Lecture 6 GEOG3320 – Management of Wilderness Environments 1

2. Non-recreational use of wilderness and wildland

Lecture outline:

Hunting and fishing Forests and forest products Water resources Minerals, oil and gas Agriculture Renewable energy Workshop: group web poster Q&A

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1. Introduction

Remember… - anthropocentric view- value based on use- most threats to wilderness are from human

use Wilderness use…

- traditionally as the pristine and original resource

- source of materials:• game (food and pelts)• raw materials (timber, minerals, oil and gas)• clean water supply

- source of land

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1. Introduction (cont’d)

Wilderness as a playground- hunting and fishing for sport

- wildlife watching

- eco-tourism

- walking and camping (wilderness trips)

- mountaineering, etc.

- other wilderness dependent sports

Pharmaceuticals Renewable energy

- HEP

- wind

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2. Hunting and fishing

Long history- earliest humans to present day

- survival (hunter-gather) to modern sport• http://www.extreme-wilderness.com/hunting

_pictures.html

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“We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes - something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view. “

Aldo Leopold (1949)

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2. Hunting and fishing (cont’d)

Modern wildlife management- E.g US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)

- http://www.fws.gov/

- “working with others to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife, and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people”

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Question:

To what extent do you support our right to hunt for food or for sport?

and

Is there scope for hunting/fishing as a wilderness dependent activity?

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3. Forestry and forest products

Use of wilderness as a source of timber and related products

Managed vs “unmanaged”- Sustainability?

- E.g. rainforest loss

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3. Forestry and forest products (cont’d)

US Forest Service- http://www.fs.fed.us/

- Est. 1905 to manage public lands in national forests and grasslands

- "to provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people in the long run."

- 193 million acres under multiple use model

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4. Water resources

Wilderness as a source of clean water- supply to urban areas

- protected catchments/watersheds• pollution free• often forested (retention capacity)

- USGS http://water.usgs.gov/index.html

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Case study:Mapping historic trends

Methodology- Date tagging of contemporary GIS data layers

by visual comparison1. Visually compare sequence of maps2. Add date attribute field to GIS data layer

describing when features appear

– Map wild land attributes at discrete time intervals:

• Remoteness (distance and time)• Visual intrusion by human artefacts (roads, hill

tracks, reservoirs, power lines and plantation forestry

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Data

Northwest Scotland- Affric-Kintail-Knoydart

area Old and contemporary

Ordnance Survey maps- 1st series 1850’s onwards

available as scanned images (GeoTIFFs)

- Three dates:• 1860’s, 1950’s and 2004

- Now available online via Edina Digimap http://www.edina.ac.uk/digimap/

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Example historic data

1866

2004

1866 –2004 overlay

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Time sequence: human features in database

Visual inspect shows obvious increase in human artefacts

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Time sequence: simple road/track buffer

• Changes in distance from nearest road or hill track

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Time sequence:road/track buffer including barriers

• Changes in distance from nearest road or hill track

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Time sequence:remoteness as walking time

• Changes in remoteness by walking time

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5. Minerals, oil and gas

Wilderness as a source of mineral wealth- Again, a long history

• Man’s fascination with mineral wealth• E.g. Gold Rushes in North America• E.g. Black gold

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Case study:Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

BigOil wants to tap the oil potential of the North Slope of Alaska, home to the Porcupine Caribou Herd- http://arctic.fws.gov/

- http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/ANWR/anwrpreface.html

- http://www.anwr.org/

- http://takeaction.worldwildlife.org/

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6. Agriculture

Agriculture requires land- driving force behind many wilderness

losses• E.g. early forest clearance for agriculture• E.g. rainforest for agricultural land (from

slash-and-burn to Macdonald’s)• E.g. ploughing up prairie

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7. Renewable energy

The single biggest threat to wildland in Britain today- HEP (historic)

- Wind farms

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6. Renewable energy (cont’d)

Huge number of online resources:- http://www.bwea.com/- http://www.yes2wind.com/- http://www.rspb.org.uk/policy/windfarms

/index.asp - http://www.countryguardian.net/- http://www.wilderness-trust.org/Wind%20Farms

%20Action%20Plan.pdf

- http://www.snh.org.uk/pdfs/polstat/ar-ps01.pdf- http://www.mwtlewis.org.uk/index.htm- http://www.viewsofscotland.org/- http://www.saveourhills.org/- http://www.mountaineering-scotland.org.uk/

windfarms/wf_links.html

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Question

How do we solve the renewables vs wildland conflict?

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Workshop

Group web poster Q&A

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Task

Research and read up on the wind farm conflict facing the British uplands- What are the issues?

- What are the arguments for and against?

- How do wind farms affect wildland?

Use the web links in previous slides as a starting point

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Next week...

7. Wild futures Re-wilding Re-introductions Current threats to wilderness and

wildland Workshop: wind farm consultation

exercise