Preserving Wildness

This morning, after the rain had passed, I returned to the garden to continue turning and re-working the rest of the beds in preparation for new plantings tomorrow. I met with Doug Newton this after noon and we discussed tree, shrub, fern, and moss identification and mapping with a GPS to mark important areas and wetlands. Doug provided a number of excellent identification books and some hand-compiled guides to local flora and fauna in the Warner and Mt. Keasarge area. I will be meeting with Doug again on thursday to walk the the woodlot and identify some plants.


I have recently been reading Wendell Berry's Home Economics, specifically his chapter "Preserving Wildness," in which he discusses the importance of knowing your place and seeing the connection between nature and humanity. What is good for the air, soil, water, and earth is good for us in the long run:


"It is not possible (at least, not for very long) for humans                                  to intend their own good specifically or exclusively. We cannot intend our good, in the long run, without intending the good of our place – which means, ultimately, the good of the world."


In addition, we need wilderness because wildness – nature – is one of our essential studies. "We need to understand it as our source and preserver, as an essential measure of our history and behavior, and as the ultimate definer of our possibilities."


Berry lists three essential questions that should be asked with respect to a human economy in any given place:
                  1. What is here?
                  2. What will nature permit us to do here?
                  3. What will nature help us to do here?
The second and third questions deal with our human agendas of practical research and of work:


"If we do not work with and within natural tolerances, then we will not be permitted to work for long. It is plain enough, for example, that if we use soil fertility faster than nature can replenish it, we are proposing an end that we do not desire. And to ignore the possibility of help from nature makes farming, for example, too expensive for humans–as we are seeing. It may make life too expensive for humans."


Berry goes on to explain that the last two questions cannot be answered until the first question is answered – until we understand our bioregion, our place.