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several reasons why we should not give this possibility too
much weight. First, the trend has been in the opposite direction:
the appreciation of wilderness has never been higher
than it is today, especially among those nations that have
overcome the problems of poverty and hunger and have relatively
little wilderness left. Wilderness is valued as something
of immense beauty, as a reservoir of scientific knowledge still
to be gained, for the recreational opportunities that it provides,
and because many people just like to know that something
natural is still there, relatively untouched by modem civilisation.
If, as we all hope, future generations are able to provide
for the basic needs of most people, we can expect that for
centuries to come, they, too, will value wilderness for the
same reasons that we value it.
Arguments for preservation based on the beauty of wilderness
are sometimes treated as if they were of little weight because
they are 'merely aesthetic'. That is a mistake. We go to great
lengths to preserve the artistic treasures of earlier human civilisations.
It is difficult to imagine any economic gain that we
would be prepared to accept as adequate compensation for, for
instance, the destruction of the paintings in the Louvre. How
should we compare the aesthetic value of wilderness with that
of the paintings in the Louvre? Here, perhaps, judgment does
become inescapably subjective; so I shall report my own experiences.
I have looked at the paintings in the Louvre, and in
many of the other great galleries of Europe and the United
States. I think I have a reasonable sense of appreciation of the
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Practical Ethics
fine arts; yet I have not had, in any museum, experiences that
have filled my aesthetic senses in the way that they are filled
when I walk in a natural setting and pause to survey the view
from a rocky peak overlooking a forested valley, or sit by a
stream tumbling over moss-covered boulders set amongst tall
tree-ferns, growing in the shade of the forest canopy. I do not
think I am alone in this; for many people, wilderness is the
source of the greatest feelings of aesthetic appreciation, rising
to an almost spiritual intensity.
It may nevertheless be true that this appreciation of nature
will not be shared by people living a century or two hence. But
if wilderness can be the source of such deep joy and satisfaction,
that would be a great loss. To some extent, whether future
generations value wilderness is up to us; it is, at least, a decision
we can influence. By our preservation of areas of wilderness,
we provide an opportunity for generations to come, and by the
books and films we produce, we create a culture that can be
handed on to our children and their children. If we feel that a
walk in the forest, with senses attuned to the appreciation of
such an experience, is a more deeply rewarding way to spend
a day than playing computer games, or if we feel that to carry
one's food and shelter in a backpack for a week while hiking
through an unspoiled natural environment will do more to develop
character than watching television for an equivalent period,
then we ought to encourage future generations to have a
feeling for nature; if they end up preferring computer games,
we shall have failed.
Finally, if we preserve intact the amount of wilderness that
exists now, future generations will at least have the choice of
getting up from their computer games and going to see a world
that has not been created by human beings. If we destroy the
wilderness, that choice is gone forever. Just as we rightly spend
large sums to preserve cities like Venice, even though future
generations conceivably may not be interested in such architectural
treasures, so we should preserve wilderness even
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The Environment
though it is possible that future generations will care little for
it. Thus we will not wrong future generations, as we have been
wronged by members of past generations whose thoughtless
actions have deprived us of the possibility of seeing such animals
as the dodo, Steller's sea cow, or the thylacine, the Tasmanian
marsupial 'tiger'. We must take care not to inflict equally irreparable
losses on the generations to follow us.
Here, too, the effort to mitigate the greenhouse effect deserves
the highest priority. For if by 'wilderness' we mean that part of
our planet that is unaffected by human activity, perhaps it is
already too late: there may be no wilderness left anywhere on
our planet. Bill McKibben has argued that by depleting the
ozone layer and increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere, we have already brought about the change encapsulated
in the title of his book - The End of Nature: 'By changing
the weather, we make every spot on earth man-made and artificial.
We have deprived nature of its independence, and that
is fatal to its meaning. Nature's independence is its meaning;
without it there is nothing but us.'
This is a profoundly disturbing thought. Yet McKibben does
not develop it in order to suggest that we may as well give up
our efforts to reverse the trend. It is true that in one sense of
the term, 'nature' is finished. We have passed a watershed in
the history of our planet. As McKibben says, 'we live in a postnatural
world'. Nothing can undo that; the climate of our planet
is under our influence. We still have, however, much that we
value in nature, and it may still b,e possible to save what is left.
Thus a human-centred ethic can be the basis of powerful
arguments for what we may call 'environmental values'. Such
an ethic does not imply that economic growth is more important
than the preservation of wilderness; on the contrary, it is quite