Direct Benefits of Wilderness to Humans

Recreation

Recreation is perhaps the most readily apparent value of wilderness. In 1993, the total number of visitor-days surpassed 300,000 for wilderness areas in the southern Appalachians (SAMAB 1996) (Table: Annual Recreation Use of National Forest Wilderness in the Southern Appalachians). Yet, the value of wilderness for recreation cannot be measured solely on the basis visitor days.  Recreation research has revealed that a high-quality outdoor recreation system requires a diversity of recreational opportunities; a concept operationalized as the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) (Brown and others 1978, Brown and others 1979, Clark and Stankey 1979, Driver and Brown 1979).  Wilderness offers a unique type of recreation emphasizing naturalness, solitude, and freedom.  Psychological research indicates that outdoor recreation is goal directed; that is, people participate in outdoor recreation to satisfy certain motives.  Examples of motives closely associated with wilderness include enjoying nature, physical fitness, reduction of tensions, escaping noise/crowds, outdoor learning, independence, introspection, achievement, and risk taking.  Without wilderness recreation opportunities, people seeking to satisfy these motives may be unfulfilled (Manning 1989).

Wilderness also holds special value for more "pure" or highly developed forms of recreation-- recreation where the emphasis is placed on technique and setting without the distractions of technology or other societal intrusions.  Progression of recreational activity from novice to more specialized forms (such as whitewater rafting, mountain climbing, hunting, and fishing) often require natural, undisturbed environments which provide greater challenges for enhanced skills and experience.  These forms of recreation are sometimes called "wilderness-dependent" (Manning 1989).

See also: Use-Patterns of Wilderness and Roadless Areas

Science

Large natural areas, such as wilderness and roadless areas, are needed to provide laboratories for the study of natural ecosystem processes.  Wilderness areas provide excellent opportunities for scientific research for several reasons: (1) they contain whole drainages where land and water interactions can be studied on a range of scales. (2) They may contain animal populations whose entire range and habitat needs are met within the wilderness. (3) They are large enough to include a mosaic of vegetation types and ages on comparable sites. (4) They frequently provide excellent areas to study the natural background levels of environmental pollutants (Greene and Franklin 1988). In the words of one environmental writer, wilderness "holds answers to questions man has not yet learned how to ask" (Nash 1982). Wilderness areas also provide laboratories for social research that examines mans relationship with nature (Manning 1989). Evidence suggests that wilderness areas are indeed used extensively as natural laboratories.  Research and monitoring activities have occurred in at least 29 national forest wildernesses in the southern Appalachians (SAMAB 1996).

Culture

Many historians agree that wilderness has contributed to the distinctiveness of American culture.  One of the qualities that made America distinctive was the grandness and wildness of its nature.  Many of Americas first contributions to world culture celebrated its wilderness heritage.  Examples include poems by William Cullen Bryant, novels by James Fennimore Cooper, and landscape paintings by Thomas Cole, Frederick Church, Albert Bierstadt, and Thomas Moran (Manning 1989).

Some suggest that wilderness shaped not only Americas physical and mental image, but its personality as well.  Turner (1920) explains that pioneers experience in the wilderness of the American frontier marked them with a sense of independence, rugged individualism, and self-worth which defined a distinctive American personality.  Moreover, these characteristics were directly translated into our distinctive form of democratic government with its emphasis on maintaining personal freedom (Turner 1920, Manning 1989).

Historical Resources

Cultural resources such as archaeological sites, historic structures, and artifacts, have enormous importance for the preservation of traditional American values, of both native Americans and settlers.  Federal land managing agencies, regardless of their specific missions or mandates, are required by federal preservation laws (such as the National Historic Preservation Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, and the Wilderness Act) to protect cultural resources on managed land (Neuman and Reinburg 1988).  Wilderness areas not only protect cultural resources, but preserve these resources in a natural setting (Flamm 1989).

Therapy

Wilderness has long been thought to have both physical and mental therapeutic value.  Early thinking on this matter was influenced by Sigmund Freud and the developing science of psychology, which suggested that mental dysfunctions were often caused by repressed desires forced upon us by the constraints of society (Nash 1982).  Wilderness, proponents argued, provided an opportunity to release those constraints and play out emotion and instincts (Marshall 1930, Manning 1989).

The therapeutic values of wilderness have received considerable attention in recent decades.  A substantial industry has evolved around these potential values, led by Outward Bound and the National Outdoor Leadership School.  Studies of the therapeutic values of wilderness use has revealed beneficial effects on participants self-concept or self-perception (Burton 1981).  Self-concept-related preference items, such as self-confidence, are consistently found to be important to a large number of wilderness visitors (Driver and others 1987).  Despite methodological shortcomings in many wilderness therapy studies, a growing body of evidence suggests that various therapeutic benefits from wilderness are real (Manning 1989).

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is another area in which wilderness has been subject to considerable reinterpretation.  For example, mountains were once considered as "ugly deformities on the Earths surface" (Nash 1982).  The Enlightenment, and later the Romantic movement of the 17th and 18th centuries, developed a more sympathetic and appreciative view of nature, in which wilderness was considered beautiful due to the awe, power, and sometimes terror, it signified within us (Nash 1982, Manning 1989).

Marshall (1930) later developed a more sophisticated philosophy of wilderness aesthetics, recognizing that: (1) nature is detached from all temporal relationships in that it is not rooted in any one period of human history; (2) it has an encompassing physical ambience in that we can be literally surrounded by its beauty;  (3) it has a dynamic beauty as it is always changing; (4) it has the potential to gratify all of the senses in that it can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt; and (5) it provides the best opportunity for pure or perfectly objective aesthetic enjoyment in that it is not created or affected by man (Manning 1989).

There is considerable evidence of the aesthetic value of wilderness today, including the millions of photographs taken by visitors to national parks, and millions of nature calendars and picture books published by environmental groups and others.  In the Recreation Experience Preference scales, the scale item "scenery" ranks as one of the most important motives of wilderness visitors (Driver and others 1987, Manning 1989).

Intellectual Freedom

Nash (1982) argues that wilderness is the ultimate source of intellectual freedom or creativity.  Using the writings of several natural philosophers, Nash suggests that wilderness provides the purest form of objectivity from which original thoughts might be derived, inspiring intellectual creativity and diversity.  Wilderness-inspired intellectual freedom has been found in several religious, artistic, and political movements.  The Puritans came to the wilderness of the New World to find spiritual freedom just as the Mormons went to the deserts of Utah.  Thomas Cole and his followers found artistic inspiration in wilderness, and more recently, Abbey writes that wilderness may someday be needed "not only as a refuge from excessive industrialism but also as a refuge from authoritarian government and political oppression" (Abbey 1968, Manning 1989).

Spiritual Values

Nature is such a powerful and universal element of our world that its relationship to things spiritual is inevitable. Symbolic of this relationship is the fact that the word "wilderness" appears nearly 300 times in The Bible (Nash 1982).  However, wilderness has been subject to conflicting spiritual interpretations. In conservative religious doctrine, wilderness was seen simply as a force to be controlled and conquered or as a storehouse of raw materials for mans exploitation (Manning 1989).

More recently, nature, and its ultimate expression as wilderness, has benefited from more favorable interpretations.  In the 19th century, Emerson and Thoreau formulated their philosophy of transcendentalism, suggesting nature as a setting or metaphor for higher spiritual truths.  The transcendentalist interpretation of nature was eagerly accepted by wilderness enthusiasts, notably among them John Muir, and today the transcendentalist tradition continues.  Environmental degradation is often described as "desecration," a term with obvious religious overtones (Manning 1989).

Spiritual values and personal introspection are often cited as important motives for people who visit wilderness areas (Driver and others 1987).  In fact, some have even suggested that wilderness preservation might be justified on the constitutional basis of maintaining religious freedom (Graber 1976, Manning 1989).