Simms considers himself an environmentalist, but gets frustrated when others talk of pristine environments or groups of people in harmony with nature. Simms said every group of people that has ever been has impacted the environment. Humans hunt and build structures, they start fires and they put out naturally occurring fires. On the anti-conservation side of the debate, people justify their damaging actions by remembering how humans have always made an impact on the environment. Simms suggests that humans outline their desires for places and manage them accordingly, rather than pretending that wilderness should go unmanaged.
Nothing is pristine.
Simms cited the large numbers of elk and bison in Yellowstone Park as an example. Indians used to keep those populations in check, he said, and humans are now letting them dominate the park by not intervening. Simms was interested in the natural sciences in high school in California. He liked how anthropology combined the natural sciences with the humanities, and that's what he graduated in. While an undergraduate he helped with archaeological digs in Southern Utah.