STUDENT VOICES | HONORABLE MENTION for the 2023 CHYNN ETHICS paper prize
The Frequent Wilderness: On Ethics of Ecotourism
by Cary Wang, Fordham College Lincoln Center ’23
“Guys, there’s a bear! Stop!”
But the call comes too late. Our hiking party is split in two, the vanguard wielding the bear spray separated from the rearguard carrying the supplies, an adult grizzly in between. The bear saunters out from the brush and squats down on the dirt path. It takes a look at us, then turns its attention to the raspberry bushes along the trail. We’re close enough to see the rainwater dripping off its muzzle.
Fortunately, our slow retreat is well-received. Nature calls to the bear, it demarcates its territory, and disappears downhill into the fog blanketing the valley. When we regroup, the residual adrenaline draws the conversation to the other possible outcomes of the previous encounter. I had the bear spray ready, I could’ve been mauled, I wanted to poke it! No one mentions that it is actually the bear that has protected its own fate by opting for the vegan option.
Indeed, had the bear decided to demonstrate its superior strength, it would have met a prompt fate by human hands. In most states, bears that have hurt humans are either relocated or, in the cases of mothers with sows, put down for fear of promoting said behavior in progeny. But when human-bear encounters are invariably on the rise due to an all-time high number of national recreational area visitations, can a bear really be faulted for protecting itself against what are essentially hordes of bipedal trespassers? On a grander scale, is it still acceptable for humans to enter supposèdly conserved wilderness even for reasons of education and responsible recreation, given that anthropogenic influences and their consequences are nigh inevitable?
At the core of the modern American concept of wilderness and ecotourism is the National Park Service (henceforth “NPS”), founded in 1916 with a stated mission of “preserving unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations.” Note that the mission statement declares human interaction for purposes of education and recreation as the fundamental reason for maintenance of the wild (which is in and of itself an oxymoronic statement). It is an anthropocentric raison d’être that prioritizes the human experience over protection and care of the wilderness itself. When human-wild conflicts inevitably occur, the NPS more often than not sides with human interests, ultimately chipping away at the integrity of the very wild that it is tasked with preserving.
Over the course of the past decade, a rise in social media usage has pushed the paradox between ecotourism and preservation into the limelight. Although annual visitor numbers to the nation’s 423 NPS-managed areas (national parks, monuments, memorials, etc.) have tumbled roughly 28% since pre-pandemic times to a new 40-year low, 141 parks saw record-breaking visitor counts post-pandemic, with 23 of those parks accounting for over half of the annual total visitor count (more than 115 of a total 230 million visitors!). Such skewed popularity is indicative of social media-induced trend-seeking behavior, a phenomenon well-documented by the 37% increase in visitations to NPS-managed areas in the decade after the inception of Instagram, compared to an average 20% decade-on-decade increase prior.
Of the many consequences of increased ecotourism, damage to local ecosystems by way of accident or sheer ignorance is the most pressing. Though the NPS provides behavioral guidelines in all its visitor information outlets, Murphy’s law ensures that human vice prevails. The NPS website displays various crude acts of vandalism committed by park-goers, from spray-painting rock formations to scratching names into ancient murals to a wantonly julienned saguaro cactus. Trash, especially microplastics, leaks into the environment and cascades up food chains, causing damage to a plethora of living beings along the way. Unsecured food and food waste is particularly problematic, conditioning wild animals of all niches to become dependent upon humans, which causes aggression and conflicts ranging from squirrels chewing through backpack pockets in search of protein bars to bears wandering through campsites and dispatching of humans. Illegal off-trail shortcuts and “adventuring” eventually leads to the complete deterioration of portions of habitat and impedes upon the natural territories of certain species. Then there’s the problem of noise pollution, light pollution, air pollution…
And the list goes on. It seems that an increased presence of humans can do no right, and this is true even towards humans themselves. Overcrowding at the most popular NPS-managed destinations has resulted in traffic jams (bison jams as well), car crashes, area closures, road and trail damage, and most importantly, the general loss of the very sense of solitude that many have come to experience at these special locations. Those who then naively wander into unadulterated wilderness in pursuit of solitude inevitably become the new agenda of search-and-rescue teams, stressing local emergency services providers as well as their own friends and families.
All of the above stressors have only served to exacerbate the NPS’s struggle to maintain the current level of wilderness protection. There are signs that the federal agency may no longer be able to sustain its paradoxical mission of having humans make contact with the wilderness: in 2018, the backlog of repairs and maintenance filed by the NPS reached $11 billion USD, but in the year prior, only $650 million USD was received and put to use; in other words, the backlog is only growing. Improper upkeep can lead to a failure to provide sufficient safety services for both humans and the local ecosystem, as well as inadequate reparations for infractions of NPS regulations. In short, ecotourism is killing the very systems that enable it. So why let it continue?
A cold turkey resolution to the problems of increased ecotourism would not necessarily swing the pendulum in nature’s favor. For starters, entrance and backcountry permit fees have long been a staple of the NPS budget, and it is through localized ecotourism that the NPS is able to protect wild lands at the national scale. Ongoing conservation, restoration, and education projects would likely be put on hold with a significant drop in agency revenue. On the human side, a full stop would imperil the incomes of more than 15,000 NPS employees, not to mention those of tourism service providers around NPS-managed lands, resulting in a potential loss of over $41 billion USD to local economies (from pre-pandemic calculations). Thus, any potential resolution would have to straddle the midway between human interests and the continued safety of the wilderness.
The true role of the NPS has always been to navigate this careful balance. Throughout the first century of its existence, the agency favored the side of human interest, whatnot with the establishment of the NPS itself, the building of rural and backcountry infrastructure, and the promotion of volunteering programs for purposes of educating the public on the wilderness. The second century thus necessitates a change towards favoring the other side, for fear of tilting past the point of no return. Stricter permit measures are already beginning to be put in place, and many popular scenic destinations now require an application in advance to gain access. What comes next should be further hardline restrictions on visitor counts, for a frequently frequented wilderness is a wilderness no longer. And though it may come as a deficit for the interest of our own species, it is the only way by which such a paradoxical balance can continue – preserving both, each at the cost of the other.
For more information about the prize, past winners, and submission requirements for 2024, please visit the Chynn Ethics Paper Prize webpage. The deadline to submit is Friday, March 15th, 2024 and is open to ALL undergraduates.
Works Cited
Brahney, Janice, Margaret Hallerud, Eric Heim, Maura Hahnenberger, and Suja Sukumaran. 2020. “Plastic Rain in Protected Areas of the United States.” Science 368 (6496): 1257–60. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaz5819.
Hegyi, Nate. 2019. “Instagramming Crowds Pack National Parks.” NPR, May 28, 2019, sec. National. https://www.npr.org/2019/05/28/726658317/instagramming-crowds-pack-national-parks.
“National Park Visitor Spending Contributed $28.6 Billion to U.S. Economy in 2020 – Office of Communications (U.S. National Park Service).” n.d. Accessed January 17, 2023. https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1207/vse2020.htm.
“National Parks Overcrowding.” 2021. July 29, 2021. https://www.doi.gov/ocl/national-parks-overcrowding.
“President’s Proposed $2.7 Billion Budget for NPS Includes Legislation to Address $11.6 Billion in Deferred Maintenance – Office of Communications (U.S. National Park Service).” n.d. Accessed January 17, 2023. https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1207/02-12-2017-budget-proposal.htm.
Simmonds, Charlotte, Annette McGivney, Todd Wilkinson, and Gabrielle Canon. 2018. “Crisis in Our National Parks: How Tourists Are Loving Nature to Death.” The Guardian, November 20, 2018, sec. Environment.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/20/national-parks-america-overcr owding-crisis-tourism-visitation-solutions.
“Visitation Numbers (U.S. National Park Service).” n.d. Accessed January 17, 2023.https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/visitation-numbers.htm.
“Waste in National Parks – Leave No Trace Research & Resources.” n.d. Leave No Trace (blog). Accessed January 17, 2023. https://lnt.org/research-resources/waste-in-national-parks/.
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