Back to the PastBack Will we ever cut one of the east Arkansas levees bordering the Mississippi River, and allow the adjacent land to flood again and re-create a million acre wilderness? Yes, I believe we will and here’s why. I know that flies in the face of conventional wisdom because we must have land to build houses, construct highways, and each activity is a necessary part of a civilized society. Without development or farming, etc, our standard of living would suffer a dramatic decline. But our unconstrained development should remind us of how over 90% of our wetlands are gone, how the ancient forest that covered this land are but a tiny remnant, and how species after species has become extinct. Well, you might say that’s the price we pay for our standard of living. You can't have a million acre east Arkansas wilderness and still lead the nation in rice production, can you? Well, can you? Must we concede our great American Wilderness is gone forever? Are we doomed by our past mistakes to only read about our wilderness past? Can we ever recreate what a French fur trapper in 1650 might have experienced as he paddled up Champagnolle Creek? I guess my thoughts are prejudiced by my love for wilderness. I enjoy being so far back in the woods that the hustle and bustle of civilization are only a memory. So, my answer is yes. If we can put a man on the moon and spend billions of dollars on everything from honeybee research to the restoration of Lawrence Welk's birthplace, we should be able to create a series of vast wilderness areas within our state and nationally across our nation. But before we recreate a new wilderness area, why should we? Let's Look closely at just what is a wilderness, and how it contributes to our quality of life. First, my definition of an American wilderness would include the following parameters; a large contiguous area with several major streams, no roads, no hiking trails, no three wheelers, nor any motorized traffic. Ideally, this wilderness area would be the size of one of our counties; something around a million acres. Through the natural restoration of wildlife and the restocking where necessary, an ecosystem could be developed, which over the years, would become more and more like our original American Wilderness. Here are a few more details about this type of wilderness area. We would restock wolves, cougar, black bear, elk, and any other species that were native to the area, and don’t whine about dangerous animals. Being struck by lightning or hit by a meteor is more likely than to be injured by a wolf or cougar. Hunting and fishing would be allowed, but no logging. We can afford to restrict uses, since we’re talking about a small percentage of land. Now, before you brand me a radical preservationist, let me clear the air by saying these wilderness areas, which might be as large as 1,000,000 acres, would still be only a fraction of our available land. We could easily place them where they would least impact farming or residential development. The impressive yields per acre, which our farmers have enjoyed over the past 50 years, have flooded the market with products, and that surplus created the Government Land Bank program to reduce crop yields. What if the program were expanded to encourage land donations to form a wilderness? The creation of a Wilderness Program, which would remove this acreage from development would constitute less than 2% of our land. Surely, we can afford to set aside this small amount of land. Where would these wilderness areas be located? I don’t know, but it seems logical that an expansion of the Big Island area on the Mississippi, the Feslenthal National Wildlife Refuge, which could be expanded into a wildlife corridor, and several areas within the Ouachita and Ozark National Forests, would be good starting points. Obviously, the creation and maintenance of even one large wilderness area is probably a 20 year project. However, in this matter, we should develop a Japanese mindset and view these projects as ones to be started and developed over several generations. If we don’t commit to a restoration of the American Wilderness, we are destined to become like Western European where only very small, almost park-like areas, are preserved as "natural" areas. If you have traveled in Europe, you know what I mean. For example, Switzerland, a beautiful country, but one that long ago lost any vestige of wilderness. I spent two weeks hiking in the Alps several years back, and I loved every minute of the trip. However, I certainly never felt far away from civilization. In fact, with the manicured hiking trails, neat little resting places, and the void of wildlife, I might as well have been hiking in New York’s Central Park. If we don’t create and preserve wilderness areas in this country, then we will see our natural state as only a shadow of our past. Are we destined to be like Southern California, so overcrowded and overdeveloped that it's not fit for man nor dog to live in? Have you noticed the recent exodus from California? I have written several times about our quality of life, which I believe is linked very closely to our natural surroundings. Chief Seattle has been credited with saying "Man is only a strand in the web of life. What he does to the web, he does to himself.” As an example, let’s consider our native quail. When I was a boy, it was nothing out of the ordinary to kick up a covey of twenty or thirty quail. Now, although quail are not extinct, they might as well be. Starting right after the Civil War, a concentrated effort was made to eliminate virtually every large predator. Our grandfathers and their fathers were amazing successful, and by the 1950s the wolves, cougars, and most of the bears were gone, and after they were gone our quail slowly disappeared. The predators who ate the raccoons, possums, rats, and armadillos are gone, and those quail egg eating animals have multiplied and virtually eliminated the quail in our state. Our balance of life has been altered, and the quail are only one of the casualties. So if you want to bring back the quail re-establish the balance of nature and yes, bring back the red wolf, the cougar, and make the black bear common again. When we see a polluted lake or a drained, lifeless wetland, surely we understand a part of our quality of life has been taken away. The loss of wilderness and corresponding loss of species in our country has diminished our quality of life, and one day we will realize, how vital wilderness is to life. When a national consensus emerges, our country will set its mind to creating new wilderness areas. It may be our grandchildren or their children, but one day one of them will symbolically turn the first shovel of dirt to cut an east Arkansas levee on the Mississippi and create a one million acre wilderness. I hope it’s one of my grandchildren.