Speaker 1: I like getting in situations and being in places where
Speaker 1: I'm not thinking about really anything besides what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I'm able to be completely in the moment, and I
Speaker 1: don't find that sense of peace and well being an
Speaker 1: absence of distraction really anywhere else.
Speaker 2: American wilderness is fascinating, ironic, and misunderstood. Today we'll discuss
Speaker 2: some of the criticisms of federal wilderness. The Bear Greece
Speaker 2: Academy of Backwoodsmanship, Philosophy and Culture is back in session
Speaker 2: for one final episode. Wild Place has forged our national identity,
Speaker 2: and the peculiarities of American history made us handled these
Speaker 2: places differently than anywhere else on earth. Understanding this forms
Speaker 2: an essential knowledge base necessary to navigate the modern issues
Speaker 2: of conservation and life and management. And I'm also interested
Speaker 2: in how wilderness affects us on a personal level. And
Speaker 2: at the beginning of this episode, we'll talk with meat
Speaker 2: eater Stephen Rinella about that there are one hundred and
Speaker 2: eleven million acres of federally designated wilderness in America, roughly
Speaker 2: five percent of American soil. There's a lot up for grabs,
Speaker 2: boys and girls, and there's never a long term guarantee
Speaker 2: it's here to stay. I really doubt that you're gonna
Speaker 2: want to miss this one.
Speaker 3: When I hear many people talk about wilderness, they talk
Speaker 3: about basically void of human activity. It sounds picturesque and
Speaker 3: it sounds wonderful, But at what point does the void
Speaker 3: in human use and human management turn into the void
Speaker 3: of native ecosystem flora and fauna flourishing there.
Speaker 2: My name is Clay nukemb and this is the Bear
Speaker 2: Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
Speaker 2: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the
Speaker 2: story of Americans.
Speaker 4: Who live their lives close to the land.
Speaker 2: Presented by FHF gear, American made purpose built hunting and
Speaker 2: fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as the
Speaker 2: place as we explore.
Speaker 5: This one is from Edward Abbey. Okay, here's what Abbey says.
Speaker 6: Like D. H.
Speaker 5: Lawrence, I am taken by the primeval charm and fascination
Speaker 5: of the simple mysteries fire building in mud, rain, sunlight,
Speaker 5: the smell of greasewood and live oak after a cloudburst,
Speaker 5: the luxury of a sleeping hound. I require space, openness, economy,
Speaker 5: natural existence, red meat, women, fire, water, the essentials of liberty.
Speaker 5: That's a classic Abby.
Speaker 2: That was author and historian doctor Dan Flores. That quote
Speaker 2: is a little racy for bear grease, and I even
Speaker 2: amended out a spec of vulgarity. But the focus on
Speaker 2: the essentials of human existence provokes thought and it relates
Speaker 2: to wilderness. Abbey was eccentric but a spokesman for wild places.
Speaker 2: After the last two episodes, it's become apparent that wild
Speaker 2: places are essential to the idea of being human. It
Speaker 2: seems the very definition of humanity has become that were
Speaker 2: separated from them. We came out of the wilderness, nothing
Speaker 2: else did. Humans and wilderness are like light and darkness.
Speaker 2: One is defined by the absence of the other. Much
Speaker 2: of our series has been about policy, history, philosophy, and
Speaker 2: a bunch of this boring academic stuff about the dual
Speaker 2: nature of wilderness, the reality and the ideal.
Speaker 4: Brent acts like it's boring anyway, but he's dead wrong.
Speaker 2: And now to kick us off, we're going to explore
Speaker 2: some more personal questions and then we'll get into the
Speaker 2: criticisms of wilderness. There's going to be two segments, but
Speaker 2: here's the first. Meet your's own Steve Ranella talking about
Speaker 2: what the idea of wilderness means to him personally.
Speaker 1: I am a wilderness advocate for matters deeply personal. I'm
Speaker 1: a wilderness advocate for matters of humanity, okay, out of
Speaker 1: concerns for humanity, and I'm a wilderness advocate out of
Speaker 1: concerns for fish, birds, mammals, wildlife. They all intersect. But
Speaker 1: when I say I'm a wilderness advocate for matters deeply personal,
Speaker 1: I feel most enthralled, most engaged, most curious on what
Speaker 1: I consider to be a wilderness landscape. I'm more impressed
Speaker 1: by natural features natural landscapes than I am impressed by
Speaker 1: anything made by man. I don't care about inventors. I'm
Speaker 1: not interested in technology for its own sake. I don't
Speaker 1: look at a phone and feel inspired. I don't look
Speaker 1: at a tesla and think wow. I don't. I'm never
Speaker 1: impressed by the gadgetry of man. I'm impressed by artistic creations,
Speaker 1: film and music and things, but I'm not impressed by
Speaker 1: the gadgetry of man. I'm deeply impressed by the products
Speaker 1: of natural ecosystems. I love to look at animals, I
Speaker 1: like to listen to birds. I like to marvel at fish.
Speaker 4: I like to engage at.
Speaker 1: These things, and in a wilderness landscape it's the richest
Speaker 1: assemblages of those things and the lowest reminder of the
Speaker 1: absence of those things. So it's a form of perfection.
Speaker 2: Wilderness is a form of perfection, like the sound of that.
Speaker 2: The implication is that perfection comes from not being influenced
Speaker 2: by man ubiquitous across cultures without exception, it's accepted that
Speaker 2: anything man touches becomes flawed. Perfection of natural systems is
Speaker 2: a powerful idea, and will learn that there are some
Speaker 2: real problems with the reality of wilderness, the actual land designation,
Speaker 2: because the preservation of wilderness itself if there's a.
Speaker 4: Man made vessel prone to error.
Speaker 2: But I want to hear more from Steve about how
Speaker 2: interacting with wilderness tangibly impacts him and will be coming
Speaker 2: back to this idea of being unimpressed with technology.
Speaker 1: Wilderness does a lot for my sense of well being,
Speaker 1: but it's not a panacea. It doesn't cure, it doesn't
Speaker 1: enable and cure everything for me, and I'll speak to
Speaker 1: that a little more fully. I like getting in situations
Speaker 1: and being in places where there's not a lot of
Speaker 1: room for ancillary thoughts in places that demand a level
Speaker 1: of focus or inspire a level of focus. If I'm
Speaker 1: on the North Slope, Alaska's North Slope, I'm probably doing
Speaker 1: something wroun. I'm only thinking really about what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I'm just engrossed by it. It doesn't help my craft
Speaker 1: as a writer, because I don't care about writing and
Speaker 1: don't think about writing. In that atmosphere, I'm not thinking
Speaker 1: about really anything besides what I'm doing. I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: able to be completely in the moment, and I don't
Speaker 1: find that sense of peace and well being an absence
Speaker 1: of distraction really anywhere else. If I'm sitting out, you know,
Speaker 1: on the tundra, or sitting on top of a mountain
Speaker 1: in the Rockies, and I'm just I'm sort of like,
Speaker 1: what am I going to see? I'm looking for wildlife.
Speaker 1: I'm just paying attention only to what's going on. If
Speaker 1: I'm with people, I'm paying attention to them too. But
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about sleeping that night, I'm thinking about eating
Speaker 1: that night. I'm just in it. I'm like in it
Speaker 1: in the moment. I'm not thinking up book ideas. I'm
Speaker 1: just being there. Doing that, even if I go even
Speaker 1: if I go to my so if I'm at my
Speaker 1: fish shack in Southeast Alaska, which is a marine it's
Speaker 1: a marine wilderness, I only think about what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: We're catching fish, about that, we're catching shrimp. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about that. I only think about what I'm doing, and
Speaker 1: I love that. I've joked before. The only other place
Speaker 1: I've ever found that was riding my bike in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: where like riding your bike in Manhattan, you only are
Speaker 1: thinking about riding your bike in Manhattan because the minute
Speaker 1: you're not thinking about that, you're going to get hit.
Speaker 1: And I used to like to ride a bike through
Speaker 1: Manhattan just because of how much attention you had to pay,
Speaker 1: which is I'm only half joking when I say that,
Speaker 1: I just like those things that.
Speaker 4: Like to demand.
Speaker 1: It demands all of your focus, demands all of your attention.
Speaker 1: When I'm cooking, as much as I love my kids
Speaker 1: and love my wife and love being in my home,
Speaker 1: when I'm cooking dinner at night, I you know, I'm
Speaker 1: ashamed to admit this a little bit. When I'm cooking
Speaker 1: dinner at night, I'm not only thinking about cooking dinner
Speaker 1: for my family in my home, all their stuff butts in.
Speaker 4: I can't.
Speaker 6: I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't understand why if I was at my fishat
Speaker 1: cooking dinner for my family.
Speaker 4: I'm probably only thinking about my family. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that's a unique space that not everybody
Speaker 2: can access on purpose. But how is that beneficial to you?
Speaker 2: Is it only beneficial in a moment of pleasure where
Speaker 2: you're able to escape these other tertiary demands on your life,
Speaker 2: or does that time when you're in that space translate
Speaker 2: to you being more effective back inside of your life
Speaker 2: in other places, or or whatever.
Speaker 1: It's only beneficial in the moment.
Speaker 2: Interaction with wilderness is only beneficial in the moment. His
Speaker 2: answer surprised me. But I don't fully believe him. Not
Speaker 2: that I think he's lying, I just don't think he's
Speaker 2: giving his interaction with wilderness enough credit. Steve spends a
Speaker 2: lot of time in wild places. His ideas are way
Speaker 2: different than his buddy Threau, who believed wilderness was a
Speaker 2: reservoir of intellectual nourishment for civilized men. I found that
Speaker 2: Rodert Nash's book. But I have to agree with Steve.
Speaker 2: I'm not immediately functionally inspired by wilderness, aside from the
Speaker 2: raw pleasures and simple contentment of experiencing fear and discomfort,
Speaker 2: accepting physical challenge, engaging with wildlife, and the unexplainable satisfaction
Speaker 2: brought on by the perception of natural grandeur and whatever
Speaker 2: intangible things are gained by the expression of awe. However,
Speaker 2: when I return home, I think I have a better,
Speaker 2: maybe even a unique, perspective on my everyday life, my
Speaker 2: normal life. So wilderness does actually affect me beyond the moment.
Speaker 4: I think it does.
Speaker 2: Steve too, going back to what he said about being
Speaker 2: uninspired by technology, Now that's interesting. Author Charles Hoffman back
Speaker 2: in the eighteen hundred said that he venerated the hoary
Speaker 2: oak more than a moldering column. He was talking about
Speaker 2: European columns, back when we were establishing national identity, trying
Speaker 2: to make ourselves feel cool because we had wilderness, we
Speaker 2: didn't have big cities. I like it when a thought
Speaker 2: leader like Ranella says something revelatory and it opens your eyes.
Speaker 2: I never really thought about people being inspired by technology,
Speaker 2: but I think they are, and that might explain why
Speaker 2: I drive a ten year old dirty truck worth only
Speaker 2: two thirds what by best mule is he is, and
Speaker 2: not to change directions too quickly. But here's an interesting
Speaker 2: thought from Ranella on the end of the world.
Speaker 1: It's interesting idea that you know, we'll run our course, right,
Speaker 1: we'll run our course, and humans will be gone from
Speaker 1: the earth, and then all this crazy stuff's going to
Speaker 1: happen here, right. I a sometimes look forward, like I
Speaker 1: kind of look forward to humans being gone from the earth,
Speaker 1: even though I won't build a witness, you know, crazy
Speaker 1: stuff will happen here with wildlife. It's great to think
Speaker 1: about it. It makes the destruction of the human race not
Speaker 1: quite as bad to think about it if you think
Speaker 1: about how crazy it's gonna get here all over again someday.
Speaker 1: You know, after that happens, I could see in centuries,
Speaker 1: thousands of years, it would revert back to a wilderness state.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden you'd see like, you know,
Speaker 1: you're gonna see chunks of what was a highway overpass,
Speaker 1: you know, the highways that get grown over. But you'll
Speaker 1: see like, oh my gosh, like a highway overpass.
Speaker 4: You know, or something.
Speaker 1: But it'll it'll revert, but it doesn't revert in our
Speaker 1: in any kind of a time frame that humans can comprehend.
Speaker 2: Well, that's encouraging, Steve. I appreciate that. Actually I mostly
Speaker 2: agree with him, all joking aside, and without a hint
Speaker 2: of religiosity. I want to give a criticism to modern Christianity.
Speaker 4: Why say you?
Speaker 2: The Bible speaks of the end of time and the
Speaker 2: earth burning up with fire, and some have used this
Speaker 2: to minimize their personal responsibility towards ecological stewardship, as in,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter because this place is going to burn
Speaker 2: up anyhow. But I don't think the writers of the
Speaker 2: Bible were implying to play it fast and loose with
Speaker 2: the earth, but rather I read in the first two
Speaker 2: chapters a direct exhortation for why is ecological stewardship?
Speaker 4: Why is this relevant?
Speaker 2: You may say, because Christianity's influence on American culture in
Speaker 2: history is unparalleled, rivaling any other institution, and that makes
Speaker 2: it relevant to an intelligent discussion. But I agree with Steve,
Speaker 2: there is a time stamp on the human race's tenure
Speaker 2: on this earth. We've used Steve Ranella as a test
Speaker 2: patient to mine down into the tangible impact of wilderness
Speaker 2: on his life. With that, we're going to switch gears
Speaker 2: back to my original larger question of this series. Are
Speaker 2: American ideals on wilderness globally unique? And we're going to
Speaker 2: broach a bigger question of whether wilderness is still relevant
Speaker 2: to modern America.
Speaker 4: Here is doctor Dan Florees.
Speaker 5: Writing about things like environmental history. I'll always have to
Speaker 5: ask questions like, so, why is the United States the
Speaker 5: first country in the world to create national parks? Why
Speaker 5: are we the first country in the world to create
Speaker 5: a national park system?
Speaker 4: Why are we the first.
Speaker 5: Country in the world to create a wilderness preservation system. Well,
Speaker 5: the explanations I'll go back to this litany of things
Speaker 5: that we've been talking about, and they all sort of await.
Speaker 5: Really someone with insight like Frederick Jackson Turner to distill
Speaker 5: it in a simple form, the significance of the frontier
Speaker 5: in American history. And what the title doesn't say, but
Speaker 5: what you find out when you read the article is
Speaker 5: the significance of the frontier in American history is that
Speaker 5: it created Americans. That's what the significance is, and so
Speaker 5: it's such a potent idea that it shapes the next
Speaker 5: seventy five years of American history.
Speaker 2: I think this has been quantified beyond doubt that the
Speaker 2: American mind frame on wilderness is globally unique, not perfect,
Speaker 2: just unique. Like Turner wrote in his eighteen ninety essay,
Speaker 2: I believe that today wilderness is still essential to the
Speaker 2: American character. Here's Alabama's first son, Hal Herring. If you
Speaker 2: listen to the last Bergrea shrender, you heard my vocal
Speaker 2: impression of this man.
Speaker 4: Here's how.
Speaker 6: And I was thinking of being on the what is
Speaker 6: it the four h five down in California, you know,
Speaker 6: and you're just stuck in that twelve lanes of traffic
Speaker 6: and not that far away from you is you know,
Speaker 6: at least the desolation wilderness which Jack Carroll wac wrote
Speaker 6: about in nineteen fifty. He went there with Gary Snyder,
Speaker 6: you know, the poet like this is so so much
Speaker 6: a part of the fabric of our national identity. I meant,
Speaker 6: you don't have to go back to John Muir, you know,
Speaker 6: the grand old poet of the Sierra Nevada in California.
Speaker 6: You can go to Gary Snyder in the fifties. You
Speaker 6: can go to David Brower in the eighties, and all
Speaker 6: of that huge movement that resulted in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 6: like environmental legislation. These were people who were out in
Speaker 6: these wilderness areas in the United States, and they were
Speaker 6: forming a kind of national identity. You can go back
Speaker 6: to Frederick Jackson Turner in the frontier thesis. But this
Speaker 6: is it's still going on. It's still part of our
Speaker 6: national identity, maybe more so now than ever, that all
Speaker 6: these tributaries have kind of come together and created this river.
Speaker 6: That it's so obvious to us now that these places
Speaker 6: are they're irreplaceable. There there is no way to put
Speaker 6: a value on them.
Speaker 2: House says, wilderness is more relevant than ever to our
Speaker 2: national character. There is no way to put a value
Speaker 2: on it. I like that, however, nations change, identity shifts
Speaker 2: and policy drifts. I'd like to see our society cast
Speaker 2: a gaze back to our roots, as conflicted as that
Speaker 2: can be. America's story of wilderness is odd and full
Speaker 2: of ironies. We became so proficient at destroying wilderness that
Speaker 2: we were the first to federally save it. Wilderness was
Speaker 2: touted here as a sacred cathedral, worthy to be preserved
Speaker 2: on its own merit, but it conveniently coincided with pragmatism
Speaker 2: and most of our first wildernesses were rock and ice
Speaker 2: and basically unusable. Wilderness itself is defined by the absence
Speaker 2: of man's intervention, but the reality of modern wilderness is
Speaker 2: that it's entirely man made. America is known worldwide for
Speaker 2: our great cities and urban centers, but the wilderness defined
Speaker 2: our early identity. Isn't it ironic?
Speaker 4: Don't you think?
Speaker 2: Now we're going to discuss some criticisms of physical and
Speaker 2: federally designated wilderness, not the idea. Here's author and professor
Speaker 2: doctor Sara Dant.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 7: One of the things about wilderness is that it has
Speaker 7: land management protocols that are the most restrictive really of
Speaker 7: public lands. You can't have mechanized vehicles, you can't have roads,
Speaker 7: you can't use machinery. Because it protects that original, untrammeled
Speaker 7: definition as best one can. But for a lot of people,
Speaker 7: the assumption is that wilderness is the land of no use.
Speaker 7: They value the public lands because there is that multiple use.
Speaker 7: The National forests have a multiple use designation, so do
Speaker 7: Bureau of Land Management BLM lands. Those have obvious uses
Speaker 7: that are tied to industries that people feel are in
Speaker 7: many ways iconic family value kinds of things. Timbering, ranching, farming.
Speaker 7: Those are uses of the land that translate into commercial value,
Speaker 7: recognized value. And therefore, if you can't do those commercially
Speaker 7: recognized valuable things on those lands, then they're not valuable,
Speaker 7: they're worthless.
Speaker 2: What about the argument of the elitist, Like from a
Speaker 2: physical standpoint, like wilderness, you can't drive in there, you
Speaker 2: can't take a helicopter in there, So it narrows the
Speaker 2: usage of people to who are who are physically able
Speaker 2: to get back in there.
Speaker 7: That's true.
Speaker 4: What do you say to that.
Speaker 7: That's true, and that is unfortunate. But I really wanted
Speaker 7: to play professional tennis and it turns out I can't
Speaker 7: because I'm not able to do that. It's not going
Speaker 7: to be it's not going to be an experience for everyone.
Speaker 7: And there are places, there are public lands that we
Speaker 7: do make accessible to everyone, that we have trails, we
Speaker 7: do all of those things, and there are those places,
Speaker 7: But I'm not going to get to the top of
Speaker 7: Everest either.
Speaker 2: The issues of access and multiple use are some of
Speaker 2: the biggest criticisms of federal wilderness. Adam Keith is from Missouri.
Speaker 2: He's a professional habitat and wildlife consultant and he has
Speaker 2: a podcast called Land and Legacy. Once he muttered something
Speaker 2: to me about wilderness with the capital W that made
Speaker 2: me spin around and furrow my brow.
Speaker 4: Here's Adam Keith.
Speaker 3: When someone asked me about wilderness, I first, I have
Speaker 3: so many follow up questions because what exactly are we
Speaker 3: talking about? And you say, you know that wilderness area.
Speaker 3: The definition I would use that almost say with a chuckle,
Speaker 3: is a large track of land that's unmanaged. Because these
Speaker 3: are areas that for me, when I see them, I
Speaker 3: get concerned about the future of that area, and I
Speaker 3: look at them from a standpoint of going what is
Speaker 3: the natural landscape supposed to be here and what it
Speaker 3: is now? And you know, coming from Missouri born and
Speaker 3: raised and now with my job, we work in thirty
Speaker 3: two states from basically Montana to the Atlantic, and I
Speaker 3: get to see a lot of country and I assist
Speaker 3: landowners in improving their property to try to add the
Speaker 3: most bio diversity down the property possible. So the most
Speaker 3: is specifically game species, but also non game species can
Speaker 3: flourish there. And so for me, when I see these
Speaker 3: wilderness areas, the ones I've stepped on and been on,
Speaker 3: I almost cringe when someone says, oh, the wilderness area,
Speaker 3: because I'm looking at it from a the lenses of
Speaker 3: a native landscape enthusiast and as a hunter, and I'm going, man,
Speaker 3: these areas are in dire need of some management, some disturbance,
Speaker 3: some sort of action to help restore the biodiversity that
Speaker 3: was once there.
Speaker 2: And wait a minute, I thought wilderness was the poster
Speaker 2: child of biodiversity.
Speaker 4: What is he talking about?
Speaker 3: So I look, you know, I love public land. I've
Speaker 3: hunted a lot of public lands, but when I see
Speaker 3: these wilderness areas, specifically in the Midwest and East, I
Speaker 3: just have to cringe and say, man, they could be
Speaker 3: so much better if we were allowed to manage them
Speaker 3: the way the landscape needs to be managed. And when
Speaker 3: people talk about wilderness and we see kind of what
Speaker 3: the purpose was to exclude these, you know, four wheelers
Speaker 3: and mechanical machines on chainsaws, but we have to I
Speaker 3: like to say, let's also look at what's being excluded
Speaker 3: that was beneficial to the landscape from a natural disturbance,
Speaker 3: and specifically, fire is one of them that I really
Speaker 3: wish we could see more of. I'll take a very
Speaker 3: close approach hits right at home. There's a large track
Speaker 3: of national forests just a few counties south of me,
Speaker 3: and you have a large track that is national forest,
Speaker 3: and you have a large track that is wilderness, the
Speaker 3: wilderness being about twelve thousand acres. And if you go
Speaker 3: to the those two areas, you'll see entirely different landscapes.
Speaker 3: If you go to the Gladtop trail where there's active management,
Speaker 3: you'll see these huge open glades, these amazing grasslands with
Speaker 3: dotted savannahs around them, transitioning into woodlands with just incredible diversity.
Speaker 3: You might even catch an Eastern collared lizard, which is
Speaker 3: kind of one of our rare reptiles here in the Midwest.
Speaker 3: And you might even catch a covey of quail. But
Speaker 3: you jump right across the road into the wilderness area
Speaker 3: and you're gonna see stark difference of unmanaged ground, and
Speaker 3: that is gonna be chalked full of Eastern red cedar.
Speaker 3: They historically take over the glade ecosystem. You're gonna see
Speaker 3: lots of invasive species like Serisa espadiza. Ultimately you're gonna
Speaker 3: see not a whole lot of these open, beautiful wildflower
Speaker 3: meadows that are within a mile away. It's just such
Speaker 3: a comparison for me to look at that and go
Speaker 3: if I were to have to choose one, obviously I'm
Speaker 3: going to take the glay Top Trail. With active management
Speaker 3: going on, you see more life there than you do
Speaker 3: at the wilderness.
Speaker 2: Adam has seen federal wilderness, especially in the East, having
Speaker 2: a lot of invasives, having less biodiversity, and is actually
Speaker 2: less like pre European landscapes than the more managed national forest,
Speaker 2: primarily because of lack of fire. But I think it's
Speaker 2: important to note that he's primarily talking about these smaller
Speaker 2: wilderness areas in the Eastern USA, because some fire does
Speaker 2: naturally happen in the big Western wildernesses, but it's often
Speaker 2: catastrophic fire. Smaller, more regular burns would reduce fuel loads
Speaker 2: and fires wouldn't be as intense.
Speaker 4: This is all really complicated stuff.
Speaker 3: When it comes to these wilderness areas. I think it's
Speaker 3: very unfair to assume that you can manage an eastern
Speaker 3: wilderness as, say in North Carolina, the same way you
Speaker 3: would manage a wilderness area in Montana or Alaska. They're
Speaker 3: totally different areas, totally different ecosystems, different historical disturbances, and
Speaker 3: you wouldn't even manage your own farm, or you wouldn't
Speaker 3: manage the same way in the southern part of your
Speaker 3: state is the northern part of the state. So I
Speaker 3: think it's very unfair for us to believe that you
Speaker 3: can throw a label or throw up some signs and
Speaker 3: call it a wilderness area and have the same management
Speaker 3: across the board and expect the same results. When I
Speaker 3: hear many people talk about wilderness, they talk about basically
Speaker 3: void of human activity. Talk about the ability to go
Speaker 3: and camp or walk and hike all the way through it,
Speaker 3: ride a horse and not run into major human activity.
Speaker 3: And it sounds picturesque and it sounds wonderful. But putting
Speaker 3: the lens of land management and natural native ecosystem restoration on,
Speaker 3: I say, but at what point does the void and
Speaker 3: human use and human management turn into the void of
Speaker 3: native ecosystem flora and fauna flourishing.
Speaker 4: There A lot of people love the idea of wilderness.
Speaker 4: They love the idea of it.
Speaker 3: But if I could walk with every single one of
Speaker 3: those people through a wilderness here in the Midwest and
Speaker 3: eastern part, we would walk away on the same page.
Speaker 6: I'm convinced of it.
Speaker 2: The real question here is what do we really value
Speaker 2: about wilderness. Is it the physically untrammeled, uninfluenced by man aspect,
Speaker 2: meaning you don't see roads, firebreaks, stumps and tire tracks.
Speaker 2: Or do we value pre European biodiversity. It seems like
Speaker 2: it's really hard to have both, and this is a
Speaker 2: tough one for me. I don't like seeing roads, and
Speaker 2: even if they are gated, you know, people will violate
Speaker 2: the law and unlawfully enter. Would any human management at
Speaker 2: all break the whole untrammeled aspect of wilderness that we
Speaker 2: love so much. What's more important to you, untrammeled or biodiversity?
Speaker 4: Think about it.
Speaker 2: Here's documentary wild life filmmaker Ben masters Well.
Speaker 8: I think that it's important to recognize that we are
Speaker 8: living in an extinction crisis in the world right now,
Speaker 8: and that wildernesses harbor one of the greatest hopes in
Speaker 8: conserving biodiversity. So if a wilderness area isn't managed for
Speaker 8: that natural habitat that should be there, For example, a
Speaker 8: Ponderosa pine forest which requires natural fire to go through
Speaker 8: that ecosystem, and instead that area is allowed to become
Speaker 8: dominated by an invasive species, then not only is that
Speaker 8: I believe antithetical to the purpose of the wilderness ideal,
Speaker 8: but I would also consider that to be a threat
Speaker 8: to biodiversity at large. Of course, we should manage our
Speaker 8: wilderness areas to promote native endemic species to that areas,
Speaker 8: and if that requires things like burn breaks, or requires
Speaker 8: things like, you know, removing invasive species through mechanical means,
Speaker 8: then I am in full support of that. I'd like
Speaker 8: to think that we could take a hands off approach,
Speaker 8: but like the whole idea of wilderness is very hands on.
Speaker 8: Like that is a very human construct to designate a
Speaker 8: wilderness as a place free from humanity. But just the
Speaker 8: very political nature of how wilderness was created inherently means
Speaker 8: that it is this man made thing. And I think
Speaker 8: that recognizing what that man made thing is, we should
Speaker 8: manage it to be the best wilderness possible. And if
Speaker 8: that requires some intervention, you know, ensuring that that habitat
Speaker 8: is able to continue to exist into the future, than
Speaker 8: by all means, I think that we should intervene.
Speaker 2: Ben's answer surprise me, but seems reasonable.
Speaker 3: When we get into the wilderness and I start talking
Speaker 3: about this, I typically depending on who I'm talking to,
Speaker 3: but they're ready to pitch me away because it's kind
Speaker 3: of I'm not anti wilderness, I'm not anti public lands,
Speaker 3: I'm not any of that.
Speaker 4: I'm just pro active land management.
Speaker 3: And I feel like a simple you know, I'm not saying,
Speaker 3: call up the lumber crews and the timber crews and
Speaker 3: get them in there and let's start cutting.
Speaker 4: Some wilderness areas.
Speaker 3: I think what we have to understand my argument in
Speaker 3: simple terms is can we reevaluate the management plan that
Speaker 3: we have currently? Can we reevaluate the terms that are
Speaker 3: put in place for the wilderness areas because there's too
Speaker 3: many invasives, there's too much catastrophic fire, there's too many
Speaker 3: wild far as, there's too many things happening in these
Speaker 3: areas that are causing a major decline in our game
Speaker 3: and non game species as well as the flora and
Speaker 3: the fauna. We're not just talking I want more deer.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that. And for just a simple solution,
Speaker 3: I'd say, can we use prescribe fire in these areas?
Speaker 3: Can we use them to help thin out some of
Speaker 3: the invasive species that are there? Can we help use
Speaker 3: the fire to stimulate new growth. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: trees in some of these wilderness areas that are sick,
Speaker 3: disease declining, and fire will help go ahead and kill
Speaker 3: them and free up that space for new life to
Speaker 3: grow up. And the other simple requests that would have
Speaker 3: would be anything invasive species management. Once we identify the
Speaker 3: invasives that are there, can we go in and remove
Speaker 3: them through different means whatever the best management practice is
Speaker 3: for that list of invasives. That's what I choose to do.
Speaker 3: Could be a timed application of herbicide to remain move
Speaker 3: a specific species. And I know I said the word herbicide,
Speaker 3: and people are gonna be upset about that. But we
Speaker 3: have to find solutions to remove these invasives or at
Speaker 3: least begin to set them back rather than just let
Speaker 3: them go crazy in our wilderness areas.
Speaker 8: If we resurrected John Muir and introduce some type of
Speaker 8: invasive tree to the Yosemite Valley and took him there
Speaker 8: and said, all right, John, look at this valley here.
Speaker 8: In fifty years it's going to be completely dominated by
Speaker 8: this invasive tree and this ecosystem that inspired you so
Speaker 8: much to advocate for wilderness is going to disappear. What
Speaker 8: do you think we should do? Should we combat this
Speaker 8: invasive species or should we preserve the wilderness idea and
Speaker 8: take a totally hands off approach. I think John Muir
Speaker 8: would agree with that sentiment, that we should manage our
Speaker 8: wilderness areas for what makes them so special. Yeah, I
Speaker 8: think a hands off approach is irresponsible.
Speaker 2: A hands off approach is irresponsible. I appreciate the certainty
Speaker 2: of his answer, and he's not wrong. However, I'm not
Speaker 2: sure I trust the system enough to let them change
Speaker 2: the rules. Is that reasonable? And to make a comment
Speaker 2: about the extinction crisis. As North American hunters, we Clay
Speaker 2: loves to talk about how well the twenty nine big
Speaker 2: game species are doing and how hunting has saved them.
Speaker 2: This is our stump speech. And sometimes I can be
Speaker 2: dismissive of environmental messaging because it appears to be politically motivated. However,
Speaker 2: because I pay attention to what's going on globally and
Speaker 2: in this country, this biodiversity crisis is real. Let's just
Speaker 2: take where I live in Arkansas. Pre European settlement, there
Speaker 2: would have been insignificant numbers wolves, mountain lions, bison, elk
Speaker 2: ivory build, woodpeckers, and passenger pigeons. Only the pigeon and
Speaker 2: the woodpecker are extinct. The others just extirpated. But that's
Speaker 2: a significant chunk of biote had taken off the landscape.
Speaker 2: And this isn't even including amphibians and insects the road.
Speaker 2: Dad Gumm talked about the demigod that stole the stars
Speaker 2: and how he wants to see an entire heaven and
Speaker 2: an entire earth. The real question is what do we
Speaker 2: value in wilderness. Is it simply no people or evidence
Speaker 2: of them, or is it a healthy, biodiverse ecosystem.
Speaker 4: Here's Adam as.
Speaker 3: A land manager and a habitat consultant. A lot of
Speaker 3: times we love to quote All the Leopold, and we
Speaker 3: love to read Sand County Almanac and just be mesmerized
Speaker 3: by his thoughts. And you know, although it passed away
Speaker 3: in like nineteen forty eight, another common name when you
Speaker 3: start talking All the Leopold, you talk about John and
Speaker 3: he passed away nineteen fourteen. And you know, these guys
Speaker 3: had incredible ideas of the landscape. John Mirror more of
Speaker 3: a preservationist mindset. Aldo Leopold you know, famously for his
Speaker 3: five tools of land management with an axe, cow, plow, fire,
Speaker 3: and a gun. That doesn't sound like a preservationist, a
Speaker 3: wilderness type, even though he's helped, he helped with some
Speaker 3: of the ideas of wilderness. And I think as much
Speaker 3: as I love all those work, there's one thing that
Speaker 3: I pulled away when reading him is his love for
Speaker 3: native land scapes, like just just the wild, undeveloped land.
Speaker 3: And so when he talked a little bit about invasive species,
Speaker 3: but you know, there's a it's a totally different world
Speaker 3: when you look at the invasive loads that we have
Speaker 3: today versus in the thirties and forties. And I think
Speaker 3: if he were alive today, I feel like he would
Speaker 3: have to say, I think we need to reevaluate the
Speaker 3: management that we're doing in our eastern and Midwestern forest,
Speaker 3: especially the wilderness, because we are drowning in evasives and
Speaker 3: they are in dire need of help and right now
Speaker 3: we can't do anything. But with this wilderness idea, it's like,
Speaker 3: let's just blanket it and call it a wilderness area.
Speaker 3: And now all we know is that no man's going
Speaker 3: to be building houses or condos or cottages there, it's
Speaker 3: going to be kind of left alone, and it's like, Oh,
Speaker 3: no game manager in the country would say, I'm going
Speaker 3: to write a plan for now forever and leave it
Speaker 3: as is. There's always reevaluations that happen, and that's because
Speaker 3: we're trying to do what's best for the landscape.
Speaker 2: The trouble with reevaluations when it comes to federal wilderness
Speaker 2: is what if they change it all together? What if
Speaker 2: an open gate ends up with the whole thing being reorganized?
Speaker 2: Is it better to risk it with invasive species are
Speaker 2: fundamentally changed? The regulations on wilderness risking larger scale changes.
Speaker 2: Is the federal system nimble enough to regulate different places
Speaker 2: under different rules? Can they be trusted? I do not
Speaker 2: know the answer to this. What do you think now
Speaker 2: we've seen some of the problems with wilderness, but what
Speaker 2: are the most real challenges they'll face and the coming generations.
Speaker 8: I've had the opportunity to think a lot about wilderness.
Speaker 8: I recently had a daughter and a son. Bertie is
Speaker 8: three and a half and Davis, my boy's year and
Speaker 8: a half old. I think about how our generation has
Speaker 8: inherited this amazing gift of wild places and of all
Speaker 8: the wonderful things that America has, the opportunity, the economic opportunity,
Speaker 8: I think that the greatest gift that we've inherited is
Speaker 8: wild places. And I think that that is the greatest
Speaker 8: gift that we can give our children as well. You know,
Speaker 8: looking fifty one hundred, two hundred years down the road,
Speaker 8: that is going to be the most valuable commodity that
Speaker 8: the future has is wilderness. And I think that it's
Speaker 8: foolish for us to assume that just because a wilderness
Speaker 8: area exists today, that it's going to exist fifty or
Speaker 8: one hundred years from now.
Speaker 2: I asked how Hering what the biggest threat to American
Speaker 2: wilderness is.
Speaker 4: Here's what he said.
Speaker 2: I sure hope he doesn't bring up America's greatest president,
Speaker 2: Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 6: In the West, particular all over the country though the
Speaker 6: United States, the people since Reagan have been taught.
Speaker 4: Dad gumn how told you not to bring up Reagan.
Speaker 6: That the federal government is an enemy, the most dangerous
Speaker 6: words in English language. Where I'm from the federal government
Speaker 6: and I'm here to help you, you know, Randy Weaver whatever,
Speaker 6: David Koresh in Waco right like and you're not going
Speaker 6: to find a more skeptical person of government power than Hell.
Speaker 6: That person doesn't exist. However, we have been carefully taught
Speaker 6: to despise and reject the federal government as a solution
Speaker 6: to any problems. And the honest answer to this is
Speaker 6: the federal government is responsible for the US Forest Service,
Speaker 6: and for the wilderness, and for the designated wilderness, and
Speaker 6: for all the American system of public lands. And if
Speaker 6: we continue to disempower, dislike, distrust, despise our own government
Speaker 6: at the federal level, we're not going to have these protections,
Speaker 6: and these lands are going to be overrun by people
Speaker 6: who seek to profit from them in the next one
Speaker 6: hundred years for sure. So the answer to that is
Speaker 6: a very American answer, and it is that we, the people,
Speaker 6: operating a government of the people, by the people for
Speaker 6: the people, are going to have to choose at the
Speaker 6: federal level to keep these lands in public hands and
Speaker 6: federally managed.
Speaker 4: Whoo.
Speaker 2: How that's interesting and insightful. As we come to a
Speaker 2: close on this session of the Bare Greece Academy, we've
Speaker 2: covered a lot of ground, but most notably, this series
Speaker 2: has challenged my views on American wilderness through one simple thing, knowledge.
Speaker 2: I just know more than I did before. I want
Speaker 2: to ask doctor Floor as one final question, and it
Speaker 2: pertains to knowledge, and it's more of a philosophical one.
Speaker 2: It's one I'm asking myself. Do you as your attitude
Speaker 2: of wilderness changed?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's changed, for sure, But so I understand much
Speaker 5: better the role of wilderness as a constructed idea in
Speaker 5: the American mind. In particular, one of the great things
Speaker 5: about learning new information is that it rearranges the furniture
Speaker 5: in your head. Suddenly you can't ever go back. Your
Speaker 5: whole point of view is from a different angle on
Speaker 5: the world now. And I think understanding how wilderness got
Speaker 5: conceived and how it was altered by Romanticism and by
Speaker 5: Turner Fredick Jackson Turner, and by the Wilderness Act, and
Speaker 5: the whole notion of wilderness as a place where humans
Speaker 5: don't remain, which was a complete misapprehension of what earlier
Speaker 5: Europeans actually were seeing in America. That's all been modified
Speaker 5: by what I've read and understood. But somehow it didn't
Speaker 5: make me not not want to live like this, and
Speaker 5: it hasn't hasn't had any kind of impact on. I've
Speaker 5: got a chance to go spend twelve days floating down
Speaker 5: the Hulahula River from the top of the Brooks Range
Speaker 5: to the Arctic Sea through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Speaker 5: with ten thousand cariboo around me and packs of wolves
Speaker 5: hunting them. Right, I'm going to go do.
Speaker 2: I hope this series has made you evaluate how you view,
Speaker 2: interact with, and are influenced by America's wild lands. I
Speaker 2: believe understanding our cultural history is critical to having any
Speaker 2: objective and reasonable opinions on how it should be treated today.
Speaker 2: In the coming decades and even coming centuries. I believe
Speaker 2: wild lands will one day be the most scarce natural
Speaker 2: resource on planet Earth. A day will come when men
Speaker 2: will crave to interact with them and will not be
Speaker 2: able to find them. That is, unless we can keep
Speaker 2: them wild. In many ways, that day is already upon us. Overall,
Speaker 2: oak the series sparks a more effective passion in our
Speaker 2: hearts for wild lands and all their forms. I know
Speaker 2: that it's challenged meat, it's rearranged the furniture in my head.
Speaker 2: In the end, it's clear to me that America does
Speaker 2: have a globally unique perspective on wild lands and that's
Speaker 2: something to be proud of. We just have to make
Speaker 2: sure the wild places stay wild. Thanks so much for
Speaker 2: listening to Bear Grease. The spring is upon us and
Speaker 2: we're about to get in to some turkey hunting stories.
Speaker 2: Be sure to come out and see Brent and I
Speaker 2: on March ninth, twenty twenty four, in Bntonville, Arkansas at
Speaker 2: the Black Bear Bonanza.
Speaker 4: We'll be there all day.
Speaker 2: And the Mediator Crew is hitting the road again for
Speaker 2: a live tour out west in April and May, so
Speaker 2: look for some more info on that. I'll be there too.
Speaker 2: I hope you have a great week.
Speaker 4: Thanks again,