Wilderness

Wilderness in general is a romnantic construct that does not exist in the way it is often imagined. The myth of the untouched, pristine wilderness is a colonialist construct that has been used to justify the exploitation of land and people. The following quotes illustrate this:

The myth persists that in 1492 the Americas were a sparsely populated wilderness, “a world of barely perceptible human disturbance.” There is substantial evidence, however, that the Native American landscape of the early sixteenth century was a humanized landscape almost everywhere. Populations were large. Forest composition had been modified, grasslands had been created, wildlife disrupted, and erosion was severe in places. Earthworks, roads, fields, and settlements were ubiquitous. With Indian depopulation in the wake of Old World disease, the environment recovered in many areas. A good argument can be made that the human presence was less visible in 1750 than it was in 1492.

William M. Denevan: The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492, Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin, in Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 82, No. 3, The Americas before and after 1492: Current Geographical Research. (Sep., 1992), pp. 369-385.

The Ponca Native American chief Standing Bear said:

We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, and winding streams with tangled growth, as “wild”. Only to the white man was nature a “wilderness” and only to him was the land “infested” with “wild” animals and “savage” people. To us it was tame. Earth was bountiful and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery. Not until the hairy man from the east came and with brutal frenzy heaped injustices upon us and the families we loved was it “wild” for us. When the very animals of the forest began fleeing from his approach, then it was that for us the “Wild West” began.

Standing Bear L.: Indian Wisdom (1933) In: Callicott JB, Nelson M, ed.: The great new wilderness debate. Athens.: University of Georgia Press; 1998. p. 201–206.

In the context of SIW, we use the term wilderness as a subjective term; something is wild only in our own perception, with our own background. What might appear as wilderness to one person might be a familiar environment to another. What might appear as wilderness to me today might be a familiar environment to me tomorrow.