Question 3: What are the alternatives?
Are there other ways of thinking about and conceptualising 'wilderness'?
How else can you conceptualise landscapes? How do other people
see land and human interaction within it?
In preparation for discussion in the Tutorial Discussion you should
write a few comments here about other ways you think people are
likely to conceive of land and landscapes.
Some people view land as a living entity of which humans are a
part. Others see landscapes and humans called into existence by
creator beings. In most cases, the artificial separation between
humans and their surroundings that is so much a part of 'western'
thinking, is completely ignored.
You can see how different the Yolngu epistemology is in comparison
to the 'western' model in Chapter Three of the Key Questions
text. Read through this section of the text on the example of an
Indigenous epistemology. What can you infer from the four points
made there on pages 51 and 52 about the Yolngu understanding of
land? Write your ideas in the
Tutorial
Discussion.
What about feminists? Can you see how they might envisage land
differently. The Key Questions text gives a good example
of how feminists might think. Perhaps you might want to look at
trying to develop an understanding of a feminist perspective of
land and land use.
Langton (1996) in the article 'The European Construction of Wilderness'
suggests that there actually is no such thing. To her, and it has
become an increasingly common premise, the only true wilderness,
may in-fact be the Antarctic, where human activity has been minimal
and confined. In all other places, humans have, for thousands of
years, influenced, shaped and been active agents within the landscape.
To her, wilderness is more a political construct which is used for
neo-colonial activity of dispossession and appropriation of land
and resources. You can see how she frames her argument about national
parks on page two of her article.
Is there any wilderness in Australia?
In Australia, there is no wilderness, in the traditional sense,
all land has been shaped by the use of fire and other resources
since humans arrived here some 50, 000 years ago. The landscapes
have been 'socialised by fire' as Lesley
Head (1996) would put it and people's use of the resources has
shaped plant and animal populations and distributions. There is
no place on the continent that is not influenced by human activity,
particularly now with the arrival or European settlers. As Langton
says, terra nullius was a lie. There are no 'virgin landscapes'
in Australia.
The concept of 'wilderness' perhaps needs to be changed or perhaps
dropped altogether in a world where people aim to rid themselves
of colonising influences and become active users and managers of
land.
How do you see the 'Wilderness
Society' and other conservation groups coping with this? Is
there a role for these sorts of organisations if there is really
no such thing as a wilderness? Write your response in the
tutorial
discussion and see what the other students are thinking/saying
about the same question?
This concept of land and 'wilderness' required people to be active
agents in using and managing land, something which is an anathema
to the concept of locking up huge tracts of land in national parks
for conservation. How can conservation occur without active involvement
of people, either original inhabitants or colonisers. Langton (1996)
would say that both deliberate use and exclusion are both active
management land-use decisions.
|
