Emma Marris’s Rambunctious Garden – Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World is a novel of various arguments and debates about the growing controversy of the “pristine wilderness.” Marris openly states in her first chapter, “Until recently, it lurked behind conservation organizations’ mission statements, … where the wild is always better than the tame. But it wasn’t always so. The cult of pristine wilderness is a cultural construction, and a relatively new one” (Marris Page 15). As many have been led to believe, the “pristine wilderness” is the goal. We seek to return to the previous state of ecology, before man had any involvement, and even before man had existed. However, this is only a ruse. Although it may be true that, today there is no piece of earth that has been left untouched and unaltered by man, historical ecology is not necessarily the superior model. We should change our own views as a society before we change our planet. Ecosystems are always changing regardless of human involvement. In the end, it is also becoming increasingly impossible to revert our world into the state that it once was. The amount of money and time that will be spent is unfathomable, let alone the resources spent on a single island. Rather than build fences around attempts at nature preservations, such as the Yellowstone Park, we should adapt to the notion of the rambunctious garden. The rambunctious garden is omnipresent. We should fuse the idea of our current world and embrace the natural world. We can preserve nature in the form of backyard gardens or farms. Recover natural processes that can also benefit our own specie’s survival. The first chapter is an introduction to the idea that will be proven and tested in the novel and the second chapter is a first look into the debates that will be discussed for the reader to examine and determine his take on the crucial idea of a mindset removed from the cultural cult.
I agree with Marris’s case and I believe that it is a successful one. Marris provides the reader with several arguments detailing opposing views on the growing rambunctious garden vs. the “pristine wilderness.” Several debaters of notable backgrounds argue that the previous and on-going attempts at conservation are futile. One man described his work of removing multiple species from Australia. He trapped and slaughtered hundreds and if not, thousands of rabbits, foxes, and cats for the sake of preserving the original Australian habitat. The problem is that the species that were being suppressed by these now dead or captured animals will have to either adapt to their newfound environments which may take possibly thousands of years or live in a fenced world where their prior predators must remain captive spending human resources. Another argument particularly about the creation of Yellowstone National Park describes the increased unreasonableness regarding the conservation of the park. The park once had several plains or flatlands where many would settle down or live in. With the creation and establishment of the park, inhabitants were forced to evacuate the lands where they once thrived. This was all for the purpose of maintaining an unhampered spot on the earth. Again, this is shown to be futile with the results of scientific research stating that, despite human interference, climates will radically change on their own. Some say that the ecology will remain in equilibrium and some say that it will be in a constant moving flux of irreversibility. The question remains is a philosophical one. If there is no noticeable change, is there really any reason to force a change at all?
