Wilderness use, conservation and tourism: what do we protect and for and from whom?

ABSTRACT

For many people today, the idea of wilderness conjures up meanings and images referring to wild, remote, and untrammeled natural areas, which need protection from human presence and utilization. Institutionally, the first Wilderness Act was prescribed in the United States over 50 years ago and the wilderness conservation originates from the establishment of the first national parks in North America in the nineteenth century. First conservation and wilderness areas and related legal acts provided a model on how to organize and manage conservation areas globally. However, this created ‘fortress’ model of global conservation thinking, separating wilderness, and nature from culture and people, has recently been increasingly challenged by views calling for more people-centered approaches in natural resource management. In addition, the tourism industry has become an increasingly important user and socioeconomic element of change in wilderness areas, which has created new kinds of utilization needs for the remaining wild environments. Thus, there are different ways to understand what wilderness is and for and from whom we are protecting those areas. This paper aims to overview some of the key perspectives on how wilderness environment are contextualized, used, and contested: as units of strict conservation; resources for livelihoods and raw materials, and/or tourist products. The purpose is to point out that while we have different and often conflicting understandings of what wilderness is and what it is for, there are also potentially symbiotic relations between different views which could help us to protect the remaining wilderness areas. This is the case especially in the Global South, where the sociopolitical pressures of economic utilization of the remaining wilderness environments are currently the sharpest.

摘要

当今对很多人来说, 荒野的思想幻想出的意义和图像是指野生的、偏远的未开垦的自然地区, 它有待人的保护和利用。从制度上来说, 美国在 50 多年前制定了第一个荒野地法案, 荒野地保护源于 19 世纪在北美建立的第一个国家公园。第一批荒野保护区及相关法案提供了一种如何组织与管理全球保护区的模式。但是这创造了全球保护思维的 ‘堡垒’ 模式, 就是把荒野和自然一方与文化和人另一方隔离开来, 这种模式最近日益遭到挑战, 呼吁自然资源管理中需要更多基于人考虑的方法。另外, 旅游业已成为荒野地日趋重要的使用者和促进荒野地变化的社会经济要素, 它给荒野环境创造了新的使用需求。因此, 存在不同的方式的理解荒野地是什么、我们为谁保护这些地区以及还需要谁保护这些地区。本文旨在概述了有关荒野环境如何融入背景, 如何使用以及如何竞争的主要观点: 作为严格保护的单元; 作为生计和获得原材料的资源; 以及作为旅游产品。本文的目的在于指出, 尽管我们对荒野地是什么以及它为了什么而存在有不同甚至是经常冲突的理解, 但是在不同观点之间也有潜在的相互依存的关系, 这些观点有助于我们保护现存的荒野地区。在南半球尤其如此, 在那里对现存荒野环境进行经济利用的社会政治压力当前是最尖锐的。

KEYWORDS:

• Wilderness
• nature conservation
• nature protection
• community-based natural resource management
• Wilderness Act
• livelihoods

关键词:

• 荒野地旅游
• 自然旅游
• 保护
• 冲突
• 自然资源
• 社区
• 荒野地法案
• 社区为基础的自然资源管理
• 管理

Acknowledgements

This study is part of the Academy of Finland's RELATE Centre of Excellence research project 2014–2016.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jarkko Saarinen

Jarkko Saarinen is professor of Geography at the University of Oulu, Finland, and distinguished visitor professor at the School of Tourism and Hospitality, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. His research interests include tourism and development, sustainability management, tourism-community relations, tourism and climate change, community-based natural resource management and wilderness studies.