The phenomenon of the High Line, a commercial railroad made into a natural reserve, resonates many points that Emma Marris made in her book “Rambunctious Garden.” The existence of the High Line in the middle of the bustling city of New York sympathizes with the point of view of true wilderness as all natural things, whether they were originally there or not and it is one of the examples regarding successful rewilding through passive migration. However, the High Line contradicts with the concept of “baseline” mentioned in the book and the idea of rewilding needing strict separation between nature and men.
Chapter Two of the book mentioned two challenging views regarding true wilderness. One views true wilderness as nature untampered by artificial means; the other views it as all existing natural things, whether or not they are original to the habitat. The second view holds true at the High Line. The fact is that the High Line was created, passively, through human interaction such as trampling, cutting vegetation, and smothering the plants with debris like tires, bottles, and additional trash. Yet the High Line developed high vascular plant species diversity and become a natural reserve of the city of New York, all thanks to the ecology developed unnaturally by humans.
Moreover, the High Line demonstrates a successful example of rewilding through assisted migration. Two contending views surrounding the topic of rewilding are reverting nature back to the baseline through human control and monitoring and reverting nature back to the baseline through strict separation between men and nature. The first view prevails in the case of the High Line. The high species diversity on the High Line was made possible through assisted migration as human visitation brought seeds and new species to the site while human disturbance made up for the multiplicity of habitat. The High Line flourished with a higher species richness compared to four nearby New York City sites: Hoffman/Swinburne Island, Bayswater State Park, Liberty Island, and Ellis Island. Additionally, The High Line became one of New York City’s natural reserve means that rewilding through human interaction and monitoring works out fine.
Nonetheless, while many scientists fight over the existence of “pristine wilderness” as a baseline for conservation effort, the High Line brought an entirely different example about nature. The concept of “pristine wilderness” reckons nature as a place existed once upon a time when human have not yet colonized the Earth. Thus this concept deems that every natural habitat has a baseline. However, the High Line had no baseline for this freak of nature was formally a railroad track and ended up becoming more and more natural with high biodiversity existing. One can assume that the High Line’s baseline is the railroad tracks from which diverse plants have been growing.
Conclusively, the High Line agrees with some points on Marris’ book and disagrees with other. Its existence confirms the possibility of rewilding and assisted migration while challenging the classical concepts regarding pristine wilderness and separation of men and wild when it comes to conservation.
