On residing in untouched wilderness…
Humans are organisms and all organisms have an impact on their environment, no matter how big or small. The difference between humans and all other organisms is that we have the power to control how we impact the environments we live in and depend on, and the degree to which we do so.
Living on a planet with 7 billion people I believe it naieve and unrealistic to think that there will not be a time in the future when humans will live on every square inch of habitable space on earth. What will the earth look like in a hundred or five hundred years? All animals, especially humans, exploit the world for individual gain. Whether it’s a crocodile taking down a gazelle, a turtle eating algae, or a construction crew leveling a hillside to make way for another apartment complex, something must be taken in order for survival to continue. With the population expected to grow past 10 billion in less than 40 years, our survival and the natural world as we know it depend on our ability to live harmoniously with and not destroy our environment.
This is what I began to attempt when I moved out here. To live in a way that impacts my habitat in the least negative way possible. After my last post talking about bushwhacking untouched jungle behind my house I got several responses as to why I would do such a thing. Why, if there are so few places like this left, would I take a machete to it?
I do this because I believe that (for me at least) living responsibly in nature is not only possible, but vastly preferrable to living out of it. First off, I’m not leveling the jungle. I cut trails through the property we live on in order to get around, view the area, gather fruit, and hunt. The accepted way to clear one’s land out here (read: how almost everyone does it) is with a D9 or D7 bulldozer that destroys absolutely everything. I made my clearing entirely by hand with a machete, a shovel, and a bowsaw over the course of 4 weeks because I didn’t want to change anything other than the fact that the jungle was solid and I couldn’t walk through it.
If I dismantled my house and left tomorrow the forest would return to its previous state in just a few short months. The false staghorn ferns would reclaim the bare spots and you’d have no idea we’d been there. Indeed, we bushwhack the trails every few weeks just to keep them walkable. What little trash we have gets either recycled, burned (paper only), or packed out. Human waste goes into the ground where the rain dilutes it and it’s broken down in just a few days. Our water comes from rain catchment and electricity comes from solar. In terms of environmental impact, this is about as low as it gets.
To me, living amongst untouched nature does not mean “Hands off”. My mentality is “Hands on a little bit, leave the rest alone, learn as much as you possibly can about it, and when you go, leave it as you found it. Now I understand that this is not the way that most of humanity thinks, but hey, that’s why I’m the one living out here and they’re not.
For all of these reasons I feel no qualms about cutting down a few ferns. I am not destroying my habitat with no thought for the future. I am living within it as intelligently and respectfully as I can.
Plus I like the view.
