I grew up in the small town of Waunakee ten minutes outside of Madison Wi. It was quiet, and pretty low key. As a kid you didn’t just stay inside, you went to the park, or snuck off into the closest wooded area and explored knowing that home was just a walk away. You could escape if you will, from a contained life of a town to one of freedom simply by sneaking off into the woods. I give this small background to relate to my current opposite way of living. I have lived in Milwaukee for 4 years now. I has been exciting and educational. There’s something different about living in a city. While this has been a good experience one which I do not regret I constantly find the city suffocating. I long for that little patch of woods I would escape to as a kid. The obvious is that this is a common reaction. I am not the first person to find myself in a different state when in the natural world. I think as obvious as it can be though that it can sometimes be overlooked. That we can easily take for granted the beauty we live in. The beauty that we for some reason shield ourselves from.
There exists a balance between nature and humans. No other species has affected the land like humans. This statement again is nothing new but what tends to be overlooked is how much the land we live on has affected us as well. So as stated in “The Natural Environment” by Charles E. Roe “ all efforts to protect land areas, even when motivated by objectives to preserve pieces of the natural landscape and ecological resources, also serve to protect parts of our cultural heritage.” While I find it hard to argue with this statement it brings to focus a somewhat sobering fact, and that is that there is very little if any of the land we live on that hasn't been touched by humans. So that raises the question what are we actually preserving? The natural world or ourselves as a species. I think you could make the argument either way. Myself I’m going to take the easy way out and say its both because there is no denying that the human species will always relate it back to themselves that were doing it for the good of the species and for future generations, this is the goal of every species to survive. But I also like to think there has to be something a little bit more nobel than that. That were still a bit taken back by the world we live in. That as a species we deep down know were not gods just hacks and that we still need to escape to our own little woods and be in simple awe of it.
I grew up very similarly to you. I was constantly outside with my neighborhood friends, and we were always finding new things to explore. When I moved to Milwaukee, I was so excited to experience a new environment. However, the more I stay here, the more I want to go back to my home where I am surrounded by nature. Despite this, I would not have been able to experience these things without human interaction being a part of the landscape of these areas. Although we are constantly trying to protect things such as nature, we are also finding ways to make ourselves connect to that process instead of keeping it purely authentic.
ReplyDeleteI thought your question, “What are we actually preserving?” was very intriguing. I would argue that there still are some parts of the world that humans have not interfered with, and that those areas are perfectly preserved in their own way. I was watching Discovery Channel one night and learned that there was a certain mountain range in Russia that no human has flown over or has ever seen beyond the outlying mountain edge. I find this interesting because I’m sure we will visit there one day, and I wonder how much different, if at all, it is from the landscapes that we have touched and been interacting with for generations? From your perspective, is it worth it for us to preserve natural landscapes knowing that we will in some way play a role in shaping it in one way or another?
I thought your post was interesting - I am always more engaged in a reading if it is related to a personal experience. The closing was very powerful, but I found it to be slightly at odds with the content of your blog. And believe me, I am most probably misinterpreting something. But what I found to be conflicting are the two arguments of being able to sit or stand in nature and be in simple awe, which I love to do myself, I think most of us would agree with you there, but on the other hand you spoke of how species should the care of themselves, and what quality and quantity of things do we save and how do we quantify that? I just would think that from your experiences you might have chosen the more earth friendly stance, though I can always appreciate playing devil's advocate in any argument. Good post - thought provoking.
ReplyDeleteMankind has taken away more from nature that it has put in, and I feel this is directly what has caused the green movement in the United States. It is now more of a popular culture thing than it ever has been before to Go Green, and in a way it is become a more supported cause than in the 70's when all the hippies protested without vast scientific knowledge. I believe that since are population is growing so much though, using all aspects of land that provide no recourses is not a bad solution. Many attempts of tourism have been created to bring people to the Dakotas. Likewise, Los Vegas, a city built on a desert, was made to move people out their.
ReplyDeleteAnother way to look at things is that we either preserve/conserve land or we renovate it for our own uses, like building and homes. We rarely take the time to discover and search these areas for resources that might benefit life and human kind. The Hoh Rainforest in Washington is a great example of a forest that was preserved but for the mere fact that it was just a rainforest. Turns out that there is an indigenous tree, the Pacific Yew, that holds properties to put into medicines to cure ovarian cancer. With out this discovery, treatments would have never had this breakthrough in research. It is funny that we had conserved the national park that held the tree for so long, but there was no invasive procedure done to the park to reason the conservation.
Great post and commentary. Obviously your ideas struck a cord with your community. I think that the point of what we save is at issue and why we save it even more so. We as a society, a community that lives together will need to come to terms with the role of preservation and conversation in our lives.
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