I was walking on a publicly accessible piece of land around a drinking water reservoir. A sign caught my eye, a classic water company land sign. One that said what you could and couldn't do. It said "Passive Recreation Only" and "no fishing, hunting, motor vehicles". It also stated "dogs must remain leashed".
I thought about that sign. It was meant to reduce activities that could pollute the water. The irony there being that the water volume in the reservoirs was so huge that any pollutants introduced by the sorts of prohibited actions would be so diluted as to be completely negligible. But dog walking was allowed, along with their urine and feces which would undoubtedly run off into the reservoir. And allowing people to walk around an area isn't really passive. People don't float inches off the ground, thereby leaving it undisturbed. If you are in a place, you impact that place.
I've been thinking more and more about that term, "passive recreation", recently. That term is generally used in reference to things like hiking, biking, bird watching, and other activities that don't have a direct and clear impact on the landscape. I don't agree with that terminology, though. I don't believe any outdoor activity can truly be passive. You always impact something, and almost always negatively. The question is simply just how severe that impact is. Something like fishing, obviously, isn't at all passive. You may not have though into it that much though, so lets do that.
When you travel to a fishing spot, you add wear to existing paths or start beating your own. Those of us who are very obsessive anglers can probably remember beating a well trodden path into a spot that very few people were fishing before you came along. That's an impact... you trod down existing brush, probably moved some seeds around, cause erosion, and so on. In the process of arriving you alter the behavior of the wildlife that are present, and they have to make changes in their behavior. Then you start fishing, perhaps you hook some fish- you stab a hole in them, more insignificant if it's a small barbless hook, pretty severe if it's big and barbed. More than one hole if you're using a treble hook. Then you force the fish to expend energy, fighting for it's life. Maybe you keep it, removing an organism from the ecosystem. If you release that fish, you still haven't actually done it much of a favor and there is some chance your actions result in that fish dying after you let it go. Not very passive, that's for sure.
But what about something that would be considered passive? Let's take the most common example, hiking. To hike you need a trail. Trails can cause a serious amount of damage to the landscape depending how heavily traveled they are and where they are located. A trail right along a stream ran result in bank erosion and disruption of the habitats of fish and other stream dwelling wildlife. Trails on rocky high ground can severely impact slow growing low brush, nesting birds, and herpetofauna. If trail thoroughly spiderweb an area and are heavily traveled, large wildlife may struggle to accomplish important life functions even in daylight. Trail also represent access, and not everyone that can access an area will do so responsibly. In the world of CT herpetology, we're fighting mountain bikers right now. They're moving into new areas, building new trails, and causing huge habitat disruption. They likely don't perceive their actions as destructive at all, but the have been. One unauthorized trail I've been working with the state on represents a substantial threat to an endangered species. It must be stopped. And trails like it are popping up all over the state. Actions like moving rock, beating back brush, moving leaf litter, and building structures always have a negative impact. Sometimes that impact can be huge.
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| A CT DEEP herpetologist installs a remote camera to monitor an unauthorized trail through protected habitat. |
I always enjoy your posts, and this one is no different. I've built trails. I've used trails. I help maintain trails. I fish, often in weird hard to get to places. We most definitely impact the environment with each use.
ReplyDeleteA question I always ponder though. When is that negative and when is it not?
Native Americans routinely used fire to alter the landscape, this was a huge impact repeated for thousands of years which had to massively impact some species in negative ways, others in positive.
Walls now are fantastic mammal and herp habitat, but are likely only 200-300 yrs old in most of New England. Does changing a wall, create a short term negative? What if that wall change adjusts large mammal travel in an area away from an adjacent wet area?
Dam's most definitely messed up the environment... though one could make a case for the ensuing wetlands and history of those ponds, many now marshes due to a century or more of sedimentation are incredibly valuable in their own right.
None of those points bring up definitive rationale's for any specific intervention or change. They are just further echo's of your point that what we do, impacts things...
I dont know the answer regarding where the line is - unless it's clear. We need to manage runoff and industrial pollution of waterways. We can do things to improve the quality of our environment, and we should.
The big things, they seem easier (for me at least) to parse and identify.
Take trails. What leads to more land preservation in the long run? Reducing access to the population because said access could have some impact on local species or allowing some amount of human access via various means to enjoy those wild spaces.
If humans are not allowed to be in those places in ways which they view as valuable, are they more likely to say: "What the heck, just sell it off, who cares", or "lets just leave it and not touch it".
Yes, I present deeply opposing views rather than reasonable ones. I did that solely for the thought it generates.
My sense, is that reasonable trail use/construction, reasonable human use of wild spaces be that via land, boat, trail, no-trail, etc is more likely to lead to the highest value placed on those wild spaces and thus, the most good being done to and for them over the long haul.
Does that mean every bit of state land should be laced with trails and jumps etc? Absolutely not. But does it mean there should be human access allowed via multiple recreational options - yes - in my opinion.
This is a good topic. Just how much human recreation makes sense, how do we work together to manage that use, and to direct it in such a way that it has minimal impact on the environment, while still keeping people in love with, or growing in love with, the wild spaces they live near.
Keep well -
Will
This is a fantastic introspective.
DeleteThere are a number of cases where the line of intervention needs to be crossed for benefit of species diversity. In New England, for example, just letting forest progression happen unabated results in progressive loss of habitat for some species. Timber rattlesnakes, hares, certain insects, etc etc all lose some habitat as forests mature and the canopy fills in. If we don't intervene and perform habitat management and alter the environment, we lose habitat.
And to your point on the importance of developing a connection, that's huge- we need recreation, because people don't care for what they don't know about or can't experience.
I think, as long as we're careful where we route trails, how many we place, and how we behave when we're in habitat, we can have a fantastic balance. It all revolves around education and right now there isn't enough. Trail blazers may not know when they're routing a trail over a hilltop that a bunch of snakes badly need for their gestation period or may not know the effects of foot path erosion on coldwater streams. Rock climbers may not know how bad cutting old pitch pines for a climbing route is. Mountain bikers probably don't realize the negative impacts of moving big slab rock and building large dirt berms. That's something we need to improve. There should be free and readily available classes through land trusts, parks and recreation departments, etc to help inform those heavily involved in developing outdoor recreation on best practices, and there needs to be more oversight of heavily used land.