Wilderness expanding?

UPDATE: Don't miss this comment and perspective on "new wilderness" at Muck and Mystery.

Interesting. I'd be curious to get a sense of some numbers.

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Greg Easterbrook's notes

The Beast in the Garden by David Baron. In 1991, a mountain lion attacked and ate a 14-year-old boy jogging in the foothills of Boulder, Colorado. Five more people have since been killed in the United States and Canada by mountain lions, and dozens mauled. Baron explores what it means that lions are repopulating developed areas--with pollution declining, wilderness acreage expanding, and lion hunting forbidden, there will be ever-more bobcats, cougars, and panthers in American and Canadian exurban areas.

Italics added indeed!

What an interesting idea! I find it totally counter-intuitive and (I suspect) a mis-statement. Yes, the amount of forests in the Northeast is far higher now than it was in 1900 because so many farms have disappeared. A number of US National Forest areas, too, looking at the Seattle area for instance, are no longer being logged but used for recreation. And thank god there is a sufficient national consensus about the value of wilderness that even Bush & Company are having a hard time destroying it; so new "Wilderness" (that can be a legal term in US Federal law) is still being designated.

But I find it highly unlikely that with all the increased demand for outdoor recreation, second homes and general economic development etc etc that true "wilderness acreage" is expanding. Mountain lions may indeed be learning to live in close proximity to humans. But that doesn't mean that we have more wilderness but only smarter cats.

I gave a quick glance at the estimable and worthy Wilderness Society (you know I should join) but to be rigorous about it, I doubt very much if any advocacy group of any stripe is able to loudly announce that its goals are being met and impliedly it can soon shut-down.

Anyone up-to-date?

Comments

[Alan Sullivan]

Wilderness acreage is certainly expanding: more areas are formally designated every year. This is arbitrary, but I suspect it is the source of the misunderstanding.

[David Sucher]

I think it's important to distinguish between expansion of formal "Wilderness" designation under Federal Law and the erosion by development etc of places which might in fact be/have been de facto wilderness.

Rural depopulation might be a new factor to change the balance overall -- especially in the high plains -- but I don't think it applies to the glamour spots.