When I worked for the U.S. Forest Service I strongly believed in expanding wilderness designations in the United States. There's something so compelling about the idea of supporting and conserving wild and untrammeled landscapes. I'd hazard that most Americans have never heard of the Wilderness Act of 1964 and think of the term "wilderness" as a vague description of a landscape characteristic rather than a rigid set of legal protections, and I bet that even fewer understand the scope of how many acres of land fall under these protections. It can be intoxicating to be in the know, and there are few things as satisfying as disappearing into the backcountry for a week or two and truly finding refuge from modern life.

But, the author is fundamentally correct about the relationship between humans and natural areas. The untrammeled nature of officially designated wilderness areas is a myth. The degree of trammeling of course varies by area and over time, but it's there no matter where you look. To the extent that we continue to put stock in this concept of "untrammeled by man", we do a disservice to the history and continued existence of indigenous Americans. Also, we needlessly hamstring our own management actions which compound into real threats on the very thing the act set out to protect. Increasingly I think to myself "no more wilderness" and advocate for proposed wilderness study areas to have a management designation more closely aligned with their intended use: National Recreation Areas.

I have yet to see a coherent philosophy that is able to differentiate between human communities and “the natural world” in a way that isn’t totally arbitrary

The distinction between wild or natural is completely arbitrary human made, and has no actual reflection on reality that I can tell

Humans are not the only set of organisms to radically change landscapes - Ants, wasps, locusts and beavers perfectly demonstrate that.

Humans are not the only set of organisms to be altruistic or communal

Humans are the only animal who have the ability to destroy all other animals, and that seems to be the only distinction that we make - eg boils down to might makes right,

So I would love to hear somebody give me a proof of why this distinction in scale rather than kind, is actually a worthwhile ETHICAL differentiator, such so we can actually reason about what that difference implies in a way that doesn’t make artificial or arbitrary distinctions or appeal to self interests alone

The concept of "pristine wilderness" is indeed a myth, shaped by Euro-American ideas of nature as something untouched by humans. Indigenous peoples have been actively managing and shaping landscapes for thousands of years, through practices like controlled burns, multi-cropping, and sustainable harvesting. However, colonial narratives of the "frontier" ignored this history, framing these lands as wild and uninhabited, which justified their conquest and later shaped early conservation policies.

These narratives still impact our policies today. When we frame conservation as keeping nature "untrammeled by man," we erase indigenous histories and practices that have long sustained ecosystems. IMO, conservation efforts that aim to separate humans from nature often harm both, as seen in the forced removal of indigenous peoples from national parks. A more nuanced approach would recognize that human interaction with nature isn’t inherently destructive and that indigenous stewardship offers valuable lessons in sustainable land management. Embracing this perspective could lead to more effective conservation policies and a healthier relationship with nature, where human presence is viewed as potentially harmonious rather than inherently damaging.

I cannot strongly enough suggest the book "Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California's Natural Resources" by M. Kat Anderson.

It was suggested to me in a comment here on HN, though I cannot now seem to find it by searching.

https://www.ucpress.edu/books/tending-the-wild/paper

> In order to safeguard a sufficient number of species to protect global biodiversity, including humanity, the late American biologist, E.O. Wilson and a new generation of scientists, ecologists, and conservationists concluded that we must set aside roughly half of Earth’s land and seas for nature, known as the principle of “Half-Earth.”

https://eowilsonfoundation.org/what-is-the-half-earth-projec...

It doesn't matter if we modified the ecosystems, it's still imperative to establish large regions of untouched ecosystems (as large as possible, as untouched as possible). Humans are very recent in the life of the planet and there's no a priori reason to assume that the things we do are sustainable for several hundred million years.

The dinosaurs lasted, what?, three hundred million years? That's the figure to beat. Can the talking apes last longer than the big dumb lizards?

So far most civilizations have destroyed themselves by destroying the health of the soil. Merv was the most beautiful city in the world for a thousand years. Now look at it: https://maps.app.goo.gl/CzfGxVZiTpapqCC8A It looks like Mars.

An equivalent book, which covers the same topic, and which I consider to be one of the most influential books I've ever read: The Once and Future World, by J.B. MacKinnon (https://www.jbmackinnon.ca/the-once-and-future-world)

Unfortunately, the ebook version is rather difficult to buy outside of the US, but if you contact the author, he may be able to provide a copy.

The part I found most haunting was what he termed 'the forgetting' - how, as we lose swaths of Nature, each new generation accepts it as normal, until we've forgotten what was lost.

I also learned about the megafauna: giant animals that vanished in prehistory, coinciding with the arrival of humans to their habitats. Africans, Europeans, Native Americans, Australian Aborigines - it made no difference. Every tribe of humans wiped out the competition, in every continent.

Highly recommended!

In the further reading category:

"Encounters with the Archdruid" by John McPhee, about David Brower, former director of the Sierra Club, and his advocacy for preserving wilderness areas "untouched" by humans.

"Forests: A Very Short Introduction" by Jaboury Ghazoul, which explores how human presence, even in ancient times, has led to profound changes in landscapes for their benefit.

"1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus" by Charles C. Mann, which I’ve just started reading, hypothesizes that Indigenous peoples in the Americas actively transformed their environment to a much greater extent than previously believed.

"A Sand County Almanac" by Aldo Leopold since he is referenced in the article.

I would like to see more land east of the Rockies and east of the Mississippi turned into protected federal land. So much of the western states (often more than 50% of total land area) is federal land.

It feels like the easterners ruined their beautiful land and now want to tell us in the west how to live.

Go spend on your own backyard and leave ours to us.

@dang? This item seems to show up on the front page, as "4 hours ago", but also be from Sept. 9th, and "4 days ago" when you look here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nature.com

(Or does HN's Second-Chance pool go that far back?)

Setting aside land and limiting or not allowing development of it so that it can be publicly available for enjoyment of nature or hunting and fishing is a laudable endeavour.

Banning all human presence and use of large swaths of land, on the other hand, is right up there with medieval Royal forest laws[0] and I suspect it serves the same purpose.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_forest

A misleading title, of course - it cannot be brought back.

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