The Politics Of Wilderness Preservation

Craig Allin explores here the history of wilderness preservation politics in the United States. American pioneers originally viewed the wilderness as an enemy to destroy, Allin recounts, but with the rapid decline in natural resources in the nineteenth century, citizens realized their error and began to enact revolutionary environmental policies. Allin explores the far-reaching political and economic impact of these policies, as well as their status today and their uncertain future. With its timely, cutting-edge analysis, The Politics of Wilderness Protection is must-read for environmentalists and policymakers alike.

From Denali's majestic slopes to the Great Swamp of central New Jersey, protected wilderness areas make up nearly twenty percent of the parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and other public lands that cover a full fourth of the nation's territory. But wilderness is not only a place. It is also one of the most powerful and troublesome ideas in American environmental thought, representing everything from sublime beauty and patriotic inspiration to a countercultural ideal and an overextension of government authority. The Promise of Wilderness examines how the idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since the passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964. Wilderness preservation has engaged diverse groups of citizens, from hunters and ranchers to wildlife enthusiasts and hikers, as political advocates who have leveraged the resources of local and national groups toward a common goal. Turner demonstrates how these efforts have contributed to major shifts in modern American environmental politics, which have emerged not just in reaction to a new generation of environmental concerns, such as environmental justice and climate change, but also in response to changed debates over old conservation issues, such as public lands management. He also shows how battles over wilderness protection have influenced American politics more broadly, fueling disputes over the proper role of government, individual rights, and the interests of rural communities; giving rise to radical environmentalism; and playing an important role in the resurgence of the conservative movement, especially in the American West. Watch the book trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jsq-6LAeYKk

While the literature on American wilderness preservation is well-known to environmental historians, the Canadian experience has only begun to be documented. This book is the first full-length history of wilderness protection in Ontario. Drawing on government records, the private files of environmentalists and their organizations, and personal interviews, Protecting Ontario's Wilderness examines the changing idea of wilderness and the politics of preservation from 1927 to 1973. This book traces the evolution of lobbying tactics, and the internal debates that galvanized Ontario's modern wilderness preservation movement. Through their pressure group activity, preservationists became a catalyst for the emergence of environmental politics in Ontario.

Rethinking Wilderness and the Wild: Conflict, Conservation and Co-existence examines the complexities surrounding the concept of wilderness. Contemporary wilderness scholarship has tended to fall into two categories: the so-called ‘fortress conservation’ and ‘co-existence’ schools of thought. This book, contending that this polarisation has led to a silencing and concealment of alternative perspectives and lines of enquiry, extends beyond these confines and in particular steers away from the dilemmas of paradise or paradox in order to advance an intellectual and policy agenda of plurality and diversity rather than of prescription and definition. Drawing on case studies from Australia, Aoteoroa/New Zealand, the United States and Iceland, and explorations of embodied experience, creative practice, philosophy, and First Nations land management approaches, the assembled chapters examine wilderness ideals, conflicts and human-nature dualities afresh, and examine co-existence and conservation in the Anthropocene in diverse ontological and multidisciplinary ways. By demonstrating a strong commitment to respecting the knowledge and perspectives of Indigenous peoples, this work delivers a more nuanced, ethical and decolonising approach to issues arising from relationships with wilderness. Such a collection is immediately appropriate given the political challenges and social complexities of our time, and the mounting threats to life across the globe. The abiding and uniting logic of the book is to offer a unique and innovative contribution to engender transformations of wilderness scholarship, activism and conservation policy. This text refutes the inherent privileging and exclusionary tactics of dominant modes of enquiry that too often serve to silence non-human and contrary positions. It reveals a multi-faceted and contingent wilderness alive with agency, diversity and possibility. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of conservation, environmental and natural resource management, Indigenous studies and environmental policy and planning. It will also be of interest to practitioners, policymakers and NGOs involved in conservation, protected environments and environmental governance.

For more than three decades, the fate of British Columbia’s old-growth forests has been a major source of political strife. While more than 5 million hectares of wood were being clearcut, the BC wilderness movement and forest industry supporters clashed, as they continue to do, both pressing their arguments in a variety of forums, ranging from television studios and logging road blockades to royal commission hearings and cabinet ministers’ offices. The resulting record of conflict confirms American historian Paul Hirt’s characterization of forest policy as "party an ideological issue, partly biological, partly economic, partly technical, and wholly political." Talk and Log is a comprehensive account of the rise and impact of the BC wilderness movement between 1965 and 1996. Jeremy Wilson examines the evolution of the movement’s approaches, evaluates the forest industry’s counterstrategies, and analyzes the patterns and trends underlying shifts in provincial government forest, environment, and parks policies. He describes the "war in the woods" triggered by environmentalists’ efforts to preserve areas such as South Moresby and the Carmanah Valley, and considers the complex forces that pushed the government to expand the protected areas system. Wilson’s perceptive analysis of Social Credit’s failed policies of the 1980s is followed by an assessment of the Harcourt NDP government’s reform iniatives, including the Commission on Resources and Environment (CORE) and the Forest Practices Code. Talk and Log is based on a variety of sources, including government documents, environmental group briefs, and interviews with several dozen politicians, government officials, environmentalists, and forest industry leaders. This book deftly illuminates the forces behind controversies that have divided British Columbians and drawn the attention of people around the world. It is also a thought-provoking examination of issues likely to dominate political debates in BC for decades to come.

In This Book Biologists, Sociologists, Historians And Activists Come Together To Search Out Solutions To The Key Problems Of Contemporary Conservation Practices. Focusing On India, But Also Exploring Comparable Situations In Africa, This Book Makes The Case For A Better Exploration Of This Niddle Ground, And Argues For A Need To Involve Not Just Urban Enthusiasts, Scientists And Foresters But Also The Villager.