[shreyshnaccount]

The concept of "pristine wilderness" is indeed a myth, shaped by Euro-American ideas of nature as something untouched by humans. Indigenous peoples have been actively managing and shaping landscapes for thousands of years, through practices like controlled burns, multi-cropping, and sustainable harvesting. However, colonial narratives of the "frontier" ignored this history, framing these lands as wild and uninhabited, which justified their conquest and later shaped early conservation policies.

These narratives still impact our policies today. When we frame conservation as keeping nature "untrammeled by man," we erase indigenous histories and practices that have long sustained ecosystems. IMO, conservation efforts that aim to separate humans from nature often harm both, as seen in the forced removal of indigenous peoples from national parks. A more nuanced approach would recognize that human interaction with nature isn’t inherently destructive and that indigenous stewardship offers valuable lessons in sustainable land management. Embracing this perspective could lead to more effective conservation policies and a healthier relationship with nature, where human presence is viewed as potentially harmonious rather than inherently damaging.

[VoodooJuJu]

Pristine wilderness is not a myth, it's an ideal.

It's an ideal appreciated by Europeans, but especially by Americans. We don't like people spreading to every single uninhabited nook & cranny and consuming every possible resource. America has a lot of uninhabited places. That's not an invitation for people the world over to consume and devour and combust and mine and destroy these places, as many of them have done to their own homes.

You've seen the headlines plenty of times: declining populations of species, particularly insects, bees. The natural world deserves some refuge and respite from human colonization. We've cultivated crops and powerful technology, let's cultivate some wilderness too. Wild growth is beauty and temperance. It's saying, "I've eaten enough, that I don't need to eat this, let wild beauty flourish here." Do not strive to eat the world, eat just enough.

Wilding and rewilding is an ideal.

[bombcar]

And indigenous populations were comparatively small, and there were vast areas they simply didn't go (or need to go).

I think the wild needs the respect of Gimli toward the Glittering Caves - we can help it, we can improve it, but only slowly and carefully (partially because we don't know what we don't know).

[dkarl]

I feel extremely conflicted reading something like this. On one hand, everything you said is technically true. On the other hand, when I think of who benefits politically from debunking the myth of wildness, it's the people who want to allow unlimited private exploitation of public lands, log and mine national parks, and act like any place with rocks and trees is of equal value to any other place with rocks and trees.

In truth, the idea of wilderness is a useful heuristic that simplifies incredibly complex questions about the functioning of ecosystems and their worth to us.

Labeling it a myth is a way of destroying its value as a heuristic without offering any replacement, leaving people unable to explain and defend policies that prevent unchecked commercial exploitation of public lands.

[shreyshnaccount]

The alternative is to not only learn from, appreciate, and re-install traditional and indigenous practices in conservation efforts as much as possible, but also try and expand our idea of nature to include the conservation of species in landscapes that do not conform to the traditional sense of pristine wilderness.

It is about respecting those who live on the planet with us, and the wilderness myth allows the people you speak about exploit everything other than a very narrow idea of what is wild, and valuable.

While the heuristic is useful for, say, a rainforest eco-system, it actively de-values the plains/ grasslands/ marshes ecosystems just because they do not conform to the ideal we think about when we think about wilderness.

[Tiktaalik]

Acknowledging prior indigenous use of the land doesn't necessarily have to lead to an undesirable free for all of as you say "unlimited private exploitation of public lands." There is another way.

Recognizing Aboriginal Title of traditional lands and joint lands management can be a way to control and limit exploitative uses of lands in a way which also recognizes traditional (generally a lot lighter!) land uses.