Over the Horizon Line / Hal Rothman
Goodbye Preservation, Hello Recreation
By Hal Rothman, 1-15-06
In the American West the age of preservation has ended and that of recreation has begun.Preservation is predicated on what is now a more than century-old, class-based value system. It began as conservation in the age of Theodore Roosevelt, when it was easy to separate sacred space and that fouled by humans, and even easier for those who fouled that space to accept the distinction and throw their energy into preserving places that were beautiful and remote. No wonder conservation and preservation were watchwords of the American elite for the first half of the 20th century and beyond.
These values turned into environmentalism, a heady set of ideas during the 1960s and 1970s, when Americans embraced a vision of the world that was frankly complacent and just a little bit flushed with its own affluence. Environmentalism placed an incredibly high premium on the idea of wilderness, tacitly implying that prosperity had created a world in which all who deserved affluence had attained it. At the end of the American industrial economy, this premise led to great pressure to add existing wilderness.
These principles have now grown stale and even archaic. Environmentalism is a set of values, not the Ten Commandments. As a value system, it has to compete for adherents.
In the 1960s and 1970s, its version of authenticity held center stage.
Of late, it hasn't.
It's not that young people today don't understand what these values are; they do. What they don't understand is why these values are better than what they think is important. Today's young people have a different idea of what is authentic. They are post-literate, twelve-images-per-second beings. The IMAX in high definition gives a better view than anything they can do themselves. And they don't have to get cold or wet. From the point of view of an awful lot of young people today, why not? Why endure when technology can provide a visually better experience without the discomfort?
This is a profound and remarkable change that substantially alters the physical and psychic landscape of the American West. It means, among other things, that recreationalists, motorized and otherwise, have won. Wilderness is dead; not as reserved land, but as a movement or a viable political strategy. It's constituency is aging and it is losing political support to recreation by leaps and bounds.
As a result of political change, wilderness advocates can no longer get a hearing; twenty years ago, they simply swaggered to the table, pulled out maps and the rulebook they'd written, and achieved results.
Now they are supplicants, coming hat-in-hand, pleading their case, and threatening legal action. As annoying as federal agencies may find lawsuits, they're evidence of a loss of political power and support. In the 1980s, public outcry overturned Secretary of the Interior James Watt's administrative reforms of policy; Watt himself was ousted. Today, advocates resort to threats and the figurative bomb blast of a lawsuit. What is this, Guatemala? In the U. S., throwing bombs, real or otherwise, reveals a lack of power.
Recreationalists have become the new conservationists, and with that comes a great deal more responsibility than the recreational community has ever before assumed. Having easily juxtapositioned themselves as victims of the excesses of wilderness advocates, recreationalists of all kinds must now assume the onus of power.
This is especially true for motorized recreation, the fastest-growing dimension of the outdoor world. Recreationalists prize scenery, beauty, and the challenge of the outdoors; they just tend to do so more and more with technology. In this they are no different than the rest of us. We all use technology, cell phones, iPods, and everything else, to make our lives easier and more pleasurable. Since Gore-Tex, recreationalists have done the same thing. The capability of technology has grown immensely, effectively allowing the 47-year-old me to do things now that I could not do on my own in my 20s.
So now, the shift begins. As all forms of technology allow people deeper and deeper into the backcountry and as wilderness advocacy goes by the wayside in a postindustrial society, recreationalists will have to police themselves. Instead of trying to push the frontiers of what they can do and how they can do it, in their own self-interest, they will have to find ways to put boundaries around the resources they treasure, so those resources will be preserved for their future use.
It is a paradoxical situation: the outsiders have become kings and queens of the castle. It is a whole lot easier to sit outside the tent and throw firecrackers inside; it is much, much harder to sit inside the tent and govern not only your enemies, but your close friends as well.
No longer do recreationalists grapple with opponents about which lands they can use. The entire recreational community must now develop an ethic of sustainability that will assure that the sports recreationalists choose continue for generations. Leadership that provides stewardship of the resources it uses and consumes and develops a political position that wisely manages power from the inside rather than sits outside carping is essential. Recreation now faces an internal struggle among its many constituencies to define its values, the do's and don'ts of a new land ethic.
It is a sea change in the American West, a reorganization of how we as a culture have approached the outdoors for the better part of four decades. It requires that those of us who love the American West find new ways to communicate with one another to preserve as much of it as we can, for use as well as for its own sake.
Hal K. Rothman is Professor and Barrick Distinguished Scholar at the Department of History at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Considered the one of the nation’s leading expert on tourism, travel, and post-industrial economies, he is the award-winning author of countless books, including the widely acclaimed Neon Metropolis: How Las Vegas Started the 21st Century (2002), Devil’s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth Century American West, (1998 ), Saving the Planet: The American Response to the Environment in the Twentieth Century (2000), which received the 1999 Western Writers of America Spur Award for Contemporary Nonfiction, and many others. [End of article]
"You can't eat the scenery" has been a common refrain in Western states and communities that had for years based their economies on the extraction of natural resources from their mountains and valleys -- timber, gold, oil & gas, copper, coal, wheat, beef and wool.
Yet at the same time, outdoor recreation is predicated on just that -- the consumption of outdoor experiences, via pedal, hoof, foot, paddle, ski, and now snowboard and ORV.
I can't quite bring myself to agree with all of Professor Rothman's thesis, but he is quite right that environmentalists appear to be on the defense while recreationalists are on the offense.
There are a growing number of encouraging case studies out there, where environmentalists and recreationists have made common cause to find ways to enjoy the outdoors without loving it to death. Yet too often, these groups are often at logger-heads. Typically, the motorized/techno recreationists accuse environmentalists of "preservationism" and locking humans out of public lands. Conversely, the enviros counter that motorized/techno recreationists are overwhelming sensitive resources with noisy machines and boorish behavior.
There's a certain amount of truth to both sets of allegations. The greens have been repeatedly betrayed by recreationists who swear responsible behavior, only to find a mud-bogging contest running amuck in a favorite alpine meadow. Many recreationists are responsible and well-meaning, but they're doing a terrible job of policing their own ranks, so of course the greens resort to a "lock 'em out" mentality, or face utter ruin.
Ever since Reagan, and on through Bush I and II, the right has criticized governmental regulations, yet clearly, regulations and enforcement are needed, though no one wants to pay for it themselves.
Before recreationists can get their act together to either police themselves or pay for enforcement, I greatly fear the West will lose a great many species, habitats, wildernesses and silences.
To paraphrase Mark Twain - the rumor of the death of successful wilderness advocacy and environmentalism has been greatly exagerated.
Also:
The characteristics of the younger generation you describe are inaccurate for many in that group, and will become more and more of a problem for the ones it typifies. Not to mention all the rest of us.
The end of cheap oil will resolve some, maybe most, of the problems with ATV's/ORV's. And the problems are much more extensive and intensive than solitude and beauty.
The exploiters have had their turn, actually many turns, and they've only slowed wilderness protection down.
I enjoyed Rothman's essay. He brings up a valid point about litigation being a substitute for lost political relevance...and given that Judge Molloy has pretty much reached the end of HIS tolerance as shown by his bond call, well, change is in the wind.
As for recreation and self-policing, that's an issue of self-restraint, something that is vital to our very freedom as citizens. But people can't even drive on pavement in a civilized manner -- or at least a COMPETENT manner.
Whatever the case, I hope Hal is right and we won't be seeing any more "wilderness" designations and the eventual end of calls for any more.
This article may be of interest to you.
Comment By Kurt Repanshek, 1-20-06Professor Rothman's piece is certainly provocative, and perhaps that's all he intended it to be, a hyperbolic exercise intended to spur debate and reflection over how we Americans are stewarding our public lands.
However, I think he overreaches in stereotyping today's youth as "twelve-images-per-second beings," a group too concerned about personal comfort to experience the out-of-doors any way but through a computer monitor or gaming console.
If we as a society have become so short-sighted, so lazy and so enamored with the latest technological toys, then we've lost sight of the natural world and we're a poorer society for that.
As motorized recreation stretches its limits, and demands more and more of our public lands, it steadily, and not very slowly, damages the same precious resource many of its extremists insist they have a right to enjoy. And then what?
There can be a middle ground, achieved through reasoned dialogue, and for Professor Rothman to suggest that "recreationalists, motorized and otherwise, have won," I think does a disservice to those trying to find that middle ground.
http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com
Mr. Rothman's article offers some interesting and thought-provoking ideas, but in the end the idea of wall-to-wall wilderness is becoming less endearing is because it is simply a bad idea. Bad for people, bad for species, and bad for the environment. If environmentalism is going the way of the humpback chub it is because you can only lie while singing the Chicken Little tune for so long. Pretty soon, most tune to a different station.
Comment By Bill Beard, 1-22-06Although Professor Rothman's idea regarding our youth is negatively sterotyping our society ( I ride with many young people), the fact that the 'enviro's and the 'recreationalists' do need to work together. No matter what age we are, certain balances need to be kept between use and preservation. In addition, we should also keep a watchful eye on how our lands are being developed. I have seen land closures (for the sake of 'recovery' purposes) lay dormant for a period of time only to succomb to a 'new' development for homes. This undermines the efforts of both of the afformentioned groups. When we police, let's try to cover any and all interested parties.
Comment By Jeff DeMeester, 2-19-06I found Pofessor Rothman's article to ring true. On my most recent trip to Yellowstone I found less access and very limited lodging. I ski and found the resort filled with several ski clubs and guided trips and not as many snow mobiles which made for a very quite visit.
When I expressd my believe that the park was becoming more expensive to visit in the winter and seemed to be even limiting the visitors that could stay at the lodge in the winter it was commented ya isn't it nice.
My comment to one of the ski clubs was that I would have to start my own Friends of Franchise "non profit" just to be able to get to come to Yellowstone in the future, I told them I would be bringing 1000 intercity kids with me and the reaction I recieved was, are you crazy.
When I went to the front desk to see if I could extend my vist for one more night they told me the lodge was full. I found out the lodge had only 93 of there 138 rooms open and they would have just over 250 guests for the night and had already over book the lodge by eight rooms.
In years past I know the lodge could accommodate more people.
You better make your reservations now.
http://WWW.rawwnews.com
I suppose we should expect outrageous hyperbole from someone who camps out in Las Vegas. I wish “Goodbye Preservation, Hello Recreation” was a joke, but apparently reasonable people take it seriously.
Preservation is not predicated on what is now a more than century-old, class-based value system. The value system is older than the Ten Commandments, universal and international, and timeless. Members of the Colville tribe, near where I live, just rejected a proposed mine on their Reservation. They didn’t borrow values from Teddy Roosevelt or David Brower. Biocentrism isn’t elitist, it is humble by definition. The primary proponents of Anthropocentricism are not young. Go to the propaganda web site for The Wilderness Institute and look at the list of Advisors.
I find it remarkable a paid academic at any American university can get away with the 29-cent philosophy Hal Rothman tries to pawn off, consider: “At the end of the American industrial economy,...” “They are post-literate,...” A new home is going up just down the road from my house. It was made in a factory, in Oregon. The largest lead and zinc smelter in the world is just up river from my place. Tell the folks who rivet together Boeing jets the industrial economy is over. What does “post-literate” mean? The comment is gibberish.
It isn’t any more likely young people understand environmental values than they understand the implications of nine trillion dollars of federal debt or mass consumption of foreign sweat shop products.
It is unlikely motorized recreationists will regulate themselves any better than the timber industry, livestock industry, mining industry, or any other special interest regulates itself. Smokers don’t regulate themselves. The lifeblood of the American West is water. We do not just tolerate watershed degradation, we subsidize it. Smokers and watershed abusers are in the minority. When the majority decides they want fresh air on the bus, or in the Post Office, they impose their will on the minority. When we decide water is important enough to stop subsidizing and tolerating watershed abuse we will impose restrictions on abusers. That is how democracy works.
We have massive federal debt and watershed abuse because we have been sold a phony cultural paradigm by politicians and new age gurus who skipped civics 101.
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