Wild land values...Holmes Rolston III

1. Wildland Values
Holmes Rolston’s III
Corbin Fletcher c
12 Types of Wildland Values
September 29, 2011
Corbin Fletcher Holmes Rolston’s III

2. Wildland Values
# 1 Market Value
THE MARKET VALUE OF NATURE
Nature can be used instrumentally to render human existence
more materially comfortable. Humans have no options about
some consumption of nature in our economy, however, we do
have options about how much nature we consume. Growth and
social pressures have forced market values into competition
with all other values.
Corbin Fletcher Holmes Rolston’s III

3. Wildland Values
# 2 Life Support Value
The central goods of the biosphere were in place
before humans arrived, though they have lately
become our resources. Such things as airflow,
water circulation, sunshine, and nitrogen fixation
have never figured much in market value.
Previously, we thought that natural processes
were just given however with increasing demands
on nature, human activities have threatened
crucial life support functions.
Corbin Fletcher Holmes Rolston’s III

4. Wildland Values
# 3 Recreational Value
We want to see what we can do (activity) and we want to be
let in on Nature’s show (contemplation). Wildlands are valued
for sports (hiking, fishing) and also, wildlands are valued as a
wonderland: a rich evolutionary ecosystem where truth is
stranger than fiction.
Corbin Fletcher Holmes Rolston’s III

5. Wildland Values
# 4 Scientific Value
Through undisturbed nature we gain better applied science
which enlarges our understanding of the world and our roles in
it. Science enables us to manage more intelligently and
perhaps rebuild what we have destroyed when we were not so
morally advanced. Relic wildlands are the only place where
questions of natural history and evolution can be settled.
Destroying wildlands is like burning unread books.
Corbin Fletcher Holmes Rolston’s III

6. Wildland Values
# 5 Genetic Diversity Value
Genetic Diversity
Increased plant mutation rates from monocultures, pesticides,
herbicides, hybridized strains, and pollution, etc. have made it
important to preserve the reservoir of wild-type genetic material to
bolster failing domestic stock.
Some facts:
Humans eat only 30 plants on a large scale and only one or
two of those come from North America;
The loss of fifteen cultivares would result in one half of the
world’s population starving;
Eighty percent of the world’s calories come from ten species of
plants.
Corbin Fletcher Holmes Rolston’s III

7. Wildland Values
# 5 Genetic Diversity Value
Genetic Diversity
Increased plant mutation rates from monocultures, pesticides,
herbicides, hybridized strains, and pollution, etc. have made it
important to preserve the reservoir of wild-type genetic material to
bolster failing domestic stock.
Some facts:
Humans eat only 30 plants on a large scale and only one or
two of those come from North America;
The loss of fifteen cultivares would result in one half of the
world’s population starving;
Eighty percent of the world’s calories come from ten species of
plants.
Corbin Fletcher Holmes Rolston’s III

8. Wildland Values
# 5 Genetic Diversity Value
Genetic Diversity
Increased plant mutation rates from monocultures, pesticides,
herbicides, hybridized strains, and pollution, etc. have made it
important to preserve the reservoir of wild-type genetic material to
bolster failing domestic stock.
Some facts:
Humans eat only 30 plants on a large scale and only one or
two of those come from North America;
The loss of fifteen cultivares would result in one half of the
world’s population starving;
Eighty percent of the world’s calories come from ten species of
plants.
Corbin Fletcher Holmes Rolston’s III

9. Wildland Values
# 6 Aesthetic Value
Nature’s problem solving yields works of grace-an eagle soaring, a
snake slithering, a coyote on the run, the fiddleheads of ferns, even
mudflats with their 120-degree stress fracture symmetries. On small
scales or large, both ensemble and individual, Nature’s patterns can
please the eye. Valuing wildlands is vastly more than soaking up
scenery, as one travels slowly in intimate contact with the
environment.
Corbin Fletcher Holmes Rolston’s III

10. Wildland Values
# 7 Cultural Symbolic Value
Cultural
The bald eagle symbolizes national self-images and aspirations
(freedom, strength, beauty), as does the bighorn ram, the state
animal for Colorado. We want some wilderness preserved because it
comes to express the values of culture superimposed on it, helping
us with our sense of belongingness and identity.
Corbin Fletcher Holmes Rolston’s III

11. Wildland Values
# 8a Historical Value–Cultural
In the U.S. humans only one hundred years ago were still
struggling with a diverse and challenging environment in their
quest to “settle” the West. This struggle shaped many of our
attitudes in our collective culture. Wildlands of all types
should be preserved as souvenir places for each generation’s
learning period.
Corbin Fletcher Holmes Rolston’s III

12. Wildland Values
# 8b Historical Value–Cultural
Wildlands also provide the most profound historical museum of
all, a relic of the way the world was in 99.99 per cent of past
time. We are relics of that world, and that world, as tangible
relic in our midst, contributes to our sense of duration,
antiquity, continuity, and identity.
Corbin Fletcher Holmes Rolston’s III

13. Wildland Values
# 9 Character-Building Value
Scouting, Outward Bound Schools, church camps, etc.
Wildlands provide a place to sweat, to push yourself
more than usual, perhaps to let adrenaline flow. They
provide a place to take calculated risks, to learn the
luck of weather, to lose and find one’s way, to reminisce
over success and failure. They provide a place to gain
humility and a sense of proportion.
Corbin Fletcher Holmes Rolston’s III

14. Wildland Values
# 10 Therapeutic Value
In society it is difficult to discriminate friends, enemies, and the
indifferent. It is hard to get resolved focus on what to do next,
or to predict the consequences of delay. But, in the wilds,
supper has to be cooked, one needs to start the stove; it’s
getting dark. Exertion is demanded unambiguously;
accomplishment is evident in a low-frustration environment.
Corbin Fletcher Holmes Rolston’s III

15. Wildland Values
# 10 Therapeutic Value
In society it is difficult to discriminate friends, enemies, and the
indifferent. It is hard to get resolved focus on what to do next,
or to predict the consequences of delay. But, in the wilds,
supper has to be cooked, one needs to start the stove; it’s
getting dark. Exertion is demanded unambiguously;
accomplishment is evident in a low-frustration environment.
The self is starkly present and the social protocol is similar.
So far as humans have been selected over evolutionary course
to meet challenge, adventure, exertion, and risk, society must
provide avenues for such archetypal emotions, or to expect
deviant behavior-gangs and rebels without a cause. Wildness
may provide a niche that meets deep-seated psychosomatic
needs.
Corbin Fletcher Holmes Rolston’s III

16. Wildland Values
# 11 Religious Value
Religious Value
The wilderness works on a traveler’s soul, as well as on muscle and
character. The wilderness elicits cosmic questions, differently from
town. Some of the most moving experiences attainable are to be
had there. Many Native American religions depend on wilderness
as a sacred place for their spiritual gatherings.
Corbin Fletcher Holmes Rolston’s III

17. Wildland Values
# 12 Intrinsic Value
Each preceding type of value makes Nature tributary to human
experiences, but several hint at more. Wild nature has value in
and of itself, regardless of a human valuer. This is to say that if
humans had never evolved, plants, animals, and other life forms
would still have value just because they are.
Corbin Fletcher Holmes Rolston’s III

18. Wildland Values
# 12 Intrinsic Value
Each preceding type of value makes Nature tributary to human
experiences, but several hint at more. Wild nature has value in
and of itself, regardless of a human valuer. This is to say that if
humans had never evolved, plants, animals, and other life forms
would still have value just because they are.
All life would have value in and of itself from the struggle for its
own existence. Value would exist for this life even if there was
no valuer capable of rational thought. Intrinsic value is diffuse
but deeply felt, such values are difficult to bring into decisions;
nevertheless, it does not follow that they ought to be ignored.
Corbin Fletcher Holmes Rolston’s III

19. Wildland Values
Credits
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The preceding was adapted from: Rolston, Holmes, III (1989)
Valuing Wildlands. In: Philosophy Gone Wild. Buffalo, New
York: Prometheus Books, pp. 180-225.
Corbin Fletcher Holmes Rolston’s III