Opinion – Why we need to redefine our understanding of ‘the wild’

The strategy involved planting 82 rust-resistant pine seedlings intermingled with other tree species throughout specified areas of Crater Lake, while cutting down other seedlings (e.g., mountain hemlock) that may threaten these new trees from growing to maturity.

At the same time, the U.S. government was slow in formalizing which areas can or cannot be intervened by “invasive” species, even though this designation was originally approved decades ago in 1970.

In spite of criticism by conservation groups, this new approach was deemed necessary by Jen Beck, Crater Lake’s botanist, and other project volunteers in order to preserve the “venerability of ancient, distinguished trees.”

I thought that these closing remarks from Emma Marris, former writer for Nature, encapsulated the need to move beyond this outdated paradigm of a pristine environmental conservation.

“If we truly are the humble beings we strive to be, if we truly feel we are not more valuable than other species, then we must be willing to sacrifice our human-made category of “wild” for the betterment of those beings.”

Putting “wilderness” on a pedestal, so to speak, prevents people from interacting with the natural environment on a daily basis, and in turn will continue to create psychological distance between humans and non-humans.

How will we know what to protect and how to effectively do so if we are not encouraging the public to interact with species such as the whitebark pine, as Jen Beck did in attempting to plant some of the 82 rust-resistant seedlings alongside easily accessible pathways.

This is why food sovereignty advocate Vandana Shiva’s paradigm-shifting perspective on the human-nature relationship is simultaneously so radical and transformative in terms of its implications for restoring humanity’s connection to the natural world.

Our future: Displacing wildness, Co-creating wildness

Vandana Shiva is a food sovereignty activist and educator based in India. Through Navdanya International, an organization Shiva founded in 1984 dedicated to seed saving and the cultural heritage within food systems, she instructed half a million farmers within India on food sovereignty practices and established over fifty seed banks across sixteen states.

To sum up just a portion of her life’s work, Vandana Shiva is a firm believer in the power of reframing wildness in terms of galvanizing climate action, ecological stewardship and gender equity.

In regards to ecological harmony, Shiva believes that the wilderness should be viewed as a force of generation, comparing the wild to the Hindu notion of  “living energies.”

In other words, Shiva believes that humans can become co-creators of wilderness and in turn transition the world economy away from the fossil fuel economy, which inherently harms people and the planet.

Meanwhile, Environmental Governance scholar Paul Wapner ponders over the question of whether “wildness” still does exist in the 21st century, and if people truly want wilderness in their lives. Wildness can refer to the uncontrollable nature of living beings in the non-human world, but it can also refer to the unexpectedness of human existence within what is known (e.g., waging war, behavior in large crowds, etc.)

Wapner believes that this age should be called the “Anthropocene” because humans have become geo-chemical agents of change by redirecting rivers, extracting oil and natural gas, and manufacturing single-use products that will never fully biodegrade within our lifetimes.

He actually goes further, clarifying that this era should be known as the “age of some humans” as a way to insert the structural critique of capitalism in fueling not only the surface-level impacts of the climate crisis like global warming and rising temperatures, but also the intergenerational exploitation and plundering of wealth away from the Global Majority.

In humanity’s conquest for consolidated control over the natural world, this one species threatens the ecological checks and balances that are in place to allow for general well-being, let alone prosperity.

Challenge the status quo by walking in a local green space, volunteering at a food bank, or better yet, find spaces within your home and community to let a little “wildness” in.

Embracing uncertainty  

Wapner believes that humanity derives its creative spirit from the wilderness even though much of human development has strayed towards the notion of modernity. He declares humanity’s lopsided approach to addressing wildness as “the capriciousness of living in a world of others.”

In his writing, Wapner has equated the subjugation of the wilderness to the emergence of self-perceived risks and unpredictability for humanity writ large.

In spite of their disagreements on their outlooks towards humanity’s level of sincerity toward the natural world, both Wapner and Shiva would agree that humans must wield their creative energies and affinity for their local environments and communities to become proactive stakeholders of nature.

Whether you are concerned that the status quo of global uncertainty will be a permanent fixture in the future, or you are emboldened by new approaches introduced by Shiva and Beck of harmonious ecological stewardship, both frameworks offer important critiques on the status quo of environmental conservation and environmentalism in general.

Even though GHGe reduction and renewable energy transformation are hallmark aims of climate activists around the world, we cannot lose sight of what we are fighting for in the first place: a more harmonious and in-touch reality with people and the world around us.