A Facebook friend posted this reflection on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Wilderness Act, and naturally, the Wilderness Society is commemorating it as well. If you’re not especially familiar with the legislation, its background, or it consequences, the Wilderness Society has a primer for you (and it’s even partially a National Geographic video).
It’s a timely reminder that environmental issues are recreational and/or preservationist as well as concerned with resources and climate change, though I’d add that questions surrounding wilderness involve political and social power as well–probably no surprise to my students from American Wilderness, or any others involved in a great community of scholars at UMW who think about environmental and wilderness issues.
And a plug: I’ll be talking about “Power and Possession: Indians in the American Wilderness” in October for Dr. Jason Matzke’s CPRD 299K Mysterium Humanum: Wilderness, one of a series of guest lectures by faculty from a variety of disciplines.
