This quote makes a simple but very fundamental and important point that we should cherish and protect the wilderness. In doing so it side-stepped a fundamental flaw in human thinking; viz that wilderness is a resource. Since there is no way that the author of this statement was going to convince modern homo sapiens that wilderness is not a resource, he focused on the fact that, were it a resource, it is not renewable. The end result is the same.
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Resource is more than a late-twentieth and early twenty-first century buzz word. In our super capitalistic society everything is a resource. A resource is "a stock or supply of money, materials, staff, and other assets that can be drawn on by a person or organization in order to function effectively." (Google dictionary) It all goes back to money. When your employers says that you are their most valuable resource or asset; since asset is a synonym; it means you are theirs to use to make money. But we're not here to talk economics. In fact, the reality of the capitalistic use of the word resource is central to the problem. Capitalism treats everything like a resource.
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You are not a resource unless you are okay with slavery and accept that you are controlled and exploited for someone else's financial gain. The wilderness is not a resource. It does not exist to be controlled and exploited for anyone's financial gain. The wilderness is actually what is left of the way Earth developed; the way it existed for billions of years before the homo sapiens. Made up of a plethora of ecosystems, which together we call nature, the Earth developed a balance which enables and promotes the perpetuity of life. When some event disturbs that balance, nature must adapt. The problem we create for this phenomenal and complex system is that we destroy and create a disturbance in the natural balance so fast that nature isn't able to adapt quickly enough. Our arrogant attitude and behavior toward the Earth results in the extinction of thousands of species of animals, most of which play an important part in the balance of nature. As Chivian and Bernstein write in their book, Sustaining life: how human health depends on biodiversity, "Although extinction is a natural phenomenon, it occurs at a natural 'background' rate of about one to five species per year. Scientists estimate we're now losing species at 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate, with literally dozens going extinct every day." (i) (ii)
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Then we have to consider what we are doing to plant life. We are destroying the world's forest at. the rate of 58 million square miles every year. That's an area 14.5 times larger than the entire United States, or 48 football fields every minute. (iii) How long can nature survive under that type of onslaught? Currently only about a quarter of the Earth's land surface is wilderness and only 13.2% of our oceans are "free from intense human activity." (iv) Only five percent of the United States is wilderness and the State of Alaska is three of that five percent. (v)
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Wilderness is not a resource there for us to use to make money. Even if you want to believe that the wilderness is a resource, you can not deny that it is not a renewable resource. Once destroyed by human arrogance it is gone forever. When you clear millions of square miles and replace the natural ecosystem with factories, buildings, houses, roads, farms, plantations, mines, stockyards and other human amenities, the wilderness will not come back until the humans are gone. It is going to take millions of years for nature to recover from the damage we've done even if we stop being destructive today. We have to admit, that for the sake of the earth, it would be better if we were to be extinct. Sound harsh? It is just basic fact. Nature has the power to eradicate the human infestation. That may be its way of adapting and fighting for survival if we don't change our behavior.
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The only way we can make a difference is through our individual behavior. We must cherish and protect the wilderness. We must fight for the wilderness for our children and their children. Nature is not, as the super-capitalist would have us believe, a problem, resource or something to be controlled. Nature is our source of life. Nature is our hope for the future.
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"The wilderness is essential to our existence and our survival. The wilderness is not a renewable resource. Once it is destroyed by human arrogance, it is gone forever. Therefore it is up to us to cherish and protect it."
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FOOT NOTES:
(i) Chivian, E. and A. Bernstein (eds.) 2008. Sustaining life: How human health depends on biodiversity. Center for Health and the Global Environment. Oxford University Press, New York.
#wilderness #saveourplanet #nature #oldconservationist
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