Natural Areas

How “Wilderness” Was Invented Without Indigenous Peoples
By: Claudia Geib
2022
Key Words: pristine myth; wilderness; conservation
https://www.sapiens.org/culture/pristine-wilderness-conservation/
The application of the “pristine myth” and the designation of land as wilderness has been critiqued by scholars for decades. New research is contributing to a wider view that human modification to land is not inherently destructive. Contrary to long held beliefs, places considered “wild,” are proving to be the “product of human intervention.” These findings are important to the decisions being made about how to protect nature against the threat of climate change. In the past, conservation has often meant the displacement of Indigenous populations from land they had been sustainably managing for millennia. However, there is new evidence that this displacement has negatively impacted landscapes and arguments for the adoption preindustrial or Indigenous practices of resource management are being made.

Historical Indigenous Land Use Explains Plant Functional Trait Diversity
By: Chelsey Geralda Armstrong, Jesse E. D. Miller, Alex C. McAlvay, Patrick Morgan Ritchie, and Dana Lepofsky
2021
Key words: functional diversity metrics, British Colombia, Canada, ethnobotanical, Indigenous land management, forest gardens, resiliency, climate change
https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol26/iss2/art6/
The research presented in this paper is the first to apply functional diversity metrics to the study of Indigenous managed land. These functional traits “are readily measurable characteristics of plant species that can give insight into community assembly processes and ecological interactions.” This methodology is specifically applied to ‘forest gardens’ in British Columbia, Canada for this research. It was predicted that these forest gardens would have more functional diversity than their surrounding periphery forests and that the plants identified would have distinct ethnobotanical traits. Their findings supported this hypothesis. The authors argue that this highlights the need to consider human land-use legacies in ecological studies. Additionally, the forest gardens studied have maintained their diversity and health without management for over a hundred years. This prompts the authors to argue that Indigenous management practices increased ecosystem resiliency. The authors conclude their paper suggesting further research into the relationship between traditional management practices and plant community health and resiliency, something we will need to better understand in a world effected by climate change.

The contributions of indigenous peoples and local communities to ecological restoration
By: Victoria Reyes-García, Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares, Pamela McElwee, Zsolt Molnár, Kinga Öllerer, Sarah J. Wilson, Eduardo S. Brondizio
Restoration Ecology Vol. 27, Issue 1
2019
Key words: Restoration, maintenance, ecosystems, traditional practices, Indigenous and Local Knowledge (ILK), resilience, conservation
https://www.academia.edu/40053644/The_contributions_of_Indigenous_Peoples_and_local_communities_to_ecological_restoration
From their review of the available literature, the authors make the argument that when Indigenous people and local communities are involved with restoration projects, they are more often successful. Their collaboration and insight makes the maintenance projects more long-term, too, as they are informed by traditional knowledge and practices.

Global trends of local ecological knowledge and future implications
By: Shankar Aswani
PLOS ONE
April 5, 2018
Keywords: Biodiversity, conservation science, culture, medicinal plants, ethnobotany, climate change, indigenous populations, agriculture
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0195440
Global losses of biodiversity are accompanied by loss of traditional ecological knowledge. The resulting loss of biocultural diversity threatens human adaptive resilience to these changes. This study considers local ecological knowledge (LEK), including traditional and local knowledge from all communities, within developing and industrialized nations. This paper surveys relevant research about LEK loss and considers the ecological implications of these losses.

What if nature, like corporations, had the rights and protections of a person?
by Chip Colwell
The Conversation, October 10, 2016
Key words: Citizens United, Te Urewera Act, natural and cultural resources protection, Zuni, Maori, Hopi
http://theconversation.com/what-if-nature-like-corporations-had-the-rights-and-protections-of-a-person-64947
For the Zuni Pueblo, Mount Taylor (northwest of Albuquerque, NM) is a site of sacred significance that has sustained and shaped the life and identity of the Zuni people for centuries. The mountain is regarded as a giver of life, a living body. In this article, the author uses Mount Taylor as an example of a place that, were it to be regarded (as corporations are) as a living person, could be afforded the same respect and protections by federal and state regulators, as it is by the Zuni. Such a designation could provide the mountain rights and protections from, for example, the already extensive uranium mining taking place there by the U.S. Forest Service.

Keep off the Grasslands, Mark Dowie on Conservation Refugees
By: Joel Whitney
The Sun
August 2013
Key words: Resource extraction, public lands, pristine, wilderness, Indigenous, stewardship
https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/452/keep-off-the-grasslands
The author interviews Mark Dowie about Indigenous peoples around the world and their abilities to create biological diversity, using their traditional ecological knowledge, and the impact of big corporations and conservation organizations and their creation and impact on wilderness areas.

Resilience and the Cultural Landscape; Understanding and Managing Change in Human-Shaped Environments
Edited by: Tobias Plieninger and Claudia Bieling
Cambridge University Press
2012
Key words: Biodiversity, ecological disturbance, adaptability, social–ecological resilience
http://assets.cambridge.org/97811070/20788/frontmatter/9781107020788_frontmatter.pdf
Human activity occupies more than four-fifths of Earth’s landmasses, which have been primarily cultivated for timber production and agriculture. These dominant forms of human-environmental relationships characterize a model of industry at the cost of biodiversity and resilience. This view of humans on the environment excludes traditional relationships that are both longer standing examples, and promote ecological resilience. These mutually beneficial examples are used to show how localized management programs contrast against larger practices. Authors discuss the ways in which a cultural-ecological landscape can remain productive until it crosses a certain threshold of scale, at which it’s unable to remain as resilient.

What is Natural?: Protected Areas, Indigenous Peoples, and The Western Idea of Nature
by Dennis Martinez
Ecological Restoration, 21:247-250;doi:10.3368/er.21.4.247
December 2003
Keywords: Wildness, ecological integrity, control over nature
http://www.georgewright.org/0535martinez.pdf
The author discusses Western ideas of the separation of nature from humanity. Policies separating indigenous people from involvement in land management are contrasted against arguments that indigenous people are integral to successful ecosystems.

What is Natural?: Nature as We See It: National Parks and the Wilderness Ideal
by David Louter
Ecological Restoration, 21:251-253;doi:10.3368/er.21.4.251
December 2003
Keywords: Definition of natural, Native American eviction, wilderness design
http://er.uwpress.org/content/21/4/251.extract
This article discusses aspects of National Parks Landscapes and messaging that have been designed by modern society National Parks policy. The author explores the meaning of natural by looking at historic human involvement with natural landscapes. Also discusses the historic policy focus on tourism in national parks sometimes at the expense of other interests. Finally, the article touches on the eviction of Native Americans from National Parks lands and how Native Americans involvement in National Parks clashed with ideas of pristine wilderness promoted in the progressive era.