Makenna Sowards—Class Reading 2, The Trouble with Wilderness

 This call to view the natural world through the lens of making the familiar unfamiliar was an interesting approach to get the reader to think about aspects of the natural environment in a way they hadn't previously considered it. One of the most thought-provoking things this article brought up for me, was the change on views of nature depending on whether or not we found a use for it. Certain biomes that were previously undesirable, can become popular if humans learn of a useful way to utilize the resources that it provides. How much a certain environment benefits humanity is directly linked to how favorably it is looked upon by the general population. Especially in this economically driven world, where profit is arguably the most highly valued accomplishment, any variable concerning the environment that doesn't yield as such is very easily cast away, forgotten about, rolled over. This has lead to the desecration of many wild places including forests, mountains, deserts, and more. Wilderness, which was once affiliated with connotations like 'fearful' and 'savage,' then turn into land to be 'reclaimed' and thus used for human benefit. It is an underlying understanding in Western culture that nature exists for us, we are the ones who make it, tame it, break it. This view on what we consider to be 'wild' has guided many of the principles concerning development on natural land, and the extraction of resources from natural land. I wonder if we may be able to change the connotations of the word 'wild' once again, to generate feelings of respect, admiration, instead of the idea we now hold of that word: how to tame it.