Benjamin N.
January 14, 1997
Honors English 3

Preservation for the Future

It started raining. For twenty boys on their first long hiking trip, rain was generally viewed as bad thing. They drearily continued, walking through the mud and bush. For those who did not expect rain in an area just south of Oregon, the innards of their backpack were soon weighted down with water; the clothes and sleeping bags of those who did have a waterproof cover for their packs soaked up water only slightly more slowly.

I was of the former group, and I was beginning to wish that I had stayed home for the first week of summer. It was cold and windy. The branches of bushes and small evergreen trees clawed at me as I maneuvered over and under large trees that had fallen from storms the winter before.

If there was flat ground anywhere, it would immediately become our campsite. However, we encountered hill after hill. Finally, as it grew dark, we stopped at a bare patch of earth that the map called a campsite. I laid out my sleeping bag inside my tilted tent so that water would drain out of the bag. For dinner, there were two pots of macaroni and cheese. One pot had too much cheese; the other had too little. Both were burnt. As I ate my humble meal in front of the small fire that took the efforts of the adult survival expert to construct, the rain stopped and the night sky came out. A continuous dull grey had suddenly given way to heavens of the deepest black. Several years later, I recall this day as one of the best experiences of my life.

The environment has always been a touchy subject. Adam Smith's capitalistic society left nature with the dirty end of the stick, having no protection from those who wish to use its resources. Yet people have always felt a concern for nature. Nature supported early humans as hunters and gatherers before they became farmers. The forests have provided us with timber for many generations of homes and other buildings. Nature was discussed in the early texts and stories. Ever since Theodore Roosevelt created the first national parks in America early in this century, environment has been a significant political concern. The Wilderness Act of 1964 raised arguments about the rights of man and the rights of living things. Although wilderness areas supply no physical resources to present generations, they do represent a source of supply for the future.

Wildlife and natural resources have always been a source of profit. Trees become lumber and paper, rivers power hydroelectric power plants, mineral resources become fuel and metals we use and animals provide meat and fur. However, wilderness does not serve any of these needs; even public roads cannot intrude upon these lands. They are vast expanses of everything that is not man. By simply remaining in its natural state, however, wilderness serves needs that might arise in the future.

Wilderness land can be used for individual enjoyment. If you wish, you can purchase the necessary equipment to hike and camp in a wilderness. My experience did not occur in a wilderness area, but the trials and tribulations there should be not unlike those I enjoyed. Hiking in wilderness areas particularly gives you a certain sense of freedom and self-sufficiency. There is no road to follow nor a significant chance of seeing other humans during your stay. It is only you and your interaction with nature.

The type of nature in wilderness areas is special in that there is no direct human impact on the land. It is becoming increasingly rare to find land that has not been changed to enrich mankind. Perhaps in years to come these wilderness areas will become a kind of reservation of ecological study, where life was like it had existed for the millions of years before rise of Homo Sapiens.

Man has used nature to his benefit. The things we have taken from the wild have improved our lifestyle. In an ideal situation, there is an optimum amount of resources to be chopped, stripped or taken from the wild. This is the maximum amount of resource that can be replenished in the next year or generation. However, more than this sustainable amount has been removed because of other capitalistic factors, such as supply and demand. The wilderness areas preserve not only wildlife, but the resources within the area. An area in southern Utah was recently declared a wilderness by President Clinton even though geologic surveys beforehand showed notable coal deposits underneath and companies had staked claims to the coal. Likewise, parts of the North Slope of Alaska, that are also wilderness areas, have enormous quantities of oil beneath the surface.

Coal miners and oil hands probably do not find the Wilderness Act a worthwhile law, however. As they have neither the time nor the money to buy camping equipment and go out into wilderness, they reap few immediate benefits from it. The wilderness areas interfere with their lives and the economy. In his book Coming into the Country, John McPhee describes the problems of gold miners who are fined exorbitant fines for the silt that they spill into the creeks while bulldozing riverbeds into sluice boxes. The silt often contains settled chemicals and interferes with fish spawning. Several miners discuss this problem and between the death threats comes a line of reasoning that they wish to work with the environment. The soil they turn over allows new growth of grasses and bushes on which animals ranging from mice to moose can feed. As long as they do not seriously damage the environment, they believe that no harm should come to them.

Wilderness areas should be kept only if they are, or will be, profitable to humankind. They currently benefit those who can visit them. As we do not fully understand all of nature's functions and connections, it would be a folly to destroy the last vestiges of virgin land. There is so much that we do not know about the wilderness, including many species yet to be discovered. Destroying it completely would be like burning a book of knowledge before it had been completely translated. New profits might be found from careful observation of wilderness, or it could serve as a model for the reconstruction of nature should we manage to consume natural resource too quickly. While we use the majority for our benefit, we should keep some for our enlightenment.