Wilderness Values Research Articles

Mars and the Value of Wilderness

Mars and the Value of Wilderness

Linking wilderness mapping and ecosystem services: Identifying integrated wilderness and ecological indicators to quantify ecosystem services of wilderness

Wilderness has proven to provide a wide range of ecosystem services (ES). Wilderness have been shown to play an important role in preserving biodiversity and providing ES, which is indispensable to both nature and people. It is essential to integrate ES quantification into wilderness conservation and management. This study presents a method that combines the wilderness mapping and ecological indicators to measure ES of wilderness. The method was applied in 155,800 km2 of Shandong province in China, across 23 types of land use. First, relative wilderness value (RWV) and ecosystem service capability (ESC) were quantified according to Weighted Linear Combination (WLC). Then, spatial autocorrelation between RWV and ESC were tested and analyzed using GeoDa software. Finally, the Redundancy analysis was used to investigate the primary drivers of RWV and ESC in different landscape types. The findings showed that, there were 27,263 km2 of wilderness in Shandong province, of which 6,294 km2 were high-quality wilderness. The region with the highest RWV was the Yellow River Delta (RWV = 0.82), and the area with the highest ESC was Laoshan Mountain (ESC = 0.76). Spatial autocorrelation analysis showed a positive correlation between RWV and ESC (Pearson’s r = 0.637), both of which had significant spatial relevance (Moran’s I = 0.589, P < 0.005). The RWV and ESC high-high clusters were found to cover 5,223 km2 of high-quality wilderness areas. Regression analysis (R2 = 0.744) showed that RWV can quantify ESC of urban area reliably. Population density (Explaining 33.9 %-49.3 %) was found to be a key indicator of RWV and ESC changes through the Redundancy analysis. In addition, we discussed key drivers of RWV and ESC of high-quality wilderness according to different landscape types. This approach can be used and adopted to support planning decisions dealing with wilderness conservation and management.

Progress of Research on Ecological and Cultural Values of Urban Wilderness

Progress of Research on Ecological and Cultural Values of Urban Wilderness

Different people, different wild: Comparing and mapping wilderness representation in Wuyishan National Park, China

It is essential to better integrate wilderness representations of different stakeholders into wilderness conservation. The way in which local residents and other stakeholders frame the construction of wilderness of protected areas in developing countries are poorly understood. In these areas, land use policy and decision may lead to conflicts. This study aims to explore existing public wilderness representations using a questionnaire survey (n = 514) administered amongst tourists and other stakeholders in the Wuyishan National Park, in southeast China. The spatial differences in public representations of wilderness across different stakeholder groups were compared against expert knowledge. We found that integrated wilderness representation maps of different stakeholder groups were consistent, namely ‘area where wild animals live’, ‘area with no human influence’, ‘a barren and lonely area’. However, three sub-representations of the individual stakeholders varied significantly. Moreover, expert-based wilderness mapping did not reflect public representations accurately, and an integrated wilderness quality map considering wilderness representations across both stakeholders and experts can better identify detailed wilderness areas. Our study provides new insights and technical support for future exploration of wilderness conservation and mapping in China and other countries with insufficient awareness of wilderness values and investigations in a regional scale.

Early Historic Appreciation of Landscapes, Their Value and the Contribution of Ansel Adam’s Photographic Art to Landscape and Nature Conservation

Antoine Furetière’s Dictionnaire universel published in 1690 was the first to present the modern meaning of the term paysage as the “aspect of a country, the territory that extends within sight”. The first landscape paintings were made in Flanders in the 15th century and depicted views of the countryside. Landscape painting of the sea and the mountains only became generalized in the 18th century, with forests and deserts becoming popular subject in the century that followed. In the 20th century, geography and ecology appropriated the meaning of landscape which then became the figuration of the biosphere integrated into a distinct territory compartment. The idea of an intrinsic value of wilderness and wild landscapes is quite recent and is based on the idea that all organisms must be protected and that the spiritual bonds that link human beings to the wild are indispensable to their mental health. Through an analysis of Ansel Adams’s letters, I hypothesize that his love for nature and his perception of how urgent it was to preserve the wilderness were the catalyst and foundation of his photographic process. Following Adams’s thinking, I propose here that landscape photography can be actively involved in nature conservation and wilderness preservation.

Wilderness as Challenge for Moral and Valuable Representations of a Human Being. Review of: Duclos, J. S. (2022). Wilderness, Morality, and Value. Lanham: Lexington Books. pp.141.

A reviewed monograph considers the problem of wilderness. According to the author, wilderness should be considered as wilderness. Wilderness as wilderness overcomes the anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric limitations of all attempts to theoretically justify the need to protect wilderness, including environmental philosophy, bioethics, religious concepts of the environment, etc. Therefore, the author of the monograph offers a "nobody's and nowhere" view of wilderness and only it can reveal the true value of wilderness as such.

Journey to Love: William Carlos Williams in the Pacific Northwest

Abstract This article explores the legacy of William Carlos Williams among poets living and working in the Pacific Northwest. It takes up the question of a “regional poetics” that often surfaces in discussions of the Northwest, favoring an expansive definition of place as “elsewhere” in the twenty-first century American experience. In the Northwest, wilderness is the substantive elsewhere that informs regional identity. Examining the consequential relationship Williams had with Theodore Roethke and others such Denise Levertov, and his influence among subsequent generations of poets such as Rae Armantrout and Heather McHugh, I argue for a poetics of regeneration commensurate with wilderness values to preserve the vitality of land and language alike.

U.S. wilderness in the 21st century: A scoping review of wilderness visitor use management research from 2000 to 2020

Now over twenty years into the 21st century, it is suggested that we are entering a new era of wilderness visitor use management (VUM). Yet, we lack a recent review of the literature assessing the latest research trends to advance wilderness VUM in a meaningful way. Accordingly, this research serves as both a review of the last twenty years of U.S. wilderness VUM research and a launching point into the next era. Our assessment adds to several previous benchmarks that demonstrate the progress of wilderness VUM research. This review evaluates trends in methodologies and themes of inquiry specific to VUM research in federally-designated wilderness over the past twenty years. The findings inform our discussion on emergent wilderness values and relevancy, approaches and settings of research, the evolving aspects of VUM in the wilderness, and the need for the synthesis of research across the National Wilderness Preservation System.

Loving it to death: land use conflict, outdoor recreation and the contradictions of wilderness in Southeast Utah, USA

ABSTRACT Different cultural valuations of landscapes often underlie land use conflict. How do place-based experiences inform cultural values regarding landscapes? Further, how do such values shape conflicts over land use and land management? This paper draws from ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with recreational land users (primarily rock climbers), land managers, ranchers, and others in the Indian Creek area of Bears Ears National Monument in Southeast Utah to address these questions. The findings presented center on the following paradox: recreational users value the landscape as a vestige of wilderness values while simultaneously experiencing and contributing to socio-ecological dynamics that either impinge upon or unravel the basis of these values. We argue that discourses of sacredness, stewardship, authenticity, and ‘local ethics’ relieve some friction, but nonetheless build a common narrative that the landscape is being ‘loved to death.’ Two conclusions follow. First, land use conflicts can be generally understood as having cultural roots developed through embodied engagement with landscapes. Second, as land managers regulate outdoor recreation in multi-use settings, policies should engage the contradictory social pressures (namely wilderness ethics vs. high-impact consumption) that define outdoor recreation culture.

Genetic Approach on Sanionia uncinata (Hedw.) Loeske to Evaluate Representativeness of in situ Conservation Areas Among Protected and Neighboring Free Access Areas in Maritime Antarctica and Southern Patagonia

The Antarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPAs) are zones with restricted access to protect outstanding environmental, scientific, historic, aesthetic, or wilderness values adopted inside the Antarctic Treaty System. Meanwhile, in southern Patagonia, conservation initiatives are implemented by the state of Chile and private entities. However, both are considered unrepresentative. Our work evaluates the representativeness of thein situconservation through a genetic approach of the mossSanionia uncinata(Hedw.) Loeske among protected and neighboring free access areas in Maritime Antarctica and southern Patagonia. We discuss observed presence with both current and reconstructed past potential niche distributions (11 and 6 ka BP) in the Fildes Peninsula on King George Island. Results showed occurrence of several spatially genetic subpopulations distributed inside and among ASPA and free access sites. Some free access sites showed a higher amount of polymorphism compared with ASPA, having ancestry in populations developed in those places since 6 ka BP. The different spatial and temporal hierarchies in the analysis suggest that places for conservation of this species in Maritime Antarctica are not well-represented, and that some free access areas should be considered. This work represents a powerful multidisciplinary approach and a great challenge for decision-makers to improve the management plans and the sustainable development in Antarctica.

Intended and unintended consequences of wolf restoration to Yellowstone and Isle Royale National Parks

AbstractWolves (Canis lupus), a once widely distributed species, were systematically removed from many temperate zone ecosystems due to conflicts with humans. A change in human attitudes and cultural norms has brought about a recovery in some suitable areas, yet reintroductions are still controversial. Two notable reintroduction areas in the United States were Yellowstone and Isle Royale National Parks. Both proposals caused polarization and debate. In Yellowstone opposition focused on outside the park effects, mainly wolves killing livestock and wild game also desired by human hunters. At Isle Royale, opposition was mostly about human interventions into nature and impairment of wilderness values contrary to the spirit of 1964 Wilderness Act. Both locations had periods in the 20th century with and without wolves and the presence of wolves had a dampening effect on ungulate population fluctuations. Most outcomes of reintroduction at Yellowstone were predicted as the Environmental Impact Statement written beforehand correctly predicted 78% of the 51 outcomes that were examined. Wolves were too recently reintroduced to Isle Royale to make similar comparisons, but we conclude that intervention is not contrary to the Wilderness Act, nor author Howard Zahniser's vision, partially because wolf reintroduction was a mitigation for human actions. Also, not intervening, or inaction, often perceived as safer, would have had more damaging impacts to ecosystem functioning.

Public Perception of Wilderness in Iceland

In recent years, there has been a gradually growing emphasis on the protection of wilderness in Iceland. This is highlighted in the current preparation of a new national park in the Icelandic central highlands, which will become Europe’s largest national park. However, in order to protect the wilderness, a mutual understanding, both on what it is and where it is, is needed. This paper seeks to evaluate Icelanders’ perception and understanding of wilderness. Furthermore, to assess the value of wilderness for the Icelandic public and determine what lies behind the valuation, an online survey aided by maps from Google Earth and photographic scenarios of different landscapes was sent out to a nationally representative sample of Icelanders. The survey respondents mapped their perceived scope of Icelandic wilderness and furthermore chose between several landscape scenarios they thought most and least suited to their perception of wilderness. The results show that nearly all land located above the 300 m elevation line is perceived as wilderness, reflecting the country’s uninhabited highlands areas. The results also show that for the general public in Iceland it is chiefly an open and vast landscape, uninhabited areas, and the absence of anthropogenic features that bestow an area with the status of wilderness. The results demonstrate that any sign of anthropogenic interference, aside from archaeological remains, decrease Icelanders’ perception of wilderness. Moreover, despite being mostly categorized as urbanists or neutralists according to the purism scale, the majority of Icelanders still consider services, such as petrol stations, hotels, shops, restaurants, and diverse leisure services, along with energy production, to negatively impact the value of wilderness. Most Icelanders thus seem to regard wilderness as a valuable asset from the economic, cultural, and environmental perspectives, which underscores its uniqueness.

Reimagining a Place for the Wild ed. by Leslie Miller and Louise Excell

Reviewed by: Reimagining a Place for the Wild ed. by Leslie Miller and Louise Excell James Barilla Leslie Miller and Louise Excell, eds., Reimagining a Place for the Wild. Salt Lake City: U of Utah P, 2018. 225 pp. Paper, $29.95. This essay collection was inspired by the inaugural Reimagine Western Landscapes Symposium in Montana's Centennial Valley, a gathering of writers, ranchers, artists, and environmental policy makers whose goal was to take stock of the current state of wildness in the American West and envision a future in which wild places endure and humans and other animals thrive. The location itself, in a remote corner of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, provides the backdrop for these questions as a place where ranching, wildlife conservation, and wilderness preservation are lived experiences. The result is a range of accessible and thought-inspiring perspectives that both reinforce the value of wildness and reframe longstanding debates over the value of wilderness and the presence of charismatic megafauna. The collection is grouped into four sections, each offering a different take on the possibilities and challenges of living with the wild in the Anthropocene. The first section, "Encounter: Understanding Human-Wildlife Connections," begins with an invocation of the familiar presence of charismatic megafauna [End Page 202] like wolves and grizzlies, while also challenging some of the easy assumptions that might accompany such encounters. In "Waiting for Wolves," for example, Jeremy Schmidt argues that wildness cannot disappear from a world in which antlions, "gram for gram vastly more ferocious than any grizzly," share space with other denizens of the urban and suburban wild, including humans (6). Julia Corbett attempts to reimagine the practices of sharing her residential neighborhood with the black bears that routinely arrive looking for bird feeders and concludes that a social science analysis of human attitudes toward wildlife doesn't entirely capture the deep-rooted human longing for connection with other species. "What we need," she argues, "is a cosmology that is able to see ourselves as just one species in a global circle of circulating hearts" (29). The essays in this section, and indeed throughout the collection, share an implicit critique of conventional, data-driven approaches to wild lands management, affirming instead the value of affective bonds, existential questions, and spiritual epiphanies that reductionist scientific approaches tend to avoid or dismiss. The second section, "Reimagine: Forging a New Ethic," steps back from the immediacy of personal encounters with wildlife to consider the ethical, spatial, and historical dimensions of western landscapes more broadly. Essays by Harvey Locke and Gregory E. Smoak situate the contemporary West as a space with roots that defy national borders and assumed timeframes. In "Beauty as a Foundation for Conservation Ethics," Kirk C. Robinson seeks to update Aldo Leopold's famous land ethic by promoting the aesthetics of "Beauty" as a defining characteristic of wild places. These ethical arguments confront the pragmatics of making a living in the wild in the third section, "Practice: Programmatic Approaches," which features reflections by ranchers like Yvonne Martinell, whose family has been working in the Centennial Valley for generations, and mining geologist Kerry C. Gee, who describes the restoration of tailings ponds and the need to deal with the legacy of mine waste contamination as an ongoing collaboration between different stakeholders. These essays reflect the strength of this collection, which lies in the breadth of voices gathered here. The diversity of perspectives and approaches would make it a good [End Page 203] fit for an introductory environmental studies course, where the practical, the philosophical, and the personal could all be explored. The final section, "Ethos: Wither Humanities," offers a starting point for an important conversation: what role will the humanities play in an era when the fundamental ecological and cultural parameters that once defined the West are changing. What to make, for example, of the one hundredth meridian, long seen as the ecological and cultural boundary between East and West, as changing rainfall patterns shift arid conditions eastward? As the conditions on the ground change, how will the culture of the West respond? "We have the data," Jeffrey Mathes McCarthy concludes, "but our community needs the stories" (219). This collection offers a heartfelt...

Spatial Analysis of Livestock Grazing and Forest Service Management in the High Uintas Wilderness, Utah

This case study addresses the Forest Service reauthorization for grazing of domestic sheep in Utah’s High Uintas Wilderness, USA. It provides an approach using spatial analysis and aerial imagery to evaluate the lands capable of being grazed based on Forest Service criteria and field surveys. The resulting model and analysis demonstrated that the Forest Service has not applied its own criteria. This has led to the Forest Service overestimating the amount of land and numbers of sheep that can be supported in the study area. Past field studies show this has resulted in environmental damage by grazing sheep. Our analysis concludes that the numbers of domestic sheep should be greatly reduced to protect these lands and wilderness values. Limitations of the study include the lack of a suitably detailed soil survey to determine erosion susceptibility, a lack of ground cover data, a lack of Forest Service data for the level of grazing use, or utilization, and the lack of a Forest Service quantitative measurement of vegetation production in each plant community and soil type. In the end, our use of aerial imagery, GIS determinations of areas of steep slopes and dense forests, and our measurement of vegetation production in the dominant soil types showed most of the land is not capable for grazing domestic sheep even in the absence of this other data.

Creating poetry from the BAS archives: Commentary on, and extracts from, a new poetic sequence, “Met Obs”

AbstractThe Antarctic Treaty of 1959, which dedicates the continent to peace and international scientific cooperation in the face of rising east–west tensions, is informed in part by a shared scientific imaginary created by the UK and other nations which maintained scientific bases in Antarctica at the time. In this article, the poet offers works extracted from her longer sequence “Met Obs,” based on meteorological reports and journals from the UK station at Port Lockroy written in advance of the 1957–1958 International Geophysical Year (IGY). The poems engage with the work and circumstances which helped foster such an imaginary, as well as with the nexus of Antarctic “values” endorsed by the Treaty, and the later Madrid Protocol. The commentary further contextualises these literary responses in terms of the attitudes of the men working there as well as the “wilderness and aesthetic values” recognised by the later Protocol on Environmental Protection. The world of the poems may belong to 1950s Antarctica, but their observations reach beyond that experience, making a case for the continued relevance of Treaty values, and for the importance of artistic, as well as scientific, responses to the environment in a world under threat from accelerating climate change and competition for resources.

How Sensitive are Spatial Estimates of Wilderness Recreation Values to Information about Hiking Destinations?

This study uses individual survey data to investigate the impact of information about hiking destinations on estimated wilderness values in a spatial context. The data is derived from a revealed preference survey of backcountry visitors who responded to questions about their recreation behavior in the San Jacinto Wilderness of southern California. Two GIS data layers are developed showing spatial representations of non-market values derived from a Kuhn- Tucker demand model, with and without destination information. Each pixel in each data layer contains an estimate of the recreation value at that location. The destination data provides more detailed information on recreation behavior that can be used to more accurately allocate the landscape values. Results show that including destination information produces significantly greater heterogeneity in parcel value estimates for large areas of the wilderness.

MANAGEMENT OF SEMI-WILD LARGE HERBIVORES’ GRAZING SITES IN LATVIA

Large herbivores were a common part of European nature in the pre-agrarian times. With the development of farming and over-hunting, the number of wild large herbivores rapidly decreased. Wild horses and cattle became extinct. In the 1920-30’s, scientists created two new herbivore breeds that resembled the extinct aurochs and tarpans - Heck cattle and Konik horses. Nowadays the introduction of Heck cattle, Konik horses and other similar large herbivore breeds is widely used in specially protected nature territories (SPNT) as a strategic answer to the question – what should we do with the agricultural lands that have lost their economical meaning. Since 1999, semi-wild large herbivores are introduced in various SPNT of Latvia as well, mainly in nature parks and nature reserves. Based on field visits, interviews and policy analysis, this paper discusses two main approaches to semi-wild grazing animal population management in Latvia: (1) introduced herbivores as a part of rewilding process and (2) introduced herbivores as instruments for habitat protection. The former represents the implementation of western wilderness values, while the latter is related to more specific protection of species and habitats according to particular place-based nature protection goals. This study contributes to the growing discussion on rewilding practises in Europe and the introduction ideas of semi-wild animals, as well as landscape management practices in the era of post-productivism.

Boots on the Ground: Site-Based Regionality and Creative Practice in the Tasmanian Midlands

Regional identity is a constant construction, in which landscape, human activity and cultural imaginary build a narrative of place. For the Tasmanian Midlands, the interactions between history, ecology and agriculture both define place and present problems in how to recognise, communicate and balance these interactions. In this sense, regionality is defined not so much as a relation of margin to centre, but as a specific accretion of environmental and cultural histories. According weight to more-than-human perspectives, a region can be seen as a constellation of plant, animal and human interactions and demands, where creative art and design can make space and give voice to the dynamics of exchange between the landscape and its inhabitants. Consideration of three recent art and design projects based in the Midlands reveal the potential for cross-disciplinary research, embedded in both environment and community, to create distinctive and specific forms of connectivity that articulate a regional identify.

An Economic Perspective on the Relationship between Wilderness and Water Resources

Proponents of wilderness often cite the provision of high-quality water as a key benefit provided by designated wilderness areas to society. We critically examine this claim by exploring the relationship between wilderness and water resources from an economic perspective. We demonstrate strong spatial and hydrological links from wilderness areas to downstream users: substantial portions of the United States' total water resources originate in, or flow through, wilderness areas. We then discuss coarse estimates of the total economic value of this water flowing from wilderness that could be based on this and related information, focusing our attention on the limitations of this approach. We then consider preliminary examples of the potential specific effects of alternative management schemes on the localized benefits of water resources. Throughout, we demonstrate theoretical and practical challenges to the more readily available approaches for estimating the value added to water resources by wilderness areas. We argue that rigorous characterization of the economic benefits provided by wilderness through water resources, if desired, will require substantial more development of case studies using these types of alternative approaches. That said, our review of the evidence demonstrates many important connections between the water resources that society depends upon and the public lands that it protects as wilderness.(This paper is reprinted from a 2019 US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station publication titled A Perpetual Flow of Nature's Benefits: State-of-the Knowledge Report on the Economic, Social, and Tribal Values of Wilderness in America.)

Monitoring the intensity of human impacts on anthropogenic landscape: A mapping case study in Beijing, China

Optimization of the use of land resources is vital for nature conservation in spatial planning, especially for rapid urbanizing regions. On this regard, China has officially announced the “Major Function Oriented Zone (MFOZ)” plan, which aims to achieve a coordinated regional development by dividing the whole territory into four types of regions (prohibited, restrictive, optimal, and important development regions). In this study, an integrated index of landscape wilderness is proposed and calculated on a standard grid map with consideration of perceived naturalness of land covers, fragmentation effect of traffic network, and distance from human disturbance sources. Different report units (e.g. administrative districts, major function oriented zones) are applied for evaluating the intensity of human impacts in an intensively modified landscape (i.e. Beijing, the capital city of China). Our results show that the average wilderness degree of Beijing has slightly decreased from 2007 to 2015, but with internal variation. The wilderness values of districts located at the mountainous area are generally higher than plain area. A large overlap (over 99%) between high wilderness area and prohibited/restrictive development regions has been observed, and the negative impacts from human disturbances in prohibited/restrictive development regions are much smaller than in optimal/important development regions. However, in the north part of Beijing some relatively wilder areas do not show high congruence with MFOZ plan. The results have proved the applicability of this mapping approach, which can be useful for assisting the implementation of MFOZ plan, especially in a multi-temporal monitoring process.