Comments on: Bicycles in Legal Wilderness

By: Bob Marshall

Bob Marshall — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 19:07:05 +0000

see: http://www.environmentalphilosophy.org/ISEEIAEPpapers/2007/Woods.pdf

for a sound argument against wilderness as a social construct.

By: Lou

Lou — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 01:35:35 +0000

The concept of Wilderness as some kind of moral puritiy is a manmade construct that has meager viability. Wilderness needs value other than it being “Wilderness” for it to be truly preserved, rather than set aside as a temporary feel-good act. Recreation is one such value. Watershed is another. Preservation of natural resources for future use is another (blasphemy, I know) is another. Wildlife sanctuary is another. And so forth. Power to those who can sit in the lotus position and float on the good feelings of knowing the Wilderness is there, but they are the minority. Most people need practical reasons for locking the vast majority of human uses out of a given chunk of land.

By: Bob Marshall

Bob Marshall — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:55:17 +0000

Your “conservation” “resource extraction” argument is promoting the commodification of wilderness. The issue is not about environmental impact it is what the Wilderness Act calls “Naturalness” which differs from ecological viability. The WA is about restraint, humility, and temperance. A society should consider the moral ramifications of technology, however they influence wilderness. (I’m thinking SPOT devices too.)

By: Lou

Lou — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 14:07:03 +0000

Lorax, the reason for stopping with mountain bikes is that one has to have a stopping point and mountain bikes seem like a good one. It’s really no more complex than that. Pretty arbitrary, really. Seems like that’s your point?

The actual Wilderness Act is open to a lot of interpretation. Thus, what rules the USFS makes based on the Wilderness Act are quite arbitrary and based on current culture. For example, they could outlaw ski bindings based on the same logic as outlawing mountain bikes. Or they could let mountain bikes in and wait for a gigantic lawsuit by the Sierra Club to sort things out.

In my view, the important concept here is that our public land needs to be managed for conservation while still allowing for recreation and resource extraction. That is reality. How that is done is open to a lot of adjustment as the years roll by, but if a form of recreation makes little to no lasting or extremely deleterious impact on the land, it should be heavily favored, in my view. A blanket ban of bicycling on a huge amount of public land is just wrong. And locking up more land to bicycles is also wrong, in my view.

By: ed

ed — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 02:28:30 +0000

Lorax- I’m afraid you are comparing apples to oranges.