Wilderness, Conservation & Eco-Tourism

by Emma J Devereux

Citation: Devereux, E.J.,(2022), “Wilderness, Conservation & Eco-Tourism”, EcoFoodDev, https://www.ecofooddev.com/wilderness-conservation–eco-tourism/

Eco-tourism and wilderness destinations are incredibly popular, with tourists seeing no contradiction, it seems, in an area being designated as both wilderness AND developed for tourism. The global tourism industry has thus become an important stakeholder in wilderness designation and conservation/management policy. National parks such as SANParks Kruger National Park South Africa receive millions of visitors annually, and hence environmental management policies are created with the tourist experience in mind, and not just a purely environmental conservation focus. When it comes to how the tourist views wilderness, their experience is a question of either multiple perceptions, or blinkers to perception. The tourist may experience nature on multiple levels, inclusive of the natural beauty, the local indigenous culture, AND the structured tourist landscape. Alternatively, indigenous culture may be excluded from their perception. How the person in question forms their idea of wilderness will dictate their experiences. That being said, there are accepted definitions for the concept of “wilderness”.

Wilderness: Functions & Practical Definitions

For the purposes of national parks, conservation areas, reserves, and other such designations and defined areas, there are practical definitions/boundaries accepted to represent “wilderness”. For example, wilderness boundaries can be defined using visual impact assessment procedures using Geographic Information Systems analysis. Wilderness zones can thus be established, and management plans applied (Wall-Reinius, 2012). From a conservation perspective, such definitions are necessary to establish in order to undertake conservation management work.

Features of the natural environment can be defined by the functions and services that they provide. Ecosystem services refer to the value applied to the natural world, measured in terms of the services the environment provides to human existence, from providing food, material for building, flood mitigation, nutrient cycling, to heritage and archaeological value. Nash (1976) presented a list of the functions of wilderness:

Functions of Wilderness (Nash, 1976)

Argument 1: Wilderness as a reservoir for normal ecological processes

Argument 2: Wilderness as a sustainer of biological diversity

Argument 3: Wilderness as a formative influence on National Character

Argument 4: Wilderness as a nourisher of arts and letters

Argument 5: Wilderness as a church

Argument 6: Wilderness as a guardian of mental health

Argument 7: Wilderness as a sustainer of human diversity

Argument 8: Wilderness as an educational asset in developing environmental responsibility

Protected Areas, Tourism & Politics

Protected areas underpin many conservation approaches and might appear to embody the idea of wilderness areas as remnants of a pristine, untouched part of nature. These types of protected area form a key part of eco-tourism, bridging the tourist spaces and exotic spaces that tourists inhabit and consume. Sometimes such areas also preserve local cultural traditions but run the risk of making the indigenous peoples somehow more exotic and sidelined. Ideas surrounding protected area designation are seldom studied regarding the philosophies and assumptions underlying them. The purpose of protected areas is to preserve biodiversity and to protect processes that cannot survive in intensely managed landscapes, and to create an infrastructure for the use and appreciation of these ecosystems (Kalamandeen & Gillson, 2007). Their purpose may also be said to be the preservation of human values, and traditional forms of landscape management.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has established categories and criteria of Protected Areas:

Protected Area Categorization & Criteria (based on IUCN 1994)
Category	Protected Area Type & Description	Required Criteria
I (a)	“Strict Nature Reserve”. Protected and managed primarily for scientific purposes.	Wilderness/pristine, scenic, biodiversity, tourism not allowed
I (b)	“Wilderness Area”. Protected and managed primarily for wilderness protection.	Wilderness/pristine, scenic, biodiversity, tourism allowed
II	“National Park”. Protected and managed primarily for ecosystem protection purposes and public recreation.	Wilderness/pristine, scenic, biodiversity, recreation
III	“Natural Monument”. Protected and managed primarily for conservation and natural features.	Landscape, scenic, tourism
IV	“Habitat/Species Management Area”. Protected and managed primarily for conservation via management intervention.	Biodiversity
V	“Protected Landscape/Seascape”. Protected and managed primarily for protection and recreation.	Tourism, biodiversity, scenic.
VI	“Managed Resource Protected Area”. Protected and managed primarily for sustainable exploitation of natural ecosystems.	Biodiversity, presence of people permitted.

“Pristine”

The term “pristine” is included in the IUCN protected areas designation. This term is vague and perhaps problematic. The idea of a pristine landscape is, in my view, redundant, given the archaeological and archaeobotanical evidence for human manipulation of the landscape over the last 10,000 years. Since the advent of agriculture, crops, livestock, and natural environments (such as water channels and forests) have been manipulated to serve the appetites of an ever-growing human population. An archaeological, time-depth perspective needs to be incorporated into conservation and climate science, to understand human-environment interactions and responses to variation over the course of human society. Urbanization and industrialization have further contaminated remaining pristine environments via, for example, air dispersal.

Defining “pristine” in terms of wilderness suggests the absence of something. William Deneven, in his “The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492”, looks at the idea that the Americas were in a pristine state in 1492, prior to the colonization of the Americas, as the environment was relatively undisturbed by human activity. This is a foundational myth of “wilderness”- that nature is wild and undisturbed until white men tame it.  There is ample evidence that Native American populations were large and sophisticated prior to the colonization of America, and that they had modified forests and grasslands for their own economies.

Recognition of these difficulties in previously politically and racially motivated designations can lead to the involvement of indigenous peoples in environmental and conservation policy- and encourage tourists to demand this. Clear communication of wilderness fragility can encourage responsible tourism and drive conservation strategy in infrastructure development, habitat protection, and the recognition of ecosystem services.

In the next post, I will consider wilderness policy and the construction of national identity via the establishment of national parks.

Cover image: IUCN map of protected areas of the world.

References cited

• Basso, K.H., 1996. ‘Wisdom sits in places: Landscape and language among the Western Apache.’ UNM Press.
• Cronon, W., 1996. ‘The trouble with wilderness: or getting back to the wrong nature.’ Environmental History, 1(1), pp.7-28.
• Devereux, E.J., 2021. ‘Crop Cultivation’s Astonishing Age: 10,000 Years of Change.’, From Farm to Fork: The Ecology of Eating, http://www.ecofooddev.com/category/the-archaeology-of-farming-old-solutions-to-modern-problems/ Accessed: 08.06.2021.
• IUCN. 1994. The World Conservation Union Guidelines for protected area management categories. Gland, Switzerland
• Kalamandeen, M. and Gillson, L., 2007. Demything “wilderness”: implications for protected area designation and management. Biodiversity and Conservation, 16(1), pp.165-182.
• Kruger, S.C., Rusworth, I.A. and Oliver, K., 2011. ‘The verification of wilderness area boundaries as part of a buffer zone demarcation process: A case study from the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park World Heritage Site.’ In In: Watson, Alan; Murrieta-Saldivar, Joaquin; McBride, Brooke, comps. Science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values: Ninth World Wilderness Congress symposium; November 6-13, 2009; Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. Proceedings RMRS-P-64. Fort Collins, CO: US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. p. 190-195. (Vol. 64, pp. 190-195).
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• Moore, S.A., 2015. The” world’s biggest zoo”? Elephants, ecological change, and the contested legacies of conservation in the Kruger National Park (Doctoral dissertation, University of Oregon).
• Nash, R., 1976. ‘The value of wilderness.’ Environmental Review: ER, 1(3), pp.14-25.
• Saarinen, J., 2016. ‘Wilderness use, conservation and tourism: what do we protect and for and from whom?.’ Tourism Geographies, 18(1), pp.1-8.
• Tilley, C., 1994. A phenomenology of landscape: places, paths, and monuments (Vol. 10). Oxford: Berg.
• Walker, B. and Sinclair, A.R., 2003. The Kruger experience: ecology and management of savanna heterogeneity. Island Press.
• Wall-Reinius, S., 2012. Wilderness and culture: Tourist views and experiences in the Laponian World Heritage Area. Society & Natural Resources, 25(7), pp.621-632.
• Zoderer, B.M. and Tasser, E., 2021. ‘The plurality of wilderness beliefs and their mediating role in shaping attitudes towards wilderness.’ Journal of Environmental Management, 277, p.111392