Self Preservation

Having lamented the absence of a detailed account of the evictions executed in the formation of America's National Parks (see post here), I now discover that Mark Dowie's Conservation Refugees: The Hundred-Year Conflict Between Global Conservation and Native Peoples (MIT Press, 2009) offers just such an account. Dowie argues that while the aims of the conservation movement had behind them an in many ways admirable moral imperative, their conflation of the "natural" with a landscape empty of humans resulted in the persecution of native populations. The subsequent displacement of such populations from their homelands, in areas including Yosemite, Yellowstone and Mesa Verde, was so agressively undertaken as to allow them to classify, in contemporary terms, as refugees.

In a recent article, Dowie suggests that a major source of the conflict between conservationists and resident peoples was "conflicting views of nature," along with "radically different definitions of 'wilderness.'" While recent attempts to understand the notion of the "wild" or of "wilderness" (in the work of Jay Griffiths, Richard Mabey and Robert Macfarlane amongst others) may seem to be merely interesting exercises in philosophical history, Dowie's point suggests that a faulty or one-dimensional understanding of these terms can in fact have serious, widespread consequences over a lengthy historical range. His other important observation is that "the very landscapes they [the conservationists] seek to protect owe their high biodiversity to the practices of the people who have lived there, in some cases for thousands of years." Behind this claim is another - that man is himself an intrinsic part of the natural world, and any attitude or philosophical stance that suggests that nature stands outside man, and is available for his contemplation without consequence, is sadly misguided. While the motive behind such contemplative exercises might very well be the understanding of the self, creating emptied landscapes in order to faciliate insight is no preservation of the "natural" at all, and as such can provide limited insight into the human self, which can surely only truly be understood in relation to the natural world, other humans included.

(Image: Miwok-Paiute ceremony, Yosemite Park, 1872)

Away With the Fairies

While we're on the subject of Robert Macfarlane, it's worth noting that Robert appeared in the first edition of the latest series of Travellers' Tree on BBC Radio 4, entitled "Wilderness" (available to listen to here, with Robert appearing at around 4.10). The programme considers the recent upsurge in interest in holidays to areas formerly considered too remote, or too inhospitable, to be a vacation option. Such an upsurge is of course partially inspired by, and reinforced by, a spate of books and programmes about adventurous travel, expeditions and the more contemplative aspects of interactions with the natural world. Travellers' Tree touches (albeit somewhat lightly) on some of the ethical issues involved in wilderness travel, the difficulties of large numbers of the population attempting to get away from everyone else, and the thorny issue of defining just what wilderness might mean. Something to which Robert has of course given considerable thought in his book The Wild Places. Photo: Robert's wilderness recommendation - Fairy Pools, Isle of Skye.