What do you mean by “wildlands”?

Jack Turner writes that Henry David Thoreau “understood wildness as a quality: wild nature, wild men, wild friends, wild dreams, wild house cats, and wild literature” (1996, p. 107). Wildlands, and wilderness, are thus places that are steeped in the quality of wildness—the places that are the most wild (Aplet, 1999) and “where the wild potential is fully expressed” (Snyder, 1990, p. 12) . This quality of wildness can mean different things to different people. Enrique Salmón envisions it as a quality that reminds humans that we are a part of nature and share a common connection (genetic and spiritual) to all living things. Paul Wapner views it as the chaos of the more-than-human world that—through exposure to it—can enhance, or degrade, the quality of our lives; a quality that can be summoned by simply turning down the thermostat in our homes on a winter day.

With these definitions in mind, we find wildlands to include:

• A high mountain range, where weather can change in an instant, cold can creep through any fill power of down insulation, moisture can penetrate any amount of GoreTex, and the fragility of the human body is put in clear focus;

• The mangrove forest of the Everglades, where invasive pythons commune with ancient crocodiles, the smell of freshwater mixing with saltwater invites thoughts of our species’ beginnings, and the heft of civilization's madness can feel distant—even when it isn’t;

• The back corner of a city park, where dandelions have found refuge from herbicides thanks to some happy accident, racoons can be tracked in the shallow mud, and it is possible to lie on your belly with your chin in the dirt and imagine life as an ant.

Informing the management of recreation in these places while understanding how to preserve this quality of wildness is the charge of our research laboratory. 

Our research mission is to support data-based Visitor Use Management solutions across wildlands.