Is the planet shrinking as a result of technological advancement or are we
simply affirming how small it has always been? Is a plugged in society being
rendered incapable of escape from day to day responsibility or are we gaining a
newfound freedom to reintegrate the various components our lives? When
considering these questions, the importance of wild places is heightened but,
equally, their roles may need to be reassessed in both social and ecological
terms. In the absence of this reassessment there may be a potentially paralyzing
confusion of how to manage and maintain wilderness in a rapidly changing and
increasingly information-based society.
The purpose of this article is to begin to formally organize a set of
discussions about the role of information and communication technology within
and about wilderness. We also hope to offer a broad perspective and a series of
questions through which clarity may begin to emerge. Captured within this essay
are comments and thoughts shared in numerous discussions, formal and informal,
including sessions at this years George Wright Society Meeting held in
Albuquerque NM and the 1st Annual Wilderness Watch Conference held in
Missoula Montana in July, 1997. We thank all of those who helped stimulate these
thoughts.
As the United States approaches the turn of the century, the American
conservation movement is moving toward its one-hundredth year (Udall, 1997).
During this first 100 years, the United States has seen a laudable shift from
the utilitarian-agrarian economy and industrial revolution to an era in which
environmental sympathy is often a political prerequisite and environmental
education is a cause championed by students and teachers alike. The challenge
remains to continue to make relevant, the protective and preservationist
policies and interests of the past century.
Within a milieu of vastly changing economies and societal attitudes, the
Wilderness Preservation System emerged as a symbol of what has been lost to
progress. The almost unanimous passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964 was a
testament of rejection for the unbridled cost of progress. Perhaps most telling
was the prohibition of the internal combustion engine, the mechanical device
that perhaps most symbolized progress and technical advancement at the time.
There is little doubt that the language of the Wilderness Act reflects an
intention to construct a sanctuary from the products of the industrial
revolution: for the sake of the environment, and as a means of escape from what
society had become. The need for such escape and contrast to technological
society can only be expected to increase in the future. It is clear that
wilderness, or some similar construct, will continue to be relevant to modern
society.
The next 100 years of conservation will most certainly begin in a post
industrial and information based economy. Within that context, advocates of
wilderness are beginning to recognize the myriad challenges this social context
poses for wilderness (e.g., the appropriateness of cell phones, GPS systems,
digital cameras, laptop computers, satellite links, seismic interments and large
databases about wilderness available via the internet). Since information and
communication are foundational to the society we are now constructing, it can be
assumed that there are effects of that progress which wilderness will most
suitably balance. Unfortunately, there is a lack of clear direction about how to
manage information and communication in or about wilderness. This lack of
direction is apparent in the confusion and occasional blaming that the authors
have observed in numerous professional gatherings this year. However, we believe
that the roles of technology for wilderness will be among the most critical
issues of the next ten years. At the base of the confusion is the fact that
social change is happening so quickly that it is very difficult to anticipate
the next challenge to arise.
Can we be certain of the true intentions of the founders of the Wilderness
Act relative to the information-based society of today? Had the Wilderness Act
been passed on the brink of the industrial revolution, would it have adequately
protected us from the internal combustion engine? Would it be sufficient now to
develop preserves from two-way communication, places where there is no satellite
fed information and places where we do not use sophisticated technology to study
and further learn about our natural environment? Even thirty years after the
Wilderness Act of 1964, are the regulations limiting technology to electric
shavers, Geiger counters, etc., relevant today?
How than can the Wilderness Act and its provisions be expected to cope with
the technological developments of the future? If we were to pass a Wilderness
Act today, would we be comfortable that we were making informed decisions about
the appropriateness of Toffler's fourth wave artifacts (the combination of
computing and genetic technology)? While it may seem absurd to be pondering
whether genetically cloned, impact reduced llamas should be permitted, or
whether solar powered genetic monitoring systems should be allowed, these are
only among the imaginable products that may be on a near horizon. Are we
prepared to rule out this type of wilderness use?
In essence, our crystal ball is becoming increasingly cloudy. Therefore, how
should we assess the relative appropriateness of varied technologies in and
about wilderness? How can we determine what is good technology and what is bad
for wilderness? Perhaps broader discussion of the following set of questions
will provide a partial basis for the clarity needed for leadership to emerge.
Are we at a crossroads?
Yes. The pervasive influence of information technology on the formative years
of the next generation cannot be underestimated. As academics, we can attest
that competitive success in the academic environment will soon be as dependent
on computing proficiency as on the use of books and note pads. The current trend
suggests that computers will soon outweigh paper in the archive and distribution
of information. More information from myriad sources will be more available to
more people. The challenge will be to become adept at efficient and timely
access to that information.
The amount of information becoming available to people is also increasing at
an exponential rate. And as Bauldrillard has stated it "we are living in a
society with more and more information and less and less meaning". Reaction to
this phenomena will make access to a share of public debate and opinion
increasingly competitive. Marketing firms are already aware of the difficulty in
reaching selected audiences when there are now scores of TV channels instead of
three; when the internet can distribute information with far less expense than
the glossy magazines or news papers. We have gone from mass broadcasting to
market segmentation to niche marketing to the annoying phone calls that are a
function of personal marketing campaigns. A heightened awareness of
wilderness values will have no choice but to be created within this information
overload and communication framework. The question remains as to who will
own and provide knowledge about wilderness. How will wilderness information
compete in the glutted market of information and make it through the necessary
filters people will be forced to construct in a sea of meaningless terabytes?
Who is benefiting from new technology?
There is a profound freedom associated with the ability to communicate.
Although a plugged in society may find it difficult to escape from professional
responsibilities to recreate (even in wilderness), there is also a sense of
empowerment associated with integrating the compartmentalized aspects of our
current social structure. Taking a class from home may remove you from the
college environment but unite you with your family. Bringing a cell phone into
the wilderness may change the intensity of your experience, but enable you to go
on a trip that you otherwise wouldn't be able to experience at all. Linking from
a Wilderness area to a grade school classroom may reduce your sense of escape
but stimulate awareness and curiosity about wilderness in the minds of future
advocates. Providing information about a wilderness area may increase use of
selected places but failure to provide information through dominant mediums may
reduce critical awareness and constituency for the wilderness ideal.
An even more immediate but less discussed artifact of a plugged-in society
lies in the increased freedom to work from remote locations. As we increase our
ability of combine the components of work, family and leisure, more people will
move to what are now relatively remote places to be closer to the amenities of
wildness. Many are now successfully doing this and increasing their ability to
experience wild places through long day trips and extended weekends. This is
often viewed as a negative change in the use of a wild place, especially if
impacts associated with recreational use are evident. But perhaps this
phenomenon is indirectly facilitating reassembled work, family and spiritual
realities. Is it possible that people are reintegrating their lives? Thus,
increased ability to communicate and have access to information might determine
future awareness of and demand for wilderness. The questions can then be raised
of who this constituency for wilderness will be, and what expectations will they
have? What will be the impacts of these new demands and expectations?
How will the wilderness experience change as a result of increased
technology?
The most apparent challenge may be in securing opportunities to escape and
explore. Will there be a place in 20 years time where one can completely cut the
rope with society? Will we be able to feel assured that the next person coming
down the trail won't have a cell phone stashed away in their pack and be able to
contact the outside world if an emergency arises? Will people still elect not to
bring their cell phone along? Will society, through its normative pressures for
responsible behavior, allow or condone the very experiences that wilderness has
the opportunity to provide? Will people be held accountable for the absence of a
cell phone if an emergency arises?
How will our need for nature based frontier experiences evolve? Will we still
seek and need the illusion that we were the first person to cross a pass, see a
particular feature, or to chart a canyon 100 years from now? For the third
generation of people who have had access to interpersonal contact from any point
on earth and who have grown up with the ability to monitor from home global
respiration and photosynthesis rates in a real time; will there be enough
relevance to our current day frontier illusion to sustain it as a strong
motivation for a wilderness experience? Would it be a good or bad thing if it
were? Would we want to maintain a primitive vignette of the frontier that
existed in the 19th century American West now? If not the nostalgia
of the frontier, then are the conditions of 1964 any more attractive or
relevant?
What will become of our public opinion of what a wilderness experience should
be? How will it be tamed as we strive to tame and civilize ourselves? Will the
Imax theatres and Virtual Wilderness of tomorrow reduce our desire for
self-sufficiency or will we have targeted a new way to meet such a need? Or will
our increased artificial awareness of the environment focus even further the
need for real and unmediated experiences in wild areas. Will we even be able to
distinguish the real and unmediated from the produced and constructed? Or will
our expectations of what wilderness should be, become irreversibly modified by
our mediated images of it? As Eric Katz (1994) suggests, technology has the
potential to create an artifactual reality far removed from the "wildness" of
nature.
It is undeniable that the social context in which wilderness exists is on the
brink of epochal changes. Within this experience, it is necessary to develop a
meaningful dialog of the role wilderness should have in the upcoming era of
technological advancement and scientific management. In the absence of
thoughtful discussion, the fear of change will continue to confuse the issue
inviting additional technological responses to the situation. In fact, through
the use of some technologies many wild places are impacted less by people now
than they were in 1964. For example, it is no longer acceptable to be cutting
tent poles or building cooking fires in fragile areas. And much of the
information or communication technology of today could easily be refined to
reduce social impacts. Would cell phones be acceptable if they were no larger
than a conventional hearing aid? Would motorized canoes be appropriate if they
were totally silent and non-polluting? Would infinite information about
wilderness areas be acceptable if it were only available to a chosen few? Or if
each individual could be assured it would be blacked out from their modem if
they so chose?
It is the concept of wilderness that is most vulnerable to the changes on the
horizon. It is our hope, therefore, that by beginning the discussion at a
philosophical level, the tendency to secure further technical resolutions may be
minimized. Technical solutions to technical problems often sidetrack the
underlying philosophical or political questions. For every technical solution
there will inevitably be a new technological problem. They are, instead,
symptoms of our underlying unwillingness to question the soundness of the
provisions of the 1964 Wilderness Act. Without a discussion of what most
fundamentally wilderness is, and hence should undeniably be protected, the
concept will slowly wither under the assault of more and more technological
challenges. At the heart of the discussion should be the notions of freedom, of
what is acceptable, and of what is natural.
We are currently limited in our guidance of how to decide what is good and
bad technology for wilderness. There is little in the way of an information
policy or specific guidelines on how to constrain the airwaves of wilderness. It
seems that drawing lines of appropriateness will be impractical in the absence
of this guidance. Why is the discussion postponed even as we face accelerated
technological developments?
Recognizing that we are constrained by our contemporary assumptions of how
the world should or could change, we must accept that the discussion about
technology is more one of values than of technical devices. In essence, there
are no technical solutions to our current dilemma. We have little choice but to
confront the role of technology from ethical and policy perspectives argued from
multiple perspectives. As Rothenburg suggests, "Technology never simply does
what we tell it to, but modifies our notions of what is possible and desirable".
Technology can help the human condition, but is limited in its ability to
provide or reconstruct the 'wild'. We face a challenge of not turning the wild
nature of wilderness into yet another artifact of the human
world.
Literature Cited
Baudrillard, J. 1994. Simulacra and simulation. (S. F. Glover, Translation).
Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Original work published in
1981.
Katz, E. 1992. The call of the wild: The struggle against domination and the
technological fix of nature. Environmental Ethics 14:265-273.
Rothenberg, D. 1993. Hand's end: Technology and the limits of nature.
Berkeley: The University of California Press.
Toffler, A. 1990. Powershift: knowledge, wealth, and violence at the edge of
the 21st century. New Your: Bantam Books.
Udall, S. 1997. Protecting what we spent more than three decades creating.
Keynote address at The Wilderness Conference: Protecting What we Have. The First
Annual Wilderness Watch Conference. Missoula, MT. July 18-20.
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