Wilderness and Protected Area Management

Today was the first day of classes, and I already had homework! Below is a journal entry I wrote for my Wilderness and Protected Area Management course.

Prompt: What are the primary values you find in wilderness?

            Lately I have been thinking a lot about wilderness for the sake of wilderness, which I think would fall under the existence values category. Humanity as a whole (with some exceptions, of course) is innately anthropocentric; we often prioritize our own needs or desires ahead of what we believe to be important for the conservation of natural resources. However, there are indeed numerous benefits to preserving wild places in terms of ecological values. I find it very difficult to analyze the benefits of wilderness from the biocentric philosophy because it’s hard to completely remove myself from the analysis, but ecologically speaking, having large tracts of untrammeled land available to animals and plants is absolutely critical in slowing edge effect.

There is also something to be said about the strengthening of human relationships through time spent in wilderness. I spent the summer as a wilderness ranger intern in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. This very recent experience allowed me to spend most of the summer in the wilderness, and I gained strength, self-confidence, and true friends. I had never spent more than a day or two in designated wilderness, and then in June, I found myself catapulted into a remote backcountry setting, doing back-breaking trail work. Throughout the summer, I began to realize that I was experiencing the simplest form of happiness available to the human spirit: demanding physical labor with its accompanying satisfying exhaustion and strong foundation of community. I also struggle with how to record and put into words some of the experiences I had this summer. How can I possibly describe the sense of accomplishment I felt after hiking for 14.5 hours with a full pack? Or my newly found talent of falling over with a pack when I laughed too hard, amused by my fellow trail crewmembers? To me, wilderness means community, from discussing what “Wilderness with a capital ‘W’ ” means over a dinner in the backcountry, to comparing hitch stories at the end of the season, to attending fundraisers and seeing how many people from all walks of life support wilderness for one reason or another.