The future of wilderness in the Anthropocene and beyond

Abstract

The concept of wilderness areas emerged during the latter half of the twentieth century as the global scope of the post-World War II ‘great acceleration’ ecological footprint become apparent. From a scientific perspective, wilderness is usefully conceived as a landscape-scale quality that can be measured on a gradient representing the increasing impacts and presence of modern land use activities and associated infrastructure. This scientific framing removes the folly of ignoring Indigenous peoples within the wilderness quality continuum, providing an important counter narrative to wilderness definitions based on false concepts such as terra nullius or to imposing wilderness areas without recognising their rights. The human footprint is increasing at the expense of natural systems and wilderness quality is degrading, resulting in biological annihilation from habitat loss and degradation and pollution, among other things. Human-forced rapid climate change now brings additional stresses for species and ecosystems. Insights into the future of wilderness areas and wild nature can be gained through the lens of evolution which focuses our attention on the ways in which how we are disrupting and polluting our environment – including through climate change – impact on species and ecosystems and the likely consequences. Human culture and technology are now detached from the DNA-based coevolution that gave rise to the Tree of Life and our species. The rise of networks of intelligent autonomous machines suggests the Anthropocene may be transiting into the Machinacene where environmental conditions become even more biologically harmful. The dominant global culture that drives the Anthropocene, and is enabling the possibility of the Machinacene, needs to become guided by an ethic that respects life and the diversity of the Tree of Life, irrespective of its value to people, and the quality of life lived. New mechanisms and institutions are also needed that enable more ethically-based decision making at a planetary level. We have only a narrow window of time left to transit to a more sustainable and biologically rich era based on the use of clean energy sources, closing production cycles, growing our food organically, ending deforestation and degradation, and making sufficient room for species and ecosystems in a co-evolving world.