Stirring up some controversy…
November 8, 2007 – 4:05 pmHere is a post from a gentleman in California who takes issue with some of Louv’s concepts. He posted a comment here, which I did not allow to be posted at first because I thought he might just be posting to every LNCI site and not responding to debate about his arguments. After emailing back and forth, I determined he is a real person who will defend his views and listen to the counter-arguments of others.
For those interested in hearing a little debate, here is an anti-Louv point of view, from an environmentalist! Feel free to comment below!
Last Child in the Woods –
Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder,
by Richard Louv
Michael J. Vandeman, Ph.D.
November 16, 2006
In this eloquent and comprehensive work, Louv makes a convincing case for ensuring that children (and adults) maintain access to pristine natural areas, and even, when those are not available, any bit of nature that we can preserve, such as vacant lots. I agree with him 100%. Just as we never really outgrow our need for our parents (and grandparents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc.), humanity has never outgrown, and can never outgrow, our need for the companionship and mutual benefits of other species.
But what strikes me most about this book is how Louv is able, in spite of 310 pages of text, to completely ignore the two most obvious problems with his thesis: (1) We want and need to have contact with other species, but neither we nor Louv bother to ask whether they want to have contact with us! In fact, most species of wildlife obviously do not like having humans around, and can thrive only if we leave them alone! Or they are able tolerate our presence, but only within certain limits. (2) We and Louv never ask what type of contact is appropriate! He includes fishing, hunting, building “forts”, farming, ranching, and all other manner of recreation. Clearly, not all contact with nature leads to someone becoming an advocate and protector of wildlife. While one kid may see a beautiful area and decide to protect it, what’s to stop another from seeing it and thinking of it as a great place to build a house or create a ski resort? Developers and industrialists must come from somewhere, and they no doubt played in the woods with the future environmentalists!
It is obvious, and not a particularly new idea, that we must experience wilder! ness in order to appreciate it. But it is equally true, though (”conveniently”) never mentioned, that we need to stay out of nature, if the wildlife that live there are to survive. I discuss this issue thoroughly in the essay, “Wildlife Need Habitat Off-Limits to Humans!”, at http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/india3.
It should also be obvious (but apparently isn’t) that how we interact with nature determines how we think about it and how learn to treat it. Remember, children don’t learn so much what we tell them, but they learn very well what they see us do. Fishing, building “forts”, mountain biking, and even berry-picking teach us that nature exists for us to exploit. Luckily, my fort-building career was cut short by a bee-sting! As I was about to cut down a tree to lay a third layer of logs on my little log cabin in the woods, I took one swing at the trunk with my axe, and immediately got a painful sting (there must have been a bee-hive in the tree) and ran away as fast as I could.
On page 144 Louv quotes Rasheed Salahuddin: “Nature has been taken over by thugs who care absolutely nothing about it. We need to take nature back.” Then he titles his next chapter “Where Will Future Stewards of Nature Come From?” Where indeed? While fishing may bring one into contact with natural beauty, that message can be eclipsed by the more salient one that the fish exist to pleasure and feed humans (even if we release them after we catch them). (My fishing career was also short-lived, perhaps because I spent most of the time either waiting for fish that never came, or untangling fishing line.) Mountain bikers claim that they are “nature-lovers” and are “just hikers on wheels”. But if you watch one of their helmet-camera videos, it is easy to see that 99.44% of their attention must be devoted to controlling their bike, or they will crash. Children initia! ted into mountain biking may learn to identify a plant or two, but by far the strongest message they will receive is that the rough treatment of nature is acceptable. It’s not!
On page 184 Louv recommends that kids carry cell phones. First of all, cell phones transmit on essentially the same frequency as a microwave oven, and are therefore hazardous to one’s health - especially for children, whose skulls are still relatively thin. Second, there is nothing that will spoil one’s experience of nature faster than something that reminds one of the city and the “civilized” world. The last thing one wants while enjoying nature is to be reminded of the world outside. Nothing will ruin a hike or a picnic faster than hearing a radio or the ring of a cell phone, or seeing a headset, cell phone, or mountain bike. I’ve been enjoying nature for over 60 years, and can’t remember a single time when I felt a need for any of these items.
It’s clear that we humans need to reduce our impacts on wildlife, if they, and hence we, are to survive. But it is repugnant and arguably inhumane to restrict human access to nature. Therefore, we need to practice minimal-impact recreation (i.e., hiking only), and leave our technology (if we need it at all!) at home. In other words, we need to decrease the quantity of contact with nature, and increase the quality.
References:
Ehrlich, Paul R. and Ehrlich, Anne H., Extinction: The Causes and Consequences of the Disappearances of Species. New York: Random House, 1981.
Errington, Paul L., A Question of Values. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1987.
Flannery, Tim, The Eternal Frontier — An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples. New York: Grove Press, 2001.
Foreman, Dave, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior. New York: Harmony Books, 1991.
Knight, Ri! chard L. and Kevin J. Gutzwiller, eds. Wildlife and Recreationists. Covelo, California: Island Press, 1995.
Noss, Reed F. and Allen Y. Cooperrider, Saving Nature’s Legacy: Protecting and Restoring Biodiversity. Island Press, Covelo, California, 1994.
Stone, Christopher D., Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1973.
Vandeman, Michael J., http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande, especially http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/ecocity3, http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/india3, http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/sc8, and http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/goodall.
Ward, Peter Douglas, The End of Evolution: On Mass Extinctions and the Preservation of Biodiversity. New York: Bantam Books, 1994.
“The Wildlands Project”, Wild Earth. Richmond, Vermont: The Cenozoic Society, 1994.
Wilson, Edward O., The Future of Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.
—
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans (”pure habitat”). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)
Please don’t put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!
http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande
6 Responses to “Stirring up some controversy…”
Mike,
Thank you for your heart-felt and well-researched message.
I too, am a bit of a purist about natural environments.
However in talking with people who work with children who have never been on a hike and have no desire to go on one, it seems we do need to work with people where they are. If using a GPS to learn about geocaching is the closest they will come to orienteering, but it sparks the idea that going to new places outdoors is fun, then we have to consider that. If packing a cell phone makes a parent feel safer letting their school-aged child off the front sidewalk, then we need to consider that, I think.
I don’t think there’s a real danger of people who have been averse to getting their shoes dirty invading the pristine depths of a national forest. I agree we need to continue to educate youth about proper use of trails, erosion, and the natural processes of the wilderness that we should not interfere with by picking things or chopping down trees. But I don’t think one kid making a fort from fallen logs a few hundred feet from a housing development is going to lead to deforestation. I think that kid might grow up to understand why he needs to buy recycled paper products, versus a kid who never left the housing development.
It seems like it’s a balance to me. I do agree Louv totally ignores the issues of proper stewardship. Perhaps he feels they flow naturally from the love a child will develop of his or her natural environment.
The fact is, we ARE on this earth. And we are part of it. We are both a natural predator and an unnatural one. I’d rather see a kid fishing for his dinner than someone buying a shrink-wrapped fillet at the store, inside another freezer-safe thick plastic bag. We were designed to be hunters as well as gatherers. But I agree our technology has taken too big of a toll.
Alice
By Admin on Nov 8, 2007
This viewpoint is definately the “other side of the same coin” for me as Richard Louv’s.
I believe the reason Louv does not mention some of the above issues in his book is that, while important, those were not the reasons he wrote the book.
Proper stewardship of nature is important and vital, but it will never be acheived if we can’t get folks, and in particular, children involved and interested in nature.
Getting them outside and enjoying themselves is step one, teaching them the appropriate way to interact while they are enjoying themselves is step two. We can’t have one without the other, and this movement will not be successful without both.
KD
By KD on Nov 9, 2007
Here is the crux. Do we avoid wild areas and wildlife so that they can do the natural thing without human beings or do we delve into the natural world, observe it personally and even use it for our selfish purposes?
On the one hand we have wild places (wilderness and odd fencerows alike) that should be left untouched. Does that mean unsurveyed and unmanaged? If no human presence is allowed how will we know (as stewards of the earth) when a top predator is declining, when an alien species is invading, when a system is impacted by neighboring environmental degradation? Do we instead choose not to know? Research is not un-intrusive. I’ve known many wildlife and natural resource research projects that have a definite impact on species populations.
We also find fewer and fewer people interacting with the natural world - farmers harvesting from within an air conditioned cab, store bought ignorance of produce, and TV and internet and videos for our education about wildlife. Most of us run out of our man-made environment (MME) for a few steps, jump into another MME with wheels, exit to another MME for our jobs, shopping, and even recreation and exercise, and then do the return trip. Our children are drug along in this “preferred” environment when a world of intensity in intimacy with the created order abounds just outside. Could you imagine choosing and living with a spouse that you only knew from the other side of a blue tube or on digital recording? What kind of intimacy would be developed with that? Intimacy with what is natural also only comes from getting to know it personally. Being in it and with it is the only way that commitment to it and concern for it and changes in attitude toward it will develop.
We have stepped back from those early people of this land that set out to look over Yellowstone and in that found a reason for protecting it as a National Park. Now we count on legislation and “someone else” to care for it while we sit back and have a happy feeling that places are being taken care of (don’t forget the selfish reasoning in that as well). We are getting more and more withdrawn from the natural world by our own laws. A child may no longer raise a wild animal in most states. In fact, one can shoot as many crows as wanted, but can not take a young one to raise as a pet. These kinds of personal experiences are what give people the heart to care for birds, beasts, and butternuts. I would suggest that the hands off approach has created an apathy for the wild.
On the other hand, we have an idea of getting immersed in it, drawing it close to ourselves, seeing the commonness & relatedness of all life on earth, and, yes, using it for our own selfish desires. In that, there is meant to be a struggle. There is meant to be an exercise of conscience. There is meant to be a sense of concern born out of knowing it. What intimate relationship do you have where there is no struggle? Where you do not occasionally overstep your bounds and have to make it right? We have many parts of this world where the bounds have been overstepped (even distant wilderness locales). Here then seems to be a need to re-involve the human so that the making it right can be achieved - not only for the good of the place and the living things there, but for the soul of the human and the accountability not just to laws but to future generations and to God.
We must raise our children to appreciate this struggle rather than to live in droll comfort. It’s the separation from the land that will cause us more easily to say that its worth more as raw timber or parking space than it is as a vast holding or a small corner of wild. When we go the hands on way there will always be the choice to take without giving, but will we instead choose to bring up a generation of people who are ignorant of its true intrinsic value?
By al parker on Nov 9, 2007
I understand what you and Louv are saying, but you are all making hidden assumptions: that the contact with nature will be beneficial to wildlife, and that the “separation” from nature will harm them. That is an ASSUMPTION. There is no guarantee that contact with nature will benefit wildlife (if it always did, we wouldn’t have endangered species). There is also no guarantee that separation from nature will harm wildlife. I and many other people support wildlife and projects and organizations that we will never meet.
There is also a hidden assumption about the QUANTITY of contact needed. How much does it really take??? Do you have to be in nature every day? I doubt it. Maybe in some cases, ONE contact with nature is enough to teach the appropriate conservation values. I think that there the law of diminishing returns applies. Being in nature every week (as many mountain bikers claim) isn’t necessarily more beneficial for conservation than fewer visits.
Pretending that we have the answers to these questions is, I think, not honest.
Also, we know that wildlife survived for 4 billion years without us, so we know that our vaunted “stewardship” is not essential, and may not even be beneficial. That is another among many untested assumptions.
In other words, Louv is selling snake oil.
By Mike Vandeman on Nov 11, 2007
I am new to the site and group, and just reading recent blogs and comments, so while the topic may be one that is closed, I am commenting on the statement posted 11 Nov 07 which said : “Also, we know that wildlife survived for 4 billion years without us, so we know that our vaunted “stewardship” is not essential, and may not even be beneficial. That is another among many untested assumptions.” I agree with the first piece, that wildlife survived for ages without us. Had we not disrupted it, I agree that natural systems of which we are part likely would not require our stewardship and intervention. However, humans long ago upset the delicate balance of nature, forever affecting it - in a very UNnatural way. From a scientific standpoint, it’s not reasonable to expect nature to put itself back into balance without help. We’ve altered - by our very actions - the balance that would otherwise exist in nature; as such, I believe stewardship, in the general definition, must be an essential piece of our current interaction with the natural world.
By Kely Mertz on Feb 22, 2008
I have read over your post and the comments with great interest. I am lucky enough to live in a place that is remote and very much in the middle of the nature and wildlife that you are discussing. What I see is that in the summertime when people come here there is trash on the roads which is thrown out of cars, and a lot of reckless driving. Thank goodness the land here is not publicly accessible or it would all be getting trashed. People don’t don’t linger here, since the land is not accessible, thank goodness. Otherwise the mountain lions, bear and deer that live here with us would retreat further into the hills. I have seen drivers wipe out entire an entire racoon family, babies and all, without so much as a “how do you do”, never even slowing down. If this is how the majority of people act when they get into nature, I am against it. I believe that contact with the wildlife is more harmful than good from what I have seen here. I also ponder the reseeding of the creek across the road by Fish and Game. They are reseeding the creek with steelhead salmon, right at the base of the creek which is owned by a gravel company. The gravel company routinely digs up the gravel from the creekbed. Yet up the creek aways where I live, I am not allowed to remove a rock or a tree limb from the creek (which I own) because of the endangered species. It doesn’t make much sense to me. I don’t get it at all. In my opinion man’s approach to nature is convoluted and strange. By the way, there are no cell phone signals out here, so if mommy packs Sonny’s cell phone in his bag for him, it won’t do a bit of good. I also wanted to mention that bee stings can be serious for the 4% of the population who have severe allergic reactions to them. You never know when you might be a bystander when someone gets stung who belongs to this 4% of the population. It is a good thing to know about bee sting treatment. You can find more information about it here http://www.squidoo.com/Bee-Sting-Treatment
As for mountain bikes, they rip up the trails that hikers use, and the riders can be pushy on the trails. Thank goodness we don’t have mountain bikers or hiking trails around here, but I have been in areas where they do, and the mountain bikes do great damage to the area where the hikers go. I guess they have every right to be in the wilderness too, but I do think they should be on separate trails set up especially for them.
Julie
By Julie Chrisler on Feb 24, 2008