Talk:Natural landscape

message: It is good to see an article like this being started up, and edited and improved by studies on the subject of human geography, BUT accepting and acknowledging Wikipedia's content is expected to be 'enclopedic' in nature (see WP:SOURCE, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV .. it is suggested this article be 'fleshed out' with references, careful synethesis, and neutral review of different 'positions' (eg conservative conservationists?!)
Regarding 'synthesis' warned, on quick reading it does not seem the only reference in the section tagged, ie reference to the European Landscapes Convention, is accurately represented , and the remainder of the commentary and conclusions are unreferenced and unverificable, so it is no therefore possible to know  if it is a fair and neutral report on the nature of debates surrounding the European Landscapes Convention?! Bruceanthro (talk) 00:33, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Noting link to European Landscapes Convention has been removed, I've removed 'synthesis tag'.  Although one addition web reference has been added .. this article still needs to be (re)written in a more encyclopedic manner! I will tag it as such, and hope you agree?! Bruceanthro 00:41, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Regarding Citations and 'Synthesis' 

message: This is reprinted here from Talk:Nature
Wilderness vs natural landscape
In nature, the concept of natural landscape has evolved from art into something else. Chunglin Kwa, Alexander von Humboldt's invention of the natural landscape, The European Legacy, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 149-162, 2005 point this out quite clearly. Wilderness, I think, is a very static word. Unlike natural landscape, wilderness seems not to be in conflict with our culture. By conflict I mean juxtaposition with a non-wilderness for which there is no such expression. In addition, wilderness has to be explained. It is not self evident. Natural landscape is like the word nature or natural by itself. It is self-evident. The ordinary person knows when a place once again is or is under natural controls and processes. Thus nature, the subject of this page, benefits from being broken down into human and non-human or, if you will, natural and not natural. Wilderness is also misleading in the fact that it causes one to dream of wild things ... vicious things. However, there are many landscapes both macro and micro that give no indication of being vicious. But, natural landscape can encompass these innocuous places quite easily. Can one look through a microscope at and see the calm landscape of a quartz crystal facet and say "what a wilderness"? I don't think so. Yet one can say "look how the silicon atoms have arranged themselves in a marvelous natural landscape." All I am saying is that natural landscape is very useful term and is a natural extension of nature.Rstafursky (talk) 22:29, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I now see better where you (Rstafursky) stand. But isn't this a too personal interpretation of a natural landscape -- especially the idea that a landscape can be microscopic. Re wilderness being 'vicious' I can understand that. As someone born in Southern England but living in North America I'm intimidated by the landscape here, especially because on this continent bears and cougars are part of the natural landscape. But a natural landscape is also a wilderness. Cynically I'm beginning to suspect that the phrase natural landscape has become/is becoming a euphemism for wilderness, and that this has been created by tourist boards, and other bureaucratic agencies, to increase visitor figures. Nature is vicious as any one living through a Canadian winter knows. You need more solid evidence to support this highly idiosyncratic definition of a natural landscape (and therefore by implication nature and natural).  Rwood128 (talk) 19:35, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wilderness vs natural landscape 

message: A natural landscape can be of any size.  It can be microscopic as in an image of life on the surface of a rock or it can be macroscopic as in any expanse as seen through  a telescope.  When the Earth is viewed from just outside our atmosphere the natural landscape can be said to be the entire image of the Earth's surface.  The equilibrium that the Earth forces and processes have dynamically achieved over millennia has been referred to as natural law or Wild_law,Law of the Rights of Mother Earth. As is the case with all disturbances within a natural landscape the entire Earth's natural landscape can be considered as self correcting not in any spiritual way, but in a purely natural way. Rstafursky (talk) 22:09, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  World view of the natural landscape 

message: We have had a contribution implying that natural landscaping is an example of physical alteration.  It should be noted that all human alteration, whether intended or not intended (e.g invasive species), does introduce human control and force that disturb the natural equilibrium of a place.  It is sometimes difficult to judge whether or not the interference is intended to speed up correction or to offer a new solution.  One has to be careful with a new solution delivered by people such as landscapers and ecologists acting in good faith.  The biological and geological landscape has had millions, if not billions, of years to chance upon solutions that last. Therefor, human modification should not be done based on a hunch or even a scientific epiphany, if you will.  On the other hand, well planned removal of human things is seldom wrong.
For another example, be aware that many specialist will advocate replacement of a brownfield site (aka contaminated soil) with development (e.g. a landscaped campus) rather than removing all human influences and things and then returning the place to total natural forces.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rstafursky (talk • contribs) 19:03, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Natural landscape alteration 

message: After a long hiatus we have been confronted by one who seems intent on replacing entire sections on the notion that a natural landscape does not exists. Yet it is clear that if the natural landscape ceased to function on its own the Earth would come to an end and so far it has not. The contributor's recent appearance seems to be focused on unreferenced material. That is always a problem with encyclopedic articles so we will double or efforts to make proper corrections. The nature of the natural landscape is really very simple. I ask all of you to help the public to understand this really vary simple term. Rstafursky (talk) 11:37, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Since all the edits are refernced to multiple peer reviewed articles, they will remain until you can find some legitimate grounds to remove them. Ad hominem attacks on my motivation are NOT legitimate. Mark Marathon (talk) 06:59, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Is anybody confusing the two? I certainly am not.Mark Marathon (talk) 11:48, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

text: If you have anything to actually discuss on this subject, I am eager to do so. All you have provided so far are ad hominem assertions concerning my beliefs and motivations. When you are able to explain why you have persistently reverted my well-referenced additions ot the article, then we will have something to discuss. Until then, you are giving me nothing to discuss and are simply edit warring. I can assure you, continuing this behaviour will lead to your account being blocked. Please do not push it to that level.Mark Marathon (talk) 02:02, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

text: I repeat: If you have anything to actually discuss on this subject, I am eager to do so. So far you have given us nothing to discuss. You persistently refuse to discuss your claim that my additions are somehow "off-topic", whatever that means. Your claim that the material is unreferenced is obvious nonsense, since there are multiple references provided, but if you want to discuss that then by all means, explain how additions with references to reputable journals and texts is unreferenced. I will not discuss your aspersions concerning what my intentions made be since they clearly do not assume good faith. Beyond that, you have given us nothing to discuss because you have not given any reason why you persist in reverting my additions. When you provide even a single point that can be discussed, I will eagerly discuss this with you. Mark Marathon (talk) 22:57, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Off subject 

message: Stafursky's 1 - 6 proposed for deletion by Mark
Mark's 1 - 4 proposed to add by Mark
We will focus first on those references that have been on this page for a very long time.
FIRST LINK:
A natural landscape is a landscape that is unaffected by human activity.What is a natural landscape? SES501 Landscape Ecology and GIS, Keith Ferdinands, Charles Darwin University, July 2004, (1970) Rstafursky (talk) 14:35, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  order for fact checking references 

message: Historically there has been two giant leaps with the idea of a natural landscape. First, it began to occur to people that the natural landscape was separate from the cultural landscape. Evidently, it just never occurred to naturalists that this was the case or at least they never saw a need to use precise language. The next leap was in clearly defining what it was that was separate from the cultural landscape. Apparently people just "knew" what nature was, but not to worry, now there is lots of thinking on this subject. More on this . . . Rstafursky (talk) 12:57, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  ideas on the evolution of the term natural landscape 

message: Please help. Mark Marathon is deleting entire paragraphs again without submitting substitutions. He apparently is trying to question material that no one else has objected to in the long history of Natural landscape.
Specifically, I need help on how to proceed in the proper sections (such as Talk:Natural landscape). I have to re-educate myself on Wiki protocol. Natural landscape is important concept and it certainly can be improved, but the paucity of editors for this underutilized term should not be the kiss of death.
Rstafursky (talk) 20:28, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  another Mark Marathon edit "war" 

message: Rstafursky, can you please explain why you deleted well referenced material from the lede of this article. Thank you Mark Marathon (talk) 23:26, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion of well referenced material 

message: All current references are being reviewed. Special attention will be given to the the eighteenth, nineteenth and even twentieth century meanings that underlay descriptions of natural landscape when used. The word landscape is used in many disciplines such as the arts, science, geography and navigation (for example Alexander Von Humboldt). Suggestions welcome. Rstafursky (talk) 14:47, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Note: The link to European Environment Agency document above requires a subscription. A free copy is available at . See also the related (i.e. EU shaped) Scottish site , though here the terms wilderness and "natural space" predominate, rather than "natural landscape". Rwood128 (talk) 14:08, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Re  your comment "It appears that naturalness and natural landscape are the same", see the Scottish Heritage web site that I've added to the External links. They use the term naturalness, but also wild and wilderness. Their approach might be seen as too influenced by the idea of wilderness, but all the same their maps seems to reflect, what I see, as your approach to this subject. I'd be interested in your comments, if you have the time.Rwood128 (talk) 13:28, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  review of references 

message: Is the following revision acceptable?
::In his writings about his extensive travels in South America, Alexander von Humboldt became the first to use the term cultural landscape.Chunglin Kwa, Alexander von Humboldt's invention of the natural landscape, The European Legacy, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 149-162, 2005http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/qnct310.txt "The description of nature in its manifold richness of form, as a distinct branch of poetic literature, was wholly unknown to the Greeks. The landscape appears among them merely as the basil-ground of the picture of which human figures constitute the main subject. Passions, breaking forth into action, riveted their attention almost exclusively." Alexander von Humboldt Cosmos: a sketch of a physical description of the universe translation 1804 Volume 2 Part I Paragraph 5 Chapter I
*First, the sentence is grammatically incomplete. 
*Second, didn't the concept of nature, as distinct from mankind, already exist? (See OED for example). By the way I couldn't find either term in the book by Humbold that's cited. Can you provide a direct quotation? The phrase 'natural landscape' was already being used by landscape gardeners. 
*Third, the citations need tidying, and it would be better to format the additional material/quotations as proper notes rather than references. 
Hope this is helpful in improving the article. Rwood128 (talk) 15:15, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: PS: The concept of 'cultural landscapes' can be found in the European tradition of landscape painting.PANNELL, S (2006) Reconciling Nature and Culture in a Global Context: Lessons form the World Heritage List. James Cook University. Cairns, Australia. Page 62  From the 16th century onwards, many European artists painted landscapes in favor of people, diminishing the people in their paintings to figures subsumed within broader, regionally specific landscapes.GIBSON, W.S (1989) Mirror of the Earth: The World Landscape in Sixteenth-Century Flemish Painting.  Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey [From Cultural landscapes article]. Rwood128 (talk) 15:29, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Humboldt 

message: Sorry, I meant Frances Moore Lappe and not Carson Rstafursky (talk) 16:30, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: But you don't make it clear – at least to me – the significance of this quotation. Probably you know it, and Carson's work as a whole, too well to realize that some discussion is needed. Rwood128 (talk) 19:09, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  View is the popular use 

message: I'm not an anthropologist, but I know there was a Stone Age, then a Copper Age etc.  I don't think that geologists or anthropologists who find a flint or some other manufactures stone tool in a geologic would say, "this flint is part of the natural landscape." They would say, "This flint is found in this layer, but it is not natural." All artifacts from any of the the cultural Ages of Man cannot be part of the natural landscape. Indigenous people are at least at the Stone Age, so their presence both today and in pre-history, can clearly be discerned as not part of the natural landscape. Rstafursky (talk) 17:26, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: It is just that Stone Age man had a pretty minimal impact on the landscape. Neither you nor I, probably, would not be able to see the difference between natural flint and flint tool. The idea of dividing the Earth into a Natural landscape, that is all of creation but for man, and Cultural landscape, that part of the landscape that is created by human beings, is surely just an abstraction created by Geographers. However useful these concepts are, in fact human beings are part of nature as a whole. At the risk of being perverse, isn't shaping a tool from a flint just as natural for a human being, as for a beaver to build a dam (an artifact)? And is culture just a human thing?
Please let me know if you disagree with anything that I've added. Rwood128 (talk) 18:58, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  the Stone Age natural landscape 

message: I'm thinking of adding the following to the section 'Origins', which expands on the lede (as some clarification is badly needed):
::The terms natural landscape and wilderness are often used as synonyms even though they have a different origin and cultural history. A natural landscape is a landscape unaffected by human activity, whereas a wilderness is similarly defined as a natural environment on the Earth that has not been significantly modified by human activity.The WILD Foundation goes into more detail, defining wilderness as: "The most intact, undisturbed wild natural areas left on our planet - those last truly wild places that humans do not control and have not developed with roads, pipelines or other industrial infrastructure." Likewise while the opposite of a natural landscape is a cultural landscape, the opposite of a wilderness is an urban or a cultivated landscape. 
::In America Romantic and primitivist writers such as William Henry Hudson, Longfellow, Francis Parkman, Thoreau and John Muir were major creators of the American wilderness myth. However, the original landscape of North America was not a wilderness, because the first peoples  used fire extensively to clear the woods, for a variety of purposes. Williams, Gerald W. (Summer 2000). "Introduction to Aboriginal Fire Use in North America". Fire Management Today (USDA Forest Service) 60 (3): 8–12.
::The idealizing of the idea of the wilderness by the environmental movement, that resulted from such romanticism, has been the subject of criticism in recent years. Historian and President of the American Historical Association William Cronon writes: "wilderness serves as the unexamined foundation on which so many of the quasi-religious values of modern environmentalism rest.""The Trouble with the Wilderness or Getting Back to the Wrong Nature" in In Common Ground: Towards Reinventing Nature, ed, Willian Cronon. (New York: Norton, 1995), p. 61 Cronon claims that "to the extent that we live in an urban-industrial civilization but at the same time pretend to ourselves that our real home is in the wilderness, to just that extent we give ourselves permission to evade responsibility for the lives we actually lead."Cron, "The Trouble with the Wilderness", p. 61-2. Similarly Michael Pollan has argued that the wilderness ethic leads people to dismiss areas whose wildness is less than absolute. In his book Second Nature, Pollan writes that "once a landscape is no longer 'virgin' it is typically written off as fallen, lost to nature, irredeemable."
::The term natural landscape, however, has had a different cultural history from that of the term wilderness, especially since its adoption by geographers for academic, scientific purposes, and who have paired it with the term cultural landscape. Yet all the same natural is a synonym of wild.Webster's New World Thesaurus, prepared by Charlton Laird. (US: Collins World, 1971).
Note: Some material has been taken from Native American use of fire and Environmental movement in the United States.
This is just a first draft. Perhaps you can make any revisions that you feel are needed are needed. The final paragraph especially probably needs expanding. I'm also wondering whether we are speaking the same language. Previously, editing the alley article, I discovered that the word alley had quite different connotations for many North Americans than for me. Rwood128 (talk) 17:12, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origins of the term 

message: With reference to the idea of a landscape returning "to its original natural state". is this really possible without human intervention given the presence of alien or invasive species in many places? This certainly seems to be the case in North America. Rwood128 (talk) 20:41, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: What about all the plant and animal species that have been transported by human beings throughout human history to other parts of the world? There are many, and we don't call those invasive species. There are very few places on earth that have not been impacted in some way by human beings. CorinneSD (talk) 20:55, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Invasive species 

message: Rstafursky, you have objected to the mentioning of landscape painting in the article. Reference to this and to landscape gardening is there to provide relevant historical background for the term natural landscape. This is important, especially because natural landscape is a slippery, ambiguous phrase. Your comment about sticking to landscape is less clear, especially as this article is a closely related sub-topic. I'm beginning to see more and more that your primary concern here is not with a good encyclopaedia article but with personal propaganda for a particular ideology. Hence the ridiculous accusations of an edit war. And your focus is so narrow that you fail to recognize that I have considerable sympathy with you, and have modified my ideas over time. Certainly you don't seem to understand how Wikipedia works, and especially WP: Neutral point of view. Which is not to say that your particular philosophy has no place in the article or that a clear definition of natural landscape cannot be determined. Rwood128 (talk) 14:24, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Landscape painting

message: Rstafursky, you have suggested that I should "remove all references to specific regions unless these regions are truly representative of the natural". Certainly the sections 'Origins' and 'History' need re-thinking and possibly combining. The examples may need changing, but you must agree that a section on Europe is badly needed, as well as Africa and Asia, etc. The main trouble with the examples is that they don't have a properly developed context. On one hand, for the British Isles the Cairngorms might be a good example of a landscape that has an above average amount of natural landscape. Reference to the South Downs National Park on the other hand should probably be removed, despite this landscape's high scenic, recreational and spiritual value, in a densely populated region. Rwood128 (talk) 02:41, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: You certainly seem to know more about the subject than I do, mine was more of a structural assessment :)  Depending on eventual coverage of other regions, wolves only may be a good level of detail? Elmidae (talk) 11:46, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Regions

message: ::::A natural landscape is, either
::::*(1) An existing landscape or environment, where so far there has been little disturbance by human activity, or
::::*(2) A landscape or environment, where a natural equilibrium has re-established itself, following the removal of all human artifacts and the effects of past human interference, as far as is now possible.The European Environment Agency's planned forest naturalness index is an example of an attempt to define one type of natural landscape in Europe. The Agency lists forests in three categories: (1) Plantations; (2) Semi-natural; and (3) Naturally dynamic. The latter are "forests whose structure, composition and function have been shaped by natural dynamics without substantial anthropogenic influence over a long period of time".
::::Various natural events, along with the actions of animals, insects, plants, etc,. and not just people, alter the natural landscape. Environmentalists, however, emphasise the especially destructive impact of people's activities on the natural landscape in the past 250 years since the Industrial Revolution. Some environmentalists see the destruction beginning even earlier with farming practices.C Michael Hogan, "Habitat destruction", Encyclopedia of Earth" 
ADDITION TO ABOVE (All to replace the first part of the current lede)
::::Matters are complicated by the fact that the words nature and natural have more than one meaning. On the one hand there is the main dictionary meaning for nature: "The phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations"."Nature", New Oxford American Dictionary On the other hand there is the growing awareness, especially since Charles Darwin, of humanities biological affinity with nature."Animals That Share Human DNA Sequences", Seattlepi.com:  
::::With the the dualism of the first definition goes value judgement as to the superiority of the natural over the artificial. This dualism has its roots is an "ancient concept", because early people viewed "nature, or the nonhuman world […] as a divine Other, godlike in its separation from humans".Gregory H. Aplett and David N. Cole, "The Trouble with Naturalness: Rethinking Park and Wilderness Goals" in Beyond Naturalness: Rethinking Park and Wilderness Stewardshio in an Era of Rapid Change (Washington, DC.: Island Press, 2010), p. 14. They cite William Conron's 1995 essay "The Trouble with Wilderness: or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature". In the West, Christianity's myth of the fall, that is the expulsion of humankind from the Garden of Eden, where all creation lived in harmony, into an imperfect world, has been the major influence.Joanne Vining, Melinda Merrick and Emily Price, "The Distinction between Humans and Nature". Human Ecology Review, vol.15, no. 1, 2008, p. 1 Cartesian dualism, from the 17 century on,  further reinforced this dualistic thinking about nature.Vining, Merrick and Price, p. 1. Modern science, however, is moving towards a holistic view of nature.Maria Kaika, City of Flows: Modernity, Nature, and the City. (New York: Routledge, 2005), p. 4.
Additional comments and the Carson section below added. I will work on adding citations, over the next couple of days.[Done] Maybe some of this new stuff could be simplified and the discussion expanded later in the article? Rwood128 (talk) 09:23, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Elmidae and Rstafursky, as there has been no comments, I have presumed that there was general agreement with the above and gone and made a few changes. These in fact are more conservative, as some of my proposals were wrong. I have tried to keep the lede as short as possible. If anyone has major problems with these edits it might be more helpful to discuss them here first, given past history. Rwood128 (talk) 11:53, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: REVISION OF THE ABOVE (13 March)

message: Also, please put any reference to impure natural landscapes not in the first paragraph and/or the introduction. Natural landscape is what is seen and it is not the minutia examined in a lab. Wikipedia is looking for a clear description. 
We must settle on a first paragraph. Rstafursky (talk) 12:07, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the first paragraph (lede) is still a work in progress, and that emphasis should be on the ideal or pure natural landscape; the definition of natural landscape. But I'm following Carl O. Sauer, see note 1: "We may call the former, with reference to man, the original, natural landscape. In its entirety it no longer exists in many parts of the world, but its reconstruction and understanding are the first part of formal morphonology." Carl O. Sauer, "The Morphology of Landscape". University of California Publications in Geography, vol. 2, No. 2, October 12, 1925, p. 37". Do you want the Carson quotation moved to a later section? I like the idea of a concrete example here. The third sentence, however, is essential to clarify matters.  Rwood128 (talk) 13:47, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: A couple of further thought: 
*I don't know if you are aware of WP:Lede? 
*Your comment: "A natural landscape is what is seen and it is not the minutia examined in a lab". This is highly ambiguous because what each person sees is not the same, and a botanist, in particular, will see a totally different landscape from anyone else. Also the so-called natural landscape could be heavily contaminated, but that might not be seen. The absence of plants, animals and insects can only be properly determined by scientific research not by just looking. Unless you can find a way to clearly express your ideas changes cannot be made. At least I can understand Carl O. Sauer, even though I'm not a geographer or conservationist. Rwood128 (talk) 23:52, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  1st paragraph 

message: The quotations, from President Obama, are not directly relevant to the sentence and should therefore be deleted. Perhaps a section on the politics of conservation is needed?Rwood128 (talk) 20:57, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't follow you here or the point of the Google link. What is "non-trade usage"? I suggested a section on the 'politics of conservation', both because you seemed interested in it. The Obama quotations were not presented within a context. A note should provide relevant addition information. That was clearly not the case here. Rwood128 (talk) 13:58, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Note 2 

message: Rstafursky, can you clarify the following vague statement: "What people do from a practical point of view does not change the meaning of natural landscape. Please remove references to national policies which vary widely over the short term and are separately codified by institutions". Are you referring to the reference to natural landscape in Scotland and Switzerland? The Swiss National Park, for example seems closer to true conservation values than most North American, or British National Parks. Please try and be clearer, as it is exhausting trying to understand you! Concrete examples of how you would approach, whatever it is that you object to, is needed here. Rwood128 (talk) 14:24, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  National policies 

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