Paradise Lost, or the Conquest

1
CHAPTER 1

• Paradise Lost, or the Conquest
• of the Wilderness

2

• The whole face of the country was covered with
  herds of Buffaloed, Elk, and Antelope deer are
  also abundant, but keep to themselves more
  concealed in the woodland
• - Meriwether Clark
• Journals of Lewis and Clark

3

• For us the wilderness and human emptiness of
  this land is not a source of fear but the
  greatest of its attractions. We would guard and
  defend and save it as a place for all who wish to
  rediscover the nearly lost pleasures of
  adventuremental, spiritual, moral, aesthetic and
  intellectual adventure
• - Edward Adder

4

• 1.1 Introduction Why Wilderness
• Text the concept of wilderness highlights the
  historical process as human society has pushed
  back the boundaries around settled, developed and
  humanized areas until only residual areas of
  wild land are left (p. 10)
• For this we have to differentiate the concepts of
  frontier and wilderness

5

• Frontier historically states were separated by
  undeveloped and/or uncontrolled regions regions
  beyond integration of a particular state a
  region of potential expansion (Glassner)
• Wilderness area where the Earth and its
  community of life have not been seriously
  disturbed by humans and where humans are
  temporary visitors (Miller)
• or
• designation of land use for the exclusive
  protection of the areas natural wildlife thus
  no human development is allowed
• (Enger Smith)

6

• This expansion of settled areas has long had
  important implications for both society and
  environment
• - economic globalization has reached the level
  that we are close to frontier closure
• a very significant concern for
  environmentalists and preservationists

7

• With increasing expansion of settlement
  cultural landscapes there will be
  increasingly little land left as a safety net
  for populations, societies, etc.
• (1) land for human expansion
• (2) resources and diversity necessary for
• humans / bio-systems / etc.

8

• Text again, we are encountering the issue of
  representation and values
• - Today wilderness is seen in a positive vein
• - For much of human history, wilderness was not
  seen this way
• - It is only since the return to an attitude
  that wilderness is good / necessary / required /
  etc. that it had been argued to protect and
  value wilderness

9

• Text A central argument of this chapter is
  that, as human societies have developed
  progressively more powerful technologies of
  production, distribution and consumption, there
  has been a parallel evolution of representation
  of the relationship between society ans nature
  and of the values which influence change.
• (p. 10)

10

• one argument that while no simple correlation
  exists, it seems that societies with different
  attitudes have tended to evolve different
  attitudes and values towards the natural world
• (1) production methodologies
• (2) religious beliefs / tenets
• (3) cultural / social history
• (4) scientific bend

11

• 1.1.1 The Significance of Wilderness
• Alluded to previously, some explain the current
  proliferation of environmental problems to
  attitudes drawn from Western religious practice
  and the Bible and carried into the modern
  industrial period
• be fruitful and multiply and replenish the
  Earth
• subdue it
• have dominion over the fish / fowl / every
  living thing that moveth upon the Earth

12

• Conversely, some researchers counter that other
  elements are more confused or undecided
• - Adam as the image of God, but made of the
  Earth
• (Adam and Eve are expelled for fears they are
• becoming too god-like)
• - Eden idyllic hunter-gather lifestyle vs
  highly productive irrigated agriculture
• (We expanded to a generally more positive
  attitude to nomadic pastoralism vs settled
  agrarian / urban lifestyle)

13

• Text Given this ambiguity, some Christians
  have read Genesis as giving humans domination
  over nature, and this domination of nature has
  been emphasized throughout most of Christian
  history (p. 12)
• One of the most notable theses on human
  domination over nature was presented by historian
  
• Frederick Jackson Turner (1893)

14
Turners Frontier Hypothesis

• Turner did much to promote the idea of the rise
  of institutions west of the Appalachians that are
  particularly American
• European settler-to-American Pioneer
• Turner argues that the nature and character of
  U.S. population / culture / cultural landscape /
  etc, are the result of American experience with
  the wilderness frontier

15
Turners Frontier Hypothesis, cont

• Turner argued that the environment (frontier /
  wilderness) created individuals who exhibited
  strong individualistic traits and who resented
  seemingly senseless social controls
• (1) promoted unregulated resource use west of
  the Mississippi
• (2) high value attached to land ownership
• --- in comparison to Europe
• --- root of Democracy-in-Action resource use

16
Turners Frontier Hypothesis, cont

• (3) non-landowners felt that through
  perseverance and diligence land could be
  acquired or more could be attained
• Text notes that Turners thesis on the American
  experience is significant and that his later
  literature fills in some of his gaps and expands
  its tenets beyond the frontier

17

• For example
• (1) U.S. became the worlds dominant power and
  played a key role in establishing competitive
  capitalism as the ideology and practice of the
  global economy
• (2) industrial and agrarian trends and our
  experiment as a Global Landlord
• (3) most recently the U.S. emergence as a center
  for environmental debate

18
Aside

• Central to Turner are
• (1) the American individual who is? (pp
  13-14)
• (2) American institutions (p. 14)
• (how did they come into existence?)
• - Look at the illustration and caption on p. 14
  use the r.r. grade to divide it into developed
  and tamed and nature and wilderness
• wilderness is to be conquered, settled and
  civilized with all possible speed (p. 15)

19
Turners Frontier Hypothesis, cont

• Turner ignored factors at least as important as
  settler / frontier interaction
• (1) slavery
• (2) shift from agrarian to industrial dominance
  
• (3) mass migrations NW European-to-So and
• E European-to-E Asian
• (4) practical, economic need to conquer settle
  and civilize

20
Turners Frontier Hypothesis, cont

• Viewed in hindsight
• (5) too heavily environmental determinist
• (6) frontier/wilderness was more than a place
  or process, it was a systemic interaction
  between physical environment and social
  organization
• (7) downplays emergent regionalism and
  sectionalism no single concept of American
  culture developed
• (8) seems to totally ignore the process of
  urbanization
• (9) doesnt fit later frontiers

21
Possibilism

• A somewhat related thesis, presented by British
  historian Arnold Toynbee, who hypothesized that
  the frontier experience was one of challenge and
  response
• i.e the environment presents physical and
  psychological challenges, we create our
  response to them

22

• History spawned other viewpoints to the role or
  importance of the frontier / wilderness
• George Catlin H.D. Thoreau
• John W. Powell J. Muir
• We also have had environmental conferences,
  agencies at all levels, dividing and subdividing
  of responsibilities
• compounding this is our belief in conservation
  and desire to have it available whenever and
  however we want it
• (multiple use)

23
Aside

• Editors say that, American conflict between
  exploiters and preservers of nature is now being
  played out at an international scale
• on one level I understand what they mean, on
  another level I resent their statement
• WE (Americans) did not invent wilderness taming
  and removal
• I also resent their use of the phrase
  American capital
• international capitalism came long before
  American mercantile expansion

24

• 1.2 Pressures on Wilderness
• Simmons, Changing the Face of the Earth (1989)
• a study of how human society has altered the
  physical environment
• characterizes five kinds of regions that remain
  close to their wild / climax states

25

• 1.2 Pressures on Wilderness, cont
• polar regions() hot deserts
• tropical forests() high mountain chains
• some small remote islands
• () each has its own unique experience / concern
  section examines these two forms justification
  is that both are experiencing rapid change over
  which often hostile debate is taking place (1)
  population pressure / external commercial
  interest (2) expanded resource exploration and
  indigenous population conflicts

26
Tropical Forests and Deforestation

• - 1981 to 1990 est. 9 of world tropical forests
  disappeared
• a rate for total disappearance in a century
• - The richest terrestrial biome
• 7 of Earth land area
• 50-90 of world species
• 65 plant species
• 30 of terrestrial vertebrates
• 96 of arthropods

27
Tropical Forests and Deforestation, cont

• - Important for
• natural resources
• support of diverse human cultures
• regulation of biological, geological and
  chemical cycles

28

• Geographically As late as 1945, tropical forests
  covered much of the Equatorial zone most
  extensively the Amazon, West Africa islands of
  South East Asia
• Structurally High temperature high total annual
  precipitation dense, canopied vegetation many
  species low density - individuals of species
  widely scattered vegetation mass zone and
  initial soil horizons may be fertile, but heavily
  leached and frequently sterile soil in subsequent
  horizons cutting forests alter the hydrologic
  cycle as well as altering the albedo of the Earth
  surface and altering wind, rain and ocean
  currents

29
Interesting

• Globally, we recognize the increasing rate of
  deforestation but, we really have no idea how
  much tropical rainforest has been cleared
  remains or what this rate of removal actually is
  (p. 17)
• Conversely, we have historical evidence that some
  forests have exhibited greater strain ex the
• wet-dry tropical forest of the Central American
  Pacific Coast has declined by 98

30
Aside on Rainforest Destruction

• Global Rates of Rainforest Destruction
• - 2.47 acres / second (two U.S. football fields)
• - 150 acres / minute
• - 214,00 acres / day (area larger than NYC)
• - 78 million acres / year (area larger that
  Poland)
• - Est. 137 lifeform species become extinct daily
  50,000 annually
• (The Rainforest Action Network)

31

• 1.2.1 Deforestation and the Philippines
• As late as 1945, tropical forests covered much of
  the Equatorial zone most extensively the Amazon,
  West Africa, the islands of South East Asia (p.
  17)
• structurally different in particulars
  generally similar ecologically
• - Commercial exploitation of this resource
  accelerated through the 19th C became a concern
  in the 1960s a global issue 1980s

32

• The text proposes to use the situation of the
  Philippines to highlight the issues of causality
  consequence implication of tropical
  deforestation
• 1.2.1 Deforestation and the Philippines, cont
• island archipelago with 300,000 sq. km
• 1st visited by Europeans, 1521
• from the 1500s to the latter 1980s, percentage
  of forested land area was reduced from 90 to
  less than 25
• it was the earliest and worst case of
  deforestation in South East Asia (p. 19)

33

• 1.2.1 Deforestation and the Philippines, cont
• many of the social and environmental problems
  characterizing rainforest deforestation here are
  identifiable for rainforest regions globally
• Text relates that many casual studies of
  Philippine deforestation have been carried out
  most frequently cited sources are
• (1) shifting cultivation
• (2) settled agriculture
• (3) commercial logging

34

• 1.2.1 Deforestation and the Philippines, cont
• - Kummer, Deforestation in the Post-War
  Philippines (1991) argues that traditional
  culprits may not wholly assign blame
  proposes
• (1) shifting cultivators have not proven to be
  a major forest threat
• (2) the threat is one that combines the
  commercial logger and settled small plot
  agriculturalist
• (3) corruption in licensing and permitting
  system of commercial logging constitutes a
  deforestation threat

35

• 1.2.1 Deforestation and the Philippines, cont
• From these points, Kummer proposes three elements
  to the deforestation problem
• (1) ineffective permit regulations make it
  impossible to control for illegally cut and
  exported timber
• (2) logged lands settled by subsistence farmers
• (3) role of physical geography in the
  deforestation issue

36

• 1.2.1 Deforestation and the Philippines, cont
• Text proposed some significant generalizations
  about the Philippines and the global rainforest
  situation
• (1) Philippines do not necessarily represent
  the situation of other tropical forests
• (2) despite any Philippine-global forest
  differences, commonalities exist
• (3) pressures on logging remain intense,
  indications are that the future need not be as
  exploitative as the past

37

• 1.2.2 The Last Frontier Alaska
• Since its acquisition, its settlement and
  exploitation has been hindered by its distance
  from the rest of the nation, the climate and
  terrain, and the slowness of communications.
  Many problems still stand in the way of
  immigration and economic development, and Alaska
  continues to be the countrys last frontier. (p.
  21)

38

• 1.2.2 The Last Frontier Alaska, cont
• It is fitting I think that in some aspects,
  Alaska is viewed as a continuation of the
  American frontier mental image
• new, vast, unexplored assumption that it
  needed was population and development images of
  Northern Exposure Jack London Call of the
  Wild images of Eskimos walruses and whales
  grizzlies and polar bears men with no last
  names gold mosquitoes and black flies
• This mentality is even more pronounced in the
  Far North regions of Canada or Siberian Russia

39

• 1.2.2 The Last Frontier Alaska, cont
• The discoveries of Alaska
• (1) Migrating Neolithic Asian populations
• ? From Asia or Europe? Jon Erlandson, Un. of
  Oregon
• (2) Danish explorer Vitus Bering (1741) for the
  Tsar
• (3) Modern American settlement /
  environmentalists / resource contractors / etc
• Aside generally accepted that Pro-Indians came
  to N.A. by this route, I really wonder about the
  why of it

40

• 1.2.2 The Last Frontier Alaska, cont
• Over 15,000 years the emergence of four distinct
  hunter-gather cultures
• (1) Tlingit
• (2) Aleut
• (3) Inuit (The People) once Eskimo
• Kalaajlit
• Inupiate

41

• 1.2.2 The Last Frontier Alaska, cont
• (3) Inuit (The People) once Eskimo
• --- a staged culture
• proto-Inuit
• Dorest
• Thule
• Contemporary
• (4) Athabaskan / Metis

42

• 1.2.2 The Last Frontier Alaska, cont
• I. Economic and Resource Interest
• - As with much of recent history, early
• Anglo-European exploration and exploitation
  economically motivated
• --- fishing/fur bearing mammals
  (semi-permanent)
• --- gold (permanent)
• male dominated
• not predicated on available agriculture

43

• 1.2.2 The Last Frontier Alaska, cont
• I. Economic and Resource Interest
• --- By WWII gold, copper, timber, fish, coal,
  etc. were being withdrawn from the territory
• Interestingly military expansion provided the
  territory with a major percentage of its
  permanent population as well as the impetus
  (with mineral exploitation) for transportation
  and communications infrastructure

44

• 1.2.2 The Last Frontier Alaska, cont
• I. Economic and Resource Interest
• --- Soon after statehood deposits of petroleum
  were discovered in Cook Inlet and on the Kenai
  Peninsula
• Interesting (text) despite these discoveries,
  the state remained a drain on the national
  economy until the discovery of petroleum on the
  North Slope

45

• 1.2.2 The Last Frontier Alaska, cont
• I. Economic and Resource Interest
• --- North Slope represented the greatest
• economic vs environmental debate to that point
  in U.S. history
• TAP (opened 1977)
• current concerns Arctic National Wildlife
  Refuge (ANWR)

46

• 1.2.2 The Last Frontier Alaska, cont
• II. Environmental Interests
• --- opening of Alaska coincide with the 1st
  wave of environmentalism
• with its mental map / location / mystic /
  flora and fauna / etc, it would naturally
  become a center-piece in environmental
  protection and wilderness designation
• --- wilderness experiences / hunting and fishing
  / recreation / etc. as revenue

47

• 1.2.2 The Last Frontier Alaska, cont
• II. Environmental Interests
• --- federal govt also utilized its power to
  protect fragile and unique environments
• ex national monuments 7 million acres
  wilderness
• reserves (U.S. Fish and Wildlife)-19
  mill. acres
• federal lands into parks/refuges/wilderne
  ss areas-
• 104 mill acres

48

• 1.2.2 The Last Frontier Alaska, cont
• III. Indigenous Interests
• --- indigenous peoples and their interests
  remain the least integrated into the goals and
  direction of Alaska
• --- here, as elsewhere, contact with the
  Europeans has pretty much damned the native
  cultures

49

• 1.2.2 The Last Frontier Alaska, cont
• III. Indigenous Interests
• - in reaction to the decline of indigenous
  cultures and the Anglos inability to figure out
  what to do with native peoples
• Alaskan Federation of Natives (AFN 1966)
• Alaskan Native Claims Settlement Act
• (ANCSA 1971)

50
Aside

• The success of the AFN and the ANCSA did not go
  unnoticed among the indigenous peoples of Canada
• --- James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement
  (1975)
• --- Northeastern Quebec Agreement (1978)
• --- Western Arctic Claims Settlement Act (1984)
• --- Dene Nations / Metis Agreement (1990)
• --- Council for Yukon Indians (1990)
• --- Tungavik Federation of Nunavut (1990)

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1.3 The Transformation of Nature

• 1.3.1 The Growth and Spread of Human Impacts on
  Environments
• Text The extent and severity of human impacts
  on environments depend on the way societies
  organize production. (p. 26)
• Historically, three broad production systems
  existed
• (1) hunter-gatherer out of Africa to all
  parts of the world except Antarctica

52

• 1.3.1 The Growth and Spread of Human Impacts on
  Environments
• hunter-gatherers, cont
• --- somehow have an image of indigenous H-G
  cultures as environmentally benign /
  natural / pure
• reality is that such cultures are very good
  at altering physical and biological
  environments
• both deliberately and non-deliberately

53
Example

• The most technological advanced thing that the
  Australian Aborigines had was fire. They used
  it to
• - flush and drive animals
• - promote the growth of plants they wanted /
  that
• were sought by the animals they hunted
• H-G contribute to the extinction of species
  altering the mix of flora and fauna clearing of
  land selective cleaning of land diverting and
  irrigating land etc
• We tend to think of H-G cultures as being static
  and non-evolving, when by necessity they may be
  the most adaptive and evolving

54

• 1.3.1 The Growth and Spread of Human Impacts on
  Environments
• (2) agricultural post 10,000 B.C. out of the
  Middle East, particularly in the temperate
  regions of the world and later appearing
  pastoralism
• --- more systemic in altering the environment
• --- many of the same selective alternations and
  deforestation techniques seen in H-G

55

• 1.3.1 The Growth and Spread of Human Impacts on
  Environments
• agricultural deforestation has been the
  greatest human impact in the temperate
  latitudes
• of course, deforestation frequently leads to
  soil erosion altering drainage patterns
  changing soil infiltration patterns
• agricultural societies have transformed
  landscapes through both adding water to a
  location (irrigation) and its removal (drainage
  / diking / etc)

56

• 1.3.1 The Growth and Spread of Human Impacts on
  Environments
• agricultural
• because of factors comparative advantage
  settled agriculture encouraged increasingly
  complex patterns of trade and communication
• (ex early eastern U.S.)
• These lines of trade and communication made
  possible transition into Industrial Production
  system

57
Additionally

• Remember impact of hydraulic civilizations
• - Not all agricultural civilizations were
  hydraulic
• Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indus, Wei yes
• Mayan, Aztec, Inca no
• generally, large-scale irrigation increased
  production efficiency, therefore increasing
  output/man/hour
• irrigation made possible large non-farming
  populations / social stratification / labor
  specialization / urban growth / generally higher
  standard of living for the society
• all of these factors gave rise to increasing
  economic, political and social power
• historically it also created cosmologic
  civilizations

58

• 1.3.1 The Growth and Spread of Human Impacts on
  Environments
• (3) industrial U.K and Europe, diffused to
  North America and ultimately the greater part
  of the world
• - characterized by increasingly complex spatial
  linkages (trade and communications)
  building on those of the agricultural
  production system

59

• 1.3.1 The Growth and Spread of Human Impacts on
  Environments
• industrial patterns both directly and
  indirectly fostering greater consumption
• (look at measures of GNP or standard-of
  living)
• - productive patterns stressing
  greater efficiency / mechanization
• - unfortunately, also greater patterns
  of pollution
• (decreasing with time but becoming more toxic)
  

60

• 1.3.1 The Growth and Spread of Human Impacts on
  Environments
• industrial
• - peripheral to industrialization is the
  growth of urban centers and population growth
  
• (back to J-curve and Demographic Transition)
• - latter period brought first environmentalism
  
• Aside alludes to a good point when mentioning
  that we have become dependents of continued
  industrial growth old Malthusian Trap concept

61

• 1.3.1 The Growth and Spread of Human Impacts on
  Environments
• - What about (4) Post-Industrial systems?
• what will such a production system
• look and act like?

62

• 1.4.1 Hunter-Gatherers
• - The editors are correct in telling us that we
  really know little or nothing about the thought
  processes of Paleolithic H-G
• much of our understanding is taken from
• (i) physical / anthropological artifact
  information
• (ii) second-hand information
• (iii) the individual researchers
  particular perceptions and prejudices

63

• 1.4.1 Hunter-Gatherers
• - It is clear that H-G were typically nomadic
  a small kin-group migrating across a large
  geographic area seeking food sources, or
  exploiting feast-and-famine slash-and-burn
  supplemental agriculture
• --- population and density must have remained
  low
• --- likely animistic in beliefs
• --- concept of landownership seems to be
  missing
• --- frequently hold creation myths

64

• 1.4.2 Agricultural Society
• - Because of their nature we have greater
  information about these societies
• (i) they are much more abundant
• (ii) they produced numerically larger
  permanent settlements
• (iii) they left written records
• I would add
• (iv) they left a chronological pattern of
  pollution and environmental degradation

65

• 1.4.2 Agricultural Society
• - Domestication of plants and animals opens up
  the first permanent separation of Man and the
  environment
• (i) species now intrinsically defined
  according to their value to mankind our
  definition of resource
• (ii) domestic species and their perpetuation
  take precedence over environmental harmony
• (iii) Man becomes dominant as the altering
  agent of the physical environment

66

• 1.4.2 Agricultural Society
• - Fact is that settled agriculture initiated a
  self- perpetuating feedback system societally
  economically technologically environmentally
• - Societies become more complex, more
  stratification occurs, the call for more
  resources and greater agricultural production
  increases and we keep going
• Look at the Historical Perspectives
  civilizations

67

• 1.4.2 Agricultural Society
• - Also significant is the fact that such
  cultures were polytheistic rather than animist
• --- Nature is demoted to the control of Gods
  in human forms / with human traits
• soon after, in nomadic cultures of the Middle
  East monotheism would develop

68

• Text Two significant developments occurred in
  the eastern Mediterranean several thousand years
  ago
• (1) the emergence of Judaism and direct child
  Christianity
• (2) the rationalism of Greek culture and
  philosophy
• Early Judaism is grounded in the rural
  landscape / arid wilderness regions (Sacks
  one-ness)
• Contact with Greek culture dooms this what
  emerges is an attitude that urban (village, etc)
  is positive and the wilderness is bad

69

• This is what Clarence Glacken (Traces on the
  Rhodesian Shore, 1967) is saying with
• what is most striking in concepts of nature,
  even mythological ones, is the yearning for
  purpose and order perhaps these notions of order
  are, basically here is what is important for
  us analogies derived from the orderliness and
  purposiveness in many outward manifestations of
  human activity order and purpose in roads, in
  the grid of village streets and even in winding
  lanes, in a garden or a pasture, in the plan of a
  dwelling and its relation to another

70

• one-ness of Gods creations is lost completes
  divorce of human culture from nature
• sacred place changes
• gender and social divisions become crystallized
• It has been argued that all of this is a product
  of Greek dualism the Greek concept of
  opposition
• the inferior to the superior (master)
• the inherent existence of Good and Evil

71

• Under Christianity, a rigid hierarchy of place
  emerges
• (i) at the very top the construct of Heaven
• (ii) settled places towns, cities,
  agricultural regions
• (iii) the rural countryside
• (iv) the wilderness
• This will subconsciously find its way into the
  contact diffusion of Christianity

72

• Glacken recognizes three major themes that
  backhandedly argue that thus separation of
• Man-God-Nature is not absolute
• (1) teleology
• (2) environmental determinism
• (3) human society as an agent of environmental
  change
• I would insert possibilism

73

• Asian agricultural societies developed a somewhat
  different attitude to nature, the environment and
  their role in it
• (i) less affected by monotheistic religion
• (ii) they shared the concept of fundamental
  unity and harmony between Man and nature

74

• For a spectrum of Eastern attitudes you might
  look at
• (1) Hinduism
• --- very ambiguous to the environment
• --- animist roots polytheism ahimsa
• (2) Buddhism
• --- most widespread Eastern religion
• --- practices ahimsa
• --- religion without a named God, its
  underlying tenet is the living of a good
  life and working to reduce greed and
  suffering (the Four-Noble Truths)

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