The Oxbow. Thomas Cole, 1830. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Cole,_The_Oxbow.jpg

A view from the top of Mt. Holyoke, MA

The Oxbow: a view from the top of Mt. Holyoke, MA

• What feelings towards nature does this painting evoke?

• Does it depict an Arcadian or Utilitarian view of the environment?

• Comfortable tamed nature next to untamed wild, harmonious existence—one comes from the other and they define each other

• Man is small in the landscape. There is a reverence for the awesome power of nature; a representation of God

• This painting exemplifies and initiates the “Hudson River School”

Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast. Albert Bierstadt, 1870. In Seattle Art Museum.Why has he represented this scene in this way? Arcadian or utilitarian?

Yosemite Valley. Albert Bierstadt, 1868. Yosemite National Park, 1906. Photos: en.wikipedia.org

This is an era of Romanticism and Transcendentalism. Arcadian or utilitarian?

Note differences in forestand mountains.Why is the depiction

of the forest in this painting likely to be accurate?

American Progress. John Gast, 1872. NOT the Hudson River School!http://picturinghistory.gc.cuny.edu/

Turner Thesis (1893)• Named after the historian, Frederick Jackson Turner

• The wilderness frontier defines what it means to be American – rugged individualism, – Struggle against nature and wild people

• By the 1890s, the American frontier is no longer

• A struggle against nature is shifting to a struggle to save nature (this transition had been ongoing at least since the 1860s)

• How we value wild places, and how we balance wild nature with tame nature is a theme that persists in American and world culture.

The Romantic image of nature may in part be responsible for insidious suburban sprawl—the idyllic tamed garden bordering untamed nature.

Here TA Jorge works with wild bird from the adjacent forest.

Washington grizzly bear (s?)

Summer 2011: taken on a camera phone. First confirmed grizzly bear in the Cascades since the last one was shot in 1967.

Classic Grizzly Hump

From the Spokesman-ReviewSept. 21st, 2012

Note: If you like bears and wolves, check out the ESRM Field Course on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

http://ww

w.aldoleopold.org

Original Title: Great Possessions

Aldo Leopold: A Sand County AlmanacFounder of the Wilderness Society

“We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes…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.”

Image: Nationalgeographic.com

Which of the following does Leopold not mention as a factor in the degradation of functioning

ecosystems?

Traditi

onal e

cono

mic

s

Indust

rial t

ools

Loss o

f soil

Loss o

f top

pre

dators

Intro

duce

d spec

ies

Pollu

tion

Climat

e chan

ge

Altere

d nutri

ent c

ycles

Human

populat

ion d

e...

12%11%

3%

5%

8%9%

27%

9%

16%

1. Traditional economics2. Industrial tools3. Loss of soil4. Loss of top predators5. Introduced species6. Pollution7. Climate change8. Altered nutrient cycles9. Human population density

Leopold and Wilderness• How do you define wilderness?

– Large natural area devoid of human influence– Source of natural resources?– Sanctuary? Wasteland? An idea invented by humans

(weren’t humans always a natural part of ecosystems)?

• Why does Leopold value wilderness?– Recreation (sanctuaries for the primitive arts)– Science (landscape as healthy, living organism)

• Healthy landscapes sustain themselves and us!– Refuge for wildlife (esp. top predators)– Representative remnants (baselines for measuring

ecosystem health/destruction)

Leopold and the Land Ethic: Building an ecological conscience

• Ethic: Limitation on private interests for short-term gain, favoring community interests in long-term sustainability (a contract of self-restraint for the good of the community)

• Conquerer or member? Civil rights for non-human life too.

• Stressed holistic conservation, including those organisms without economic value.

• Science “the sharpener of swords” or “the searchlight on the universe”?

• “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

How to build consciousness?• How do you gain a sense of value (other than

economic) for land?

• If the land does not have a “golf links or a scenic area” the urbanite is “bored stiff.” “Synthetic substitutes for wood” etc. ensure he has “outgrown” a need for land.

• “There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.”

“To avoid the first danger, one should plant a garden, preferablywhere there is no grocer to confuse the issue.”

Farmer Beth on UW Farm

Aldo Leopold

A. Arcadian?

B. Utilitarian?

C. Some of Both?

Think about this at home!

Arcad

ian?

Utilita

rian?

Some o

f Both

?

0% 0%0%

Leopold: Arcadian or Utilitarian?

• Supporter of wilderness • Holistic ecosystem conservation (not just economically

important species)• Animals (especially top predators) have a moral right

and place on the land• Traditional economics goes against a sound land ethic• Trained in traditional forestry and predator eradication

• Hunted on his own land• Planted trees on his own land (restored the landscape)• Extracted firewood on his own land• Disdained those that view land purely for

recreational value or “views”

Which of these make him Arcadian, and which Utilitarian? Historians typically consider him Arcadian, but can you make a case either way?

Think about the following facts attributed to Leopold:

A group of teenagers visits old growth forest in Olympic National Park.

Finally, a return to wilderness as a baseline for understanding ecosystem degradation…a concept that Leopold alluded to in S.C. Almanac

Old growth forest, Seward Park, Seattle. This is the forest that covered most of the Puget Sound region until 150 years ago. Seward Park is a remnant.

Yes, there are coyotes in Seward Park!

www,myballard.com

Shillshole Bay and BallardLocks today. What was theoriginal state of this place?

Discovery Park

Shillshole Bay, early 1900s, from where Ballard Locks are today.

Historical Photos as Baselines: Photos courtesy of UW archives. Online through UW libraries

A native American house on Shillshole Bay (below where the locks are today)1903. Note dugout canoe on water.

Niece of Suquamish Chief Seattle 1901, Shillshole Bay. Note handmade baskets. Some of us hunt and fish, but could we use local materials to build the canoe we fish out of, or the basket we need to hold the fish? This is only a 111 years ago. Your great grand-parents could remember this time. Ask your grandparents for the stories of their parents.

Fremont from Queen Anne Hill 1902. Looking out towards the U District from a newly cleared forest.

View from Denny Hall,1903. New cleared forest on UW campus!

Why spend all period talking about American paintings and philosophy?

• If we don’t know where we came from, we can’t know where we’re going. (America as source of and solution to environmental problems?)

• Sixty years after Aldo Leopold, we are still wrestling with some of the same ethical issues raised by his writings.

• To really address the environmental problems of the future, we need to make tough philosophical and ethical choices as a society.

• Understanding how and why people think the way they do can help us make appropriate institutional changes (political, economical, sociological) for a sustainable future.

More pictures from the UW lirbaries Archives:

View across ship canal.

U district from south of Lake Union, 1902

1898

Madison Park 1874

Shillshole Bay 1905

Brand new Ballard Locks,1917

Lewis Hall Clark Hall from Denny Hall 1903

Coyotes and Cougars in Seattle

From Seattle Times: “At first, the stories sounded like playground lore —coyotes snatching house cats around Beacon Hill neighborhoods in the middle of the night.

But then Tub, Teenie and other felines weren't coming home at night. More than the usual number of fliers about missing tabby and Siamese cats began showing up on utility poles and community bulletin boards.”

DISCOVERY PARK, 2009Right Now: Lincoln, Discovery, Arboretum