Description
Book SynopsisRethinking Wilderness and the Wild: Conflict, Conservation and Co-existence examines the complexities surrounding the concept of wilderness.
Contemporary wilderness scholarship has tended to fall into two categories: the so-called fortress conservation' and co-existence' schools of thought. This book, contending that this polarisation has led to a silencing and concealment of alternative perspectives and lines of enquiry, extends beyond these confines and in particular steers away from the dilemmas of paradise or paradox in order to advance an intellectual and policy agenda of plurality and diversity rather than of prescription and definition. Drawing on case studies from Australia, Aoteoroa/New Zealand, the United States and Iceland, and explorations of embodied experience, creative practice, philosophy, and First Nations land management approaches, the assembled chapters examine wilderness ideals, conflicts and human-nature dualities afresh, and examine co-existenc
Table of Contents
Part 1. What is wilderness? The stories we tell 1. Wilderness in Literature and Culture: Changing perceptions of the relationship with ‘country’ 2. Evolving values of wilderness in the Age of Extinction: Environmental campaigning in Australia 3. Collaborative Wilderness Preservation and the Franklin River Campaign: Environmentalists, Aboriginal People and the Creative Arts 4. The Wilderness experience in National Parks: A case study of Boonoo Boonoo National Park 5. Aboriginal owned and jointly managed national parks: Caring for cultural imperatives and conservation outcomes 6. Changing Attitudes towards Wilderness in Aotearoa/New Zealand: From Disappointment to Glorification and Guardianship Part 2. The how of wilderness: Relationships and reciprocity 7. Reimagining wilderness and the wild in Australia in the wake of bushfires 8. Human Engagement in Place-Care: Back from the Wilderness 9. Botanical Wilderness Narratives: Plant Intelligence and Shifting Perceptions of the Botanical World 10. People as purposeful and conscientious resource stewards: Human Agency in a World Gone Wild 11. Exploring wilderness in Iceland: Charting meaningful encounters with uninhabited lands Part 3. The why of wilderness: New and different wilds 12. Wilderness Triumphant: Beyond Romantic Nature, Settlement and Agriculture 13. The future of wilderness in the Anthropocene and beyond: Wild machinations 14. Rewilding as an expression of love: philosophical perspectives on human engagement 15. From Wilderness Preservation to the Fight for Lawlands: Towards a Revisioning of Conservation 16. Rupturing the Western concept of wilderness: restoring human relationships with place and nature
