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Future Trends in Society and Technology: Implications for Wilderness Research and Management
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Stankey, George H. |
| Copyright Year | 2000 |
| Abstract | Judging the impact of social and technological trends on the future of wilderness is complex. Declining public trust, growing demands for scrutiny, a need to recognize the link between biophysi- cal and socioeconomic systems, and the need for criteria to select among alternative futures challenge us. A burgeoning global popu- lation will increase resource impacts, but more critically, the grow- ing gap between haves and have-nots will aggravate equity con- cerns. Future technological changes are problematic; they will enhance understanding of wilderness but also make it more acces- sible. We lack ethical frameworks for resolving such dilemmas; what we can do will almost always outpace our ability to decide what we should do. It is my assignment to discuss how future trends in society and technology might affect how wilderness is both used and perceived, as well as the implications of these changes for the conduct of science in wilderness. I am also to describe the nature of ethical frameworks available to respond to these changes and to the conduct of science in wilderness. This is an ambitious assignment, for not only does it require consid- eration of two large, complex sectors and their equally complex interactions, but it also implies that the analysis will account for what has not yet happened. Our capacity to anticipate the future accurately has yet to be demonstrated; there are a host of examples of this inability, such as Bill Gates' apocryphal quote "640K ought to be enough for anybody." Speaking specifically of wilderness, Nash (1982) observed "who in the 980s could have foreseen a world in which oil is piped from Alaska, the planet's mightiest rivers are thoroughly regulated, and recreational backpacking threatens to love designated wilderness areas to death? We may be in no better position today to predict the state of wilderness on this planet in 2980." I would agree fully with Nash's assessment, but I doubt our capacity to forecast, with any accuracy, what the situation will be in the next 50 years, let alone the next millennium! But having said that, we must also recognize that our failure to think reflectively about the future only increases the chance that it will bring neither what we might wish for nor what we might desire. Those who specialize in forecast- ing (as opposed to prediction) remind us that the future is not some immutable trajectory, determined by our history, the stars, or our genes. As Polak (1961) notes, "history does not unfold itself, but evolves through man's evolving." Instead, it is shaped by the numerous actions and decisions (or perhaps more often, by nonactions and nondecisions) taken today; to a very great extent, we choose our destinies, explicitly or implicitly, and "steer our collective enterprise toward any one of several worlds" (Hammond 1998). Reflecting upon the nature of tomorrow also leads us see today in ways not previously possible. By looking ahead, we see particular trajectories and outcomes that we might like to avoid or alter; to do so will first require changes in present attitudes, behaviors and institutions. However, such future- oriented feedback is often ignored or denied because to acknowledge it is to presage a need to change current institutions (Michaels 1973). This, in turn, can produce such a state of psychological discomfort that denial becomes the order of the day. Thus, we are faced with a dilemma: attempting to forecast what is yet to come and which is ultimately unknowable, yet cognizant that our failure to do so could very well produce what we wish to avoid (and even more frustratingly, might well be able to avoid). It is a case of "Catch-22," alive and well! In this paper, I try to walk the fine line between these two outcomes. First, I present some basic presumptions and caveats. In this section, I outline some of the larger, in most cases global, forces at play with which both wilderness managers and scientists, as well as the whole of society, will need to contend. Second, I turn to a discussion of selected social trends underway, globally as well as in the United States. Space does not permit a full appraisal of this topic, but hopefully I can provide some basic familiarity with these trends and, more importantly, comment on some of the scientific issues these trends present. |
| Starting Page | 10 |
| Ending Page | 23 |
| Page Count | 14 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.wilderness.net/library/documents/Stankey_1-3.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
