Decolonize the Wilderness
By Viv Cai & Sofia Baum All images by Sofia Baum Inspired by Organeyez’s Instagram post on Wilderness as a Colonial Construct , Wild Diversity Youth Ecology Coordinators Viv Cai and Sofia Baum break down postcolonial effects on the wilderness and human connection to the land. The Term Wilderness The wilderness as we know it today is a postcolonial concept that has been crafted to portray nature as a place separate from our human identities and lives. We are taught to either conquer nature, modernize wilderness, or to leave it alone to preserve its integrity. This dominant ideology was brought over during the European explorations. The European colonizers approached these new lands with these presumptions and forever changed the ecological systems of these lands. This postcolonial wilderness experience has affected all of us and our relationship with nature. The commodified nature, privatized natural resources, altered natural landscapes, and disrupted ecosystems have made nature in