The Vanishing North American Wilderness (PHOTOS)

The concept of state wilderness preservation began in the United States in 1832 when Congress and President Andrew Jackson set aside 2,600 acres as a reserve in Hot Springs, Arkansas. In 1864, under President Abraham Lincoln, more land was designated in California's Yosemite Valley and Great Sequoia areas. The world's first national park designation, Yellowstone, was established by Congress in 1872. Australia became home to the world's second national park, the Royal National Park, in 1879 and Canada's first national park, now called Banff, was founded in 1885. By 2006 there were 6,555 national parks, worldwide.

By 2008 more than 107 million acres had been set aside in the United States as designated wilderness, with many new areas, including 9 million acres of a proposed Red Rocks Wilderness in Utah, waiting in the wings.

In this book, Rod Nash's essays, plus my captions and journal notes, provide the text, but it is the photos that truly tell the story. Included are photos from twenty-seven states, nine Canadian provinces, and three Central American countries. The images selected are not necessarily from places formally designated as wilderness. A few photos show the impact of civilization on areas adjacent to or surrounded by wilderness. Some areas are federal or state parks, preserves, and monuments without a wilderness designation, but all of the photos have a wilderness connection.

My hope is that these photos and the words of Rod Nash will challenge and encourage you to seek out your own wilderness experiences and memories, and that you will help to preserve these places for future generations.

 

Comments

[JScott]

01:26 AM on 09/20/2011

And this is kinda shocking and this map is from 1963, wonder how much of the gray areas have gotten smaller or have disappeared.

http://s9.photobucket.com/albums/a85/alexeichler/misc/?action=view¤t=nalastwildernesses.jpg

[Caryn Banker]

09:21 PM on 09/19/2011

Absolutely stunning. I often think, when seeing either in photos, films or real life, the North American wilderness, how the first European explorers must have been completely blown away by it. It is so raw, majestic and grand. Europe has a lot of beautiful natural scenery, but I think, for the most part, the hills are older, softer, rounder, more human scale. In North America, everything is HUGE and sharp, jagged and rough. Overwhelming beauty. Yes, I hope we can preserve these wonders for future generations.

[Linus521]

03:05 PM on 09/17/2011

The photographs are gorgeous, beautiful and frameable.

Wilderness is not only eye candy, wilderness translates to the Earth's ecosystems, in the economics of oxygen releasing, balancing the gaseous composition of the atmosphere, the sequesteration of heat trapping gases, climate moderation, the creation of the nitrogen cycle, fresh water, circulation of vital nutrients, purification of the air and water, decomposition, the creation and renewal of the soil and a long list of life sustaining cycles and services, including the regulation and checking of human disease pathogens that cause global pandemics.

The native species of trees, plants and animals are biological diversity, the creators and saviors of ecosystems. All ecosystems are integrated with feedbacks and loops to the atmosphere and the climate, and they all create the very life zone of the Earth or the biosphere. In wildness...