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 inaccessible and unreachable.

Before European explorations, Native Americans cultivated the land and lived with nature in a symbiotic relationship. Native Americans had sophisticated agriculture practices and cultivated the land in a way that was beneficial for both the people and nature. They strategically altered natural landscape, cultivated fruit trees, and controlled wild animal populations. Semi-nomadic tribes moved with the seasons, harvesting food during their prime and allowing the natural resources to replenish during the off-season. Agricultural tribes irrigated water to create natural floodplains to increase crop production and paired companion crops with each other to promote healthier growth. While these systems in place were not perfect and can be disrupted through natural disasters, Native Americans are often considered the first conservationist because of their methodical land practices.

However, because none of this was recognized by the European colonizers, the carefully crafted landscape was disrupted through the introduction of new crops and farming animals. This brought on extra stress to the natural environment, causing irreversible change to the ecology.

Resources to Explore

– Environmental and Health Effects of European Contact with the New World

– Native American Agriculture

– Three Worlds, Three Views

Erasure of Indigeneity

Due to the way wilderness and nature were viewed through the colonizers’ lens, colonizers thought Native Americans’ inability to cultivate land in a way that separated them from nature with distinct boundaries made them uncivilized.

This process of colonization and indigenous erasure began around 1550 in the United States. In the past nearly 500 years, the false portrayal and erasure of Native Americans and indigenous folks everywhere have led to a loss of culture and natural resources that are tied to their survival, their practices, and lineage. While we are focused on the effects of colonization on indigenious land practices, it is important to recognize that colonization has affected Native American culture and wellbeing through genocide, epistemicide (erasure of knowledge systems), and continued oppressive effects. 

The killing of Native Americans and Native knowledge systems has had detrimental effects on the community. Today, over 900,000 Native American are unhoused, and have the highest poverty rate of all races in the United States. Aside from financial instability, the loss of cultural knowledge also severs their cultural connection, leading to discontinued practices that are pertinent to the Native community. 

For those of us who are not native, it is not enough to just know whose land we are on. Land acknowledgments are important, but they alone only a first step. To continue to decolonize ourselves and support Native sovereignty and survival, we must learn about first foods, native practices, land practices, original places, and the ways in which we can combat the continual disenfranchisement of Native Americans and Indigenous folks.

More Resources

– Native North Americans: The Effects of Colonization

– Indigenous knowledges as vital contributions to sustainability

Effects of Colonization on Human-Nature Relationship

The long-term effects of colonization weigh heavily on BIPOC communities, as seen  land acquisition, genocide, slavery, and forced assimilation. These consequences ripple into current-day social justice issues and force us to distance our relationship from the natural world. The interconnectedness of big agriculture, land degradation, globalized food systems, and more are all symptoms of historical and current colonialism that benefit a third party. For example, Monsanto, the oil and gas industry, food retailers relocating out of low-income communities of color creating food insecurity, which results in negative health effects. These are just a few examples of how all inequities are interconnected. The effects of colonization on the human-nature relationship do not only drastically shift our view of nature, placing nature out of reach or as undesirable, but it also harms our health and safety. 

Reconnecting to the natural world has proven to benefit human and planetary wellbeing. For ourselves, future generations, and our earth, this relationship is essential in moving towards a more just, equitable, and sustainable future.

Access

Systematically, our communities have higher barriers to entry when trying to access the outdoors, including time, money, resources, and desire. The outdoors can feel unsafe, unwelcoming, and lacking representation for BIPOC folks. These factors can discourage us from exploring what nature has to offer, specifically in terms of outdoor adventure. 

Check out these resources to source your gear affordably

– Next Adventure's Bargain Basement

– Sierra Trading Post

– Steep and Cheap

– The Clymb

Undeniably, BIPOC communities have a strong connection to the natural world within and outside of outdoor adventure. People of Color vote to preserve nature and the outdoors at a higher percentage than non-POC, advocate through the Environmental Justice Movement, reclaim and implement Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and more.

Wild Diversity’s purpose and mission is to facilitate experiences for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities in outdoor education, increasing access and lowering these barriers to entry. You can check out our programs here.

Our Personal Stories of Reclamation

Sofia: The more I spend time in nature the more I feel at home. I am figuring out my purpose and intention for reclaiming space in the outdoors and am collecting bits of knowledge along the way. In this process I am centering BIPOC voices, asking critical questions, and reframing how I, and others around me, think of ‘wilderness.’ I am letting my curiosity lead me, staying present, and in awe.

Viv: As someone who grew up in a big metropolitan, my contact with nature was limited. But the distinct differences between my cultural food practice compared to the U.S.’s is distinct. Growing up in China, it was easy to access live livestock and to see it being utilized for its whole being. The whole process scared me as a kid but also helped me appreciate where my food came from and savor all parts of the animal. As an avid food lover, reclaiming nature looks like knowing where my food comes from, understanding its process of growth, and being able to utilize it in its entirety.

 

In knowing and understanding the consequences of the postcolonial concept of wilderness, we as a community can redefine wildness with historical accuracy and cultural competency. This gives us purpose and meaning when resituating ourselves as stewards and protectors of the natural world.

Leave a comment below to let us know how you reclaim natural, and your cultural connection to the land!