Wilderness and civilization seem to be heavily debated topics not only now, but since the beginning of recorded time. Because of the significant human-nature relationship, much controversy and discussion are obviously present. Ancient civilizations relied on wilderness for their food by using a ”hunting and gathering” approach to collect food for themselves and their families. Their entire lifestyles revolved around the wilderness because if they could not find anything to hunt where they were, they had to move until they could find food, never settling in an area for an extended period of time.
As civilizations progressed, hunting and gathering slowly turned into farming. Instead of humans relying on the wilderness for food, they resented the wilderness because its wild animals were now a threat to their herds of livestock, which was not their food source. One small success led to greater and larger successes, and these small herds of animals provided a way for permanent civilizations. These civilizations would then grow and change to create bigger buildings, roads, dams, and freeways. These “improvements” left the wilderness to “scattered remains”.
When all hope for the wilderness seemed lost, Americans slowly began learning to appreciate it again. Environment and wilderness-friendly words like “conservation”, “food chains”, and “ecosystem” were coined in the 1900’s. The late 20th century brought legislation, the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, to ensure equality towards the wild.
Roderick Nash still believes that there is much more to be done to protect the wilderness and the environment. He presents four ways the world could possibly be in another millennium. The first three, the wasteland scenario, the garden scenario, and the future primitive scenario, are not as elaborated upon, but his main scenario, “the island civilization” was well explained. Essentially, Nash says that with much cooperation from mankind, the earth could possess a harmonious bond between wildlife and humans. Civilizations would be found in densely populated groups around the world; all other land would be completely uncivilized providing a safe haven for wildlife to do as they pleased. Nash says this would require much sacrifice from humans but is completely fair because of how much sacrifice humans have required them to make.
In my personal opinion, I believe that civilization was necessary in order to advance as far as we have to this day. In fact, the number of people who have read Nash’s argument probably would not have been able to without the advancements into the wild that were made. I do, however, think that mankind taking over so quickly and not completely respecting wildlife was a problem. I also think that as our society has gotten older and matured, rules have been put into place to help protect the wildlife that we do have left. They have not be left to just painfully die; plans were and have been implemented to help them.
The Island Civilization model is good in theory, but I feel that our society has reached a point in which everyone craves rapid advancement. Reverting to a system of little civilization and very cramped living spaces with no luxury vacations or road trips would be nearly impossible to implement. As hard as it may be to come to terms with, I honestly think that in another thousand years, society will be more high tech than we could ever imagine but little to no real wild life will be found. As unfortunate as this may be, I think it is what our society has allowed.
Response to "Island Civilization: A Vision for Human Occupancy of Earth" Section: In the Fourth Millennium by Roderick Frazier Nash
Lauren’s response to Roderick Nash’s “Island Civilization” is informative yet constructively critical. Her opening paragraph does a great job of explaining how society got to where we are today. She touched on the fact that society used to purely hunter-gatherer and then slowly moved to a much more advance society. This lays the foundation and helps support Roderick Nash’s point which is important when giving constructive criticism. She followed Nash’s advice by not just purely criticizing his crazy idea of an island civilization, but rather shared her point of view on how society today is in fact helping to preserve the environment and the wilderness. I like the fact that Lauren included in her response that the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act have all been put in place for this very reason that Nash is arguing. Because Nash’s proposal for an Island Civilization is clearly impossible (which, I think, is the point), Lauren was able to think about other ways in which the environment is already taken care of. The main crux of Nash’s article, in my opinion, is to get his audience thinking about plausible ways to keep our environment as pure as possible, whether that be making a pact with a large group of people to no longer kill animals or just picking up trash whenever you see it. There are simple an easy easy ways to help purify the environment in which we live. All we have to do is use our brain and think about what those ways may be. Nash has definitely inspired me to help make the place I live a better place. I want to take pride in where I live, meaning my dorm room, my school, my city, or just the whole world in general. Moreover, I agree with what Lauren has said that it is definitely impossible for our society to revert back to a much less primitive way but I encourage everyone to be thinking about how the environment and society we live in could improve.
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