. 2 Yet there are many critics who question the whole idea of wilderness preservation, or at least what some call "the received view" of wilderness. In this chapter let's look at the case for and against wilderness preservation. 13.1 The Concept of Wilderness We must begin by getting clear on what we mean by "wilderness," for the word has changed meaning over time and is now used in a variety of senses. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term "wilderness" derives from the Old English word wild-dēor-ness, meaning "the place of wild deer." In the Bible, the Hebrew and Greek terms that are standardly translated as "wilderness" connote an arid, uninhabited wasteland. 3 In this sense, wilderness was seen as a hostile and dangerous place, an abode of evil and desolation, the antipode of the paradisal Garden of Eden. This negative Judeo-Christian view of wilderness was long dominant in Western civilization and strongly influenced early European settlers' views of the vast American forests and their "savage" native inhabitants. 4 A more positive view of wilderness emerged with the nineteenth-century Romantic movement, when thinkers such as William Wordsworth, Henry
Evolving Values and How They Have Shaped the United States National Park System
Built Heritage
As one of the oldest and best-known park systems, the US National Park System continues to influence park systems around the world. However, the origins and wide diversity of US national parks are often not fully understood as there is a long-lived misconception that the large western parks represent the entirety of the US National Park System. In fact, the establishment of the first US national parks was heavily influenced by large 19 th-century picturesque urban parks that provided benefits to the public and society. The foundational concept of national parks serving a public purpose has never changed, however, the types of landscapes selected as national parks have changed as societal values have evolved and now the system provides public benefits beyond those originally envisioned. This paper examines the development of the US National Park System, emphasising the evolution of landscape values. The emergence of the cultural landscape concept illustrates the evolution of landscape values from their early antecedents in the late 19 th century to their contributions to innovative conservation strategies today. Throughout the development of the US National Park System, international exchange has and continues to play a pivotal role, advancing the inter-linkages of culture and nature for the most effective conservation.
Integrating Cultural Resources and Wilderness Character
ness and wilderness character. Not all those involved in the preservation and appreciation of wilderness agree with this statement. Varying perspectives derive from a basic diff erence in belief about the relationship between humans and the nonhuman worldwhether or not humans are a part of nature. For some, wilderness means pristine nature and the absence of human modifi cation, where the presence of ancient dwellings, historic sites, or other signs of prior human use degrades wilderness. For others, wilderness is a cultural landscape that has been valued, used, and in some areas modifi ed by humans for thousands of years (fi g. 1). Reconciling these perspectives can be diffi cult.