Wildlands Don’t Exist There

by Tod Bacigalupi

When we go to places like the Himalayas in Nepal or the Andes in Ecuador, we believe we’ll see wild places.  Huge mountains, places of great beauty and maybe a snow leopard or a spectacled bear.  I’ve seen the beauty, but not the predators or the wild. 



Crystal Mountain from monastery, Nepal

I’ve been lucky to have been in Nepal and in Ecuador during the last year, and the thing that stands out most to me is that wildlands don’t exist there. Representative of the majority of second and third world countries, both have incredible mountains, glaciers, and high peaks. 

But wildlands as we understand them in the United States don’t exist.  Wild open spaces where predators and prey interact in a mostly natural way don’t exist.  The only areas of either country without people are those areas where there can’t be farming or habitation.  In other words, rock and ice.  The big predators are virtually gone from both countries, and neither has a concept of a land ethic.  

Browns Canyon and wild thoughts



Hikers in Browns Canyon, March 2012,  Photo John Stansfield

Browns Canyon can be the next Wilderness in our region!  Senator Mark Udall is leading the effort to have Congress create the Arkansas Canyon National Monument.  The majority of the land would be permanently protected as Wilderness.

Do you have thoughts on what “wild” or “wilderness/Wilderness” means to you, your family or community?  Don't limit yourself to just Browns Canyon - although we'd like to hear about any experiences you've had there.

Understanding Leopold's thought

Aldo Leopold’s thinking about the land, by which he meant the whole biota, changed greatly over his lifetime.  A concise summary of this evolution is found in The River of the Mother of God and Other Easays by Aldo Leopold edited by Flader and Callicott. In the Introduction they note three common themes of The Sand County Almanac as conservation ecology, natural esthetics and environmental ethics. They also list professional and public policy themes of wildlife management, conservation economics, sustainable agriculture and wilderness.  The essays are then presented chronologically.  As you read them, keeping in mind that his thinking would change quite radically helps one get through the 1915 The Varmint Question (kill all predators so there will be more “wildlife” like deer) or Piute Forestry vs. Forest Fire Prevention (suppress all fires so there will be more trees).

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The Fierce Green Fire

In his Thinking Like A Mountain essay, Leopold said:
Only the ineducable tyro can fail to sense the presence or absence of wolves, or the fact that mountains have a secret opinion about them.

My own conviction on this score dates from the day I saw a wolf die. We were eating lunch on a high rimrock... when we saw what we thought was a doe fording the torrent, her breast awash in white water. When she climbed the bank toward us and shook out her tail, we realized our error: it was a wolf.

Aldo Leopold: A Land Ethic for our Time

A Sand County Almanac, published after Leopold died, captures thoughts from his journals and reflections on wilderness and the land ethic. It begins with "There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot."