Deciding not to destroy the world

Foreman

Washington

 

 

Advocacy for wilderness is a losing game if there are no checks on the growth of human population and its consumption of the planet. This was readily acknowledged by Dave Foreman and Haydn Washington, who trod a brave path in combining their advocacy of wilderness with that hard message. Their loss last year must not be a setback in countering the denial that characterises human overpopulation

Wilderness lost two great friends last year in Dave Foreman from America and Haydn Washington from Australia. I knew neither other than what is in the public domain. Sad as it was, the death of Foreman had less emotional pull on me than that of Washington. Foreman had not been well even before the recent death of Nancy, his wife (1,2). The death of Washington was more of a shock since I had mistakenly believed him to be a much younger man than he was. The weight of publication from Washington over his last few years compared to Foreman certainly encouraged me to think so. While Foreman’s legacy is guaranteed by his notoriety, but also the significant achievements he had in sparking a modern conservation movement, he and Washington are bound by their advocacy for wilderness, and for what they saw as its greatest threat.

Wilderness has a right to exist for its own sake

I can’t hope to do justice to the contours of Foreman’s life across the full range of his impact. I’ve written before of the role of Foreman and others in The Wildlands Project played in evolving wilderness recovery and conservation biology into rewilding between 1991 and 2004 (3) but have yet to see what was formative for him before that period. Foreman dabbled in Republican politics in high school and junior college; graduated in History at the University of New Mexico; was entirely unsuited to a short-lived enrolment in the Marine Corps; worked then as a teacher and farrier in New Mexico before joining the Wilderness Society in 1973 as its Southwest regional representative. (2,4,5). Latterly he was a congressional lobbyist in Washington as the Director of Wilderness Affairs for the Society. He saw there how conservation organisations compromised and capitulated in their defence of wilderness in the face of a Forest Service recommendation that most of the unprotected roadless wildlands in the National Forests under its jurisdiction (RAREII areas) be opened to road building, logging, and mining when they could be protected by designation as new wilderness (6,7).

Foreman left Washington, and then left the Wilderness Society in 1980 having set up Earth First! with like-minded friends, a new organisation that would be militant in protecting wilderness. In a memo to its founders, Foreman drafted a statement of principles for Earth First! in which the first was "Wilderness has a right to exist for its own sake" (8,9). Other principles squarely put the interests of wild nature at the forefront of human consideration. The organisations name also became that of its journal, the first two editions confirming a wilderness-centric aim. The first had this (10):
"Not only does EARTH FIRST support wilderness designation for all Forest Service RARE II areas and BLM roadless areas, we also believe that in order to preserve the ecological integrity of our country, it is time to recreate wilderness: identify key areas, close roads, remove developments, and reintroduce extirpated wildlife"

Foreman wrote in an editorial in the second (11):
"If you believe in wilderness, if you love the Earth, if you are appalled at what humankind is doing to the biosphere, then don’t be timid. Speak out. Act with vigor and pride in your convictions! It’s time for us to fight!"

The ineffectiveness of environmental groups, which would not go beyond their “middle ground positions”, was Foreman’s justification in calling for an Environmental Strategy for the Eighties in an article for Earth First! written in 1982 (12). He wanted conservative establishment groups like Audubon and The Nature Conservancy to “edge a step or two over to greater militancy” and the Sierra Club and Wilderness Society to “play rougher within the system” to restrain big, exploitative businesses like oil giants. He urged regional and local wilderness coalitions to be assertive in asking for more wilderness from the Federal agencies that had responsibility for public lands – “These local groups should even begin to suggest that roads be closed and lands rehabilitated to recreate larger wilderness units. For Earth First! and its cooperating local and state groups, there should be a call for the creation of vast wilderness preserves, pioneering a revolution in our house-keeping habits on the planet, questioning the very philosophical tenets of Western Civilization, and engaging in non-violent direct action to stop the industrial beast whenever necessary”

The following year, Foreman with Howie Wolke and Bart Koehler presented a draft plan for the Earth First! Wilderness Preserve System, a mapping of 47 potential large wilderness areas re-created across America where significant population centres, agricultural and industrial zones, large important highways, railroads, and powerlines would be excluded, and where extirpated species would be reinstated (13).

The non-violent direct action that Foreman advocated (see above) was the disruptive ecotage (sabotage carried out for ecological reasons) such as tree sitting, tree spiking, road blockades, and taking over Federal buildings, coupled with drafting proposals and presenting them to Congress, performing media stunts, letter writing, taking legal action against lawbreaking industries, ranchers, and government agencies, and educational programs, that mark out the activism of Earth First! members (6) and which was described as the “ecological resistance embodiment of Deep Ecology” (14). I don’t intend to dwell on the controversy of this approach other than to reflect that its energy and high profile is considered to have accomplished much of what it initially set out to do. It relied on Foreman being a passionate and motivating orator – “Dave had the style of a preacher, and his religion was biocentrism, his church the wild outdoors” (15).

That skill in communication after a decade with Earth First! had Foreman facing a public debate organised by The Learning Alliance in 1989 with Murray Bookchin, a prominent anarchist who had accused Earth First! of being influenced by misanthropic and racist elements of Deep Ecology (16). Bookchin had previously denounced Deep Ecology as a "black hole of half-digested, ill-formed, and half-baked ideas" and an "ideological toxic dump" (17). Foreman met many of the criticisms, but it is what he said about wilderness that is thought-provoking. He was asked why he didn’t “try to work within the system more”, rather than consider “society was rotten to the core” (16):
“Human society has stepped beyond the bounds; we are destroying the very processes of life. Wilderness is more than puny little backpacking parks in areas with little or no development potential. Wilderness areas are the arena for natural evolution, and must be large enough so natural forces can have free rein. There must be vast areas in every bioregion that are off-limits to human habitation and economic activity. These areas must simply be left alone to carry on the important work of spontaneous natural evolution”

Foreman carried over his wilderness advocacy when he left Earth First! in 1990 and set up Wild Earth, a new environmental journal, and The Wildlands Project (3). The theme of the first issue of Wild Earth in 1991 was Ecological Foundations for Big Wilderness. Foreman saw it as the imbalance between the areas of wild nature protected in America compared to the increasing area of land under concrete or turned into roads (18). The danger was that the designated Wilderness Areas and National Parks could not survive as effective sanctuaries if they remained island ecosystems, that habitat islands in a sea of development would lose the key species that require larger territories to maintain sustainable breeding populations. Foreman believed this showed a need to massively increase the area of designated wilderness, identifying significantly large areas on both sides of the Rocky Mountains. Moreover, he noted that “wilderness proponents needed to learn from conservation biologists, who in turn needed to see grassroots conservation activists as their natural allies and the management of public lands as a vital opportunity”

Wildernesses are real places with real problems that need protection to survive

While Foreman has been around with me since 2003 when I first found The Wildlands Project (19) I was not aware of Washington until 2019 when I came across his doctoral thesis from 2006 entitled The Wilderness Knot (20) and then saw it cited in a spat over redefinition of wilderness in Tasmania (21). Washington had observed that the meaning of the word wilderness had changed over the decades, coming under sustained attack on philosophical, cultural, political and justice grounds (20). He feared that there was a loss of interest in wilderness and the will to value it. His thesis investigated the confusion and tangled meanings around wilderness that had tied it in a “knot”. Haydn used participatory action research as a means to reduce the confusion by entering into dialogue with supporters, critics and community members interested in wilderness issues, as well as a small group keeping wilderness journals based on their walks in the Wollemi (Colo) Wilderness in the Blue Mountains, the largest gazetted wilderness area (362,320ha) in the state of New South Wales (NSW)(22). It was in this wilderness that an ancient, living Wollemi pine was discovered in 1994, in a hidden rainforest gorge – it had only been known from fossil records before this find (23).

Washington concluded that wilderness was caught up in a web of meaning and miscommunication, of cultural perception, of intense passions around justice, of what is philosophically in vogue, of passionate debate about whether humans (or culture) are part of nature, of very different worldviews - and of intolerance and fanaticism about all of these (20). However, he felt the word still had currency. As well as encouraging meaningful dialogue to reduce the confusion, he argued for greater rigour in identifying which meaning of wilderness was actually being referred to. Usefully, he turned his research findings into a website that debunked 21 myths about wilderness by responding with “truths” (24). For example, in answer to the third myth, that wilderness is a state of mind, a concept, not a place, Washington responds that “large natural areas (the IUCN definition of wilderness) do exist. Wildernesses are real places with real problems that need protection to survive” (25).

It was Washington’s hope that all those interested in wilderness would take note and engage with these truths and seek to de-mystify wilderness so that these areas would remain into the future. Washington would write the next year – “Many of the criticisms of wild Nature thus seem to spring from an anthropocentric world view. The 'instinctive ecological compassion' to defend the existence rights of wilderness (in precedence over human-use rights) has challenged possibly the most fundamental tenet of modern western civilization. This is 'the belief that moral standing is strictly a human quality', and that humans can behave as they wish towards the non-human world (Hay 2002)” (26)

The tenacity with which Washington defended wilderness in NSW can be seen in the comment he left on an article in The Conversation in 2016 that sought to “go beyond wilderness in nature conservation” by arguing that “instead of clinging to an old-fashioned view of wilderness, we should recognise that areas used intensively by humans can support significant biodiversity” (27). Washington said the article was worrying as it demonstrated a poor understanding of wilderness and of conservation ecology – “Of course we have to do other things to protect our threatened biodiversity, but bagging wilderness is one of the silliest arguments around in terms of conservation ecology. Keeping wilderness is a no brainer, and re-imagining a world without wilderness will lead to a more depauperate world, to our great loss, and that of future generations”

Formative experiences for Washington were rambling through the valley of Scotts Creek near Willoughby in Sydney as a boy, and then bush walking with friends as a teenager (28,29). He felt a “sense of wonder” at wild nature. His thesis explained that at 18, in 1974, he first walked for five days down the Colo River through the heart of the Wollemi wilderness and “fell overwhelmingly in love” (20). It was a life changing experiencing that set him on a course of being a wilderness advocate. Shortly afterwards he became the Secretary of The Colo Committee, and spent the next five years campaigning successfully to create Wollemi National Park in 1979. It was due to that “close communion with nature” that at the same time, he was studying ecology at Macquarie University in Sydney. He then went to work at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) a national science agency, investigating heavy metal pollution of Australian rivers, and on which he did a master’s degree.

Washington left CSIRO and worked for the Wilderness Society (Australia) lobbying for the creation of the NSW Wilderness Act, 1987 (30). He travelled in Latin America for a year, taught high school and worked as an environmental consultant before working as Director of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW on the NSW rainforest campaign, South West Tasmania (Franklin River) campaign and later the Daintree/Wet Tropics campaign in Queensland (20,28). During all that time, Washington was “walking in the Colo wilderness, botanising, listening to it, learning from it, and identifying with it” but he became puzzled by the criticisms of the word wilderness and concerned about the impact that criticism would have on “retaining the physical reality of large, natural areas such as Wollemi”. It was for this reason that he returned in his late 40s to university to become “a wilderness scholar, someone who sought to understand why (and what could be done about it), rather than simply campaign”. In my ignorance, my foolish assumption had been that Washington had carried out his doctoral studies in his 20s as most do. My upset at Washington’s death was made worse because I had supposed he was much younger.

I consider the issue of population to be an absolute litmus test for Earth

As well as having wilderness advocacy in common, Foreman and Washington were both conspicuous authors (31,32). They also shared a demeanour that had Foreman self-proclaimed as “old sorehead” (2) and characterised as a “crusty SOB” (33) with Washington “an abrasive personality which bordered on rudeness, if not intolerance. Especially in the later years, his reputation as a grumpy man, uncompromising in his opinions and stubborn as hell, alienated and offended some colleagues. He said things without diplomacy, without (to use one of his own favourite words) waffle” all of which was probably born out of frustration in Washington that others did not share his clarity of view (34). Foreman was avowedly childless (35). I am not aware that Washington had children. Deliberate or otherwise, it would fit with the principled stand that both Foreman and Washington took on overpopulation.

Foreman was often accused of favouring wild nature over people, of being a racist, an ecofascist, and an eco-brutalist due to his indifference to famine in Africa and his advocacy of immigration limits in the name of population control (17,36-38). Unfortunately, a series of ill-judged assertions made in Earth First! had used shock value to drive home a message about how out of balance humans were on the planet and which gave ample opportunity for this censure within and without Earth First! (39). It was certainly leveraged by Bookchin (see above). In response, Foreman sought to reassert in Earth First! the priorities of biocentrism and of putting the Earth first through human population stabilization and reduction, as well as a focus on wilderness – “I consider the issue of population to be an absolute litmus test for Earth. It is so fundamental to the preservation of wilderness, to the practice of biocentrism, that a refusal to recognize the need to lower human population over the long run clearly defines one as a humanist and places them outside the bounds of Earth First! I feel so strongly about this point as an indicator of whether someone is anthropocentric or biocentric, about whether their loyalty is to Earth or to humankind, that I would rather see the Earth First! movement split asunder than to lallygag about it” (40). He appealed to the detractors – “You may disagree with an essay in The Earth First! Journal criticizing the notion of the noble savage or one praising disease, but you accept their subjects as legitimate areas of inquiry and discussion. It is, I think, tolerance for the above points, not necessarily 100% agreement with them, that marks the boundaries of Earth First!”. He made the commitment that if his views were out of the mainstream of Earth First! he would move on.

Move on he did when, as I have written elsewhere (3) Foreman and others concerned at the dilution of that biocentric vision broke away from Earth First! and established Wild Earth. While I focussed on wildland networks in my reading of Wild Earth, overpopulation is routinely addressed in many of its articles as a cause of loss of wild nature. Overpopulation was the theme of the Winter issue 1997/98 where it explored population driven threats to wildlife in both marine and terrestrial ecosystems (41). The editorial noted that Wild Earth was unusual in its ongoing coverage of the problems associated with human overpopulation since, outside of periodicals specifically devoted to the topic, there had been virtual silence on population issues in the broader conservation/environmental press. Some of the reasons for this timidity among environmentalists were covered in the articles, such as Foreman’s Progressive Cornucopianism, the editorial observing that there was probably no other contemporary issue that aroused such passionate and vitriolic rhetoric – “So why should WE shake this hornet's nest? Because, as lovers of wilderness and wildlife, we are PRO-LIFE—and from the genetic to the landscape level of organization, life on Earth is imperilled”

Foreman’s contribution to the overpopulation issue in Wild Earth, and a follow up article a few years later (42) were retold in his book Man Swarm and the Killing of Wildlife in 2011 (35). In a sweeping polemic, Foreman laid out what he saw as the overpopulation crisis in the United States and worldwide, claiming it was the main driver of the extinction of wildlife and wildlands, as well as the creation of greenhouse gases. The book doesn’t lack for data and constructive development of his points. He challenged those who didn’t believe that overpopulation is real. Less successfully, his rhetoric on capping immigration into America overshadows the under-written solutions he offers for wider action in the final chapter. You can find both sympathetic (43) and antagonistic reviews (44) of the book. I read the second edition, essentially the same book, and valued its recognition of carrying capacity and Net Primary Production since human footprint as a measure is meaningless without also considering the consequence for non-human species and their needs. While in a preceding chapter on the blindness in recognition of overpopulation, Foreman presages the digression that binary arguments over economic growth have for the plight of non-humans with this from Eileen Crist (45):
“The core issue is not the quandary of real-world limits but what kind of real world we desire to live in….. It is critical to focus on what is presently dead certain: that overproduction and overpopulation have been driving the dismantling of complex ecosystems and native life, and leaving in their widening wake constructed environments, simplified ecologies, and lost life forms”

Overpopulation and overconsumption

Dr Jane O'Sullivan worked with Washington in the months before his death to get his paper with Helen Kopnina on population denial published (46). In tribute, O'Sullivan wrote that Washington “was a passionate writer and speaker on sustainability, degrowth, the need for population stabilisation and denialism against both climate and population realities” (47). The paper topped a prolific period of publication for Washington with co-author Kopnina, starting in 2016 when they explored some of the ethical presumptions linking population growth and sustainability, arguing that de-linking demographic factors from sustainability ignored the ecological limits of the Earth – “Population is not the only key problem humanity faces, and we have here only touched on its terrible twin – overconsumption. However, the two are entwined and must be solved concurrently. However, while much of society and academia continue to ignore the key driver of overpopulation, we believe any chance of reaching an ecologically sustainable future is vanishingly small” (48).

The first article by Washington and Kopnina (with others) that I came across was in the journal The Ecological Citizen. It examined the roots of ecocentrism, believing it to be an essential solution to environmental crisis (49). It took me to the Statement of Commitment to Ecocentrism, also written by Haydn, Kopnina and others (50) and which I signed up to (21). Continuing with ecocentrism, a few years later Washington, Kopnina with others had published an article that pointed out that despite decades of scientists documenting negative anthropogenic environmental change, no effective political action had been taken, which was likely due to the anthropocentric ethical premisses deployed in the cause of conservation (51). The authors contended that arguments for biodiversity conservation should be based on ecocentric values, and not just on human interests. It was a conviction that species and ecosystems have value and interests that should be respected regardless of whether they serve human needs and aspirations. As explained by Washington, Kopnina with others, this intrinsic value of wild nature is poorly served by the anthropocentric bias that shapes decision making so that social justice dominates over ecological justice (52). They proposed a framework for implementing ecojustice by conservation practitioners intended to address a strong hierarchisation between human life and nonhuman life. In addition, they urged academia to foreground ecojustice – “Any meaningful long-term conservation strategy must overturn the ‘code of silence’ about ecojustice”

Two papers followed. One responded to criticisms of Nature Needs Half by arguing that alongside expanding nature protection, economic life needed to be downsized and retooled, global population should be humanely and gradually reduced, and food systems transformed – “Downscaling the human enterprise will facilitate large-scale conservation by lessening human demands on nature and reducing waste output. The combined effort to protect nature and downsize humanity's activities and numbers will benefit humans and non-humans alike by freeing geographical space and livelihood sources for ‘all species” (53). The other paper argued that anthropocentric domination could rightly be called hubris (excessive pride or self-confidence) as it removed almost all moral standing from the nonhuman world, seeing it purely as a resource (54). They identified a highly troubling trend in those who argue that conservation should primarily be for people, such as in the provision of ecosystem services, and fear that idea of nonhuman intrinsic value will likely become extinct if this approach continues to subsume conservation practice and policy. The authors concluded that anthropocentrism was fuelling the environmental crisis and accelerating extinction, and urged academia to speak out instead for ecocentrism.

I signed up to the World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: 2nd Notice 2017 (55) and World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency 2021 (56) because amongst other things, both pointed to need for stabilising and gradually reducing human population through supporting family planning, as well as education and rights for girls and young women. Both Warnings attracted criticism as being from a select grouping in society, but it was felt that it was the moral responsibility of scientists to warn on what they saw, as it should be from all sectors. The Alliance of World Scientists knew there would be high denial about overpopulation, and so a series of follow-up papers were planned. One such was from Washington, Kopnina and Lowe who questioned why there was widespread denial about evidence that humans were living unsustainably, the drivers being overpopulation, overconsumption and the endless growth economy (57). The claim that discussing overpopulation was anti-human was refuted by these authors. For them, overpopulation and overconsumption were entwined, and must be solved concurrently. They then considered nine non-coercive strategies that they believed actually worked, to reach an ecologically-sustainable human population.

That final paper of Washington with Kopnina was a review in a Special Issue of the journal world  - Population Change and Its Impact on the Environment, Society and Economy (46). The introduction to the Special Issue has this – “A world with eight billion humans is an unprecedented global phenomenon with profound implications for environmental stability, biodiversity, human societies, and political economies. Yet, the nature and extent of these implications is highly contentious, both in public debate and the scientific literature. Even more contentious is the question of what, if anything, should be done in response. The false assumption that interventions are inherently antagonistic rather than synergistic for enhancing the reproductive health and rights of women has rendered the topic almost taboo in the ecological and development literature” (58). The editors sought perspectives from a range of disciplines and geographic zones on the interactions between environmental, social, and economic impacts of population change. Washington and Kopnina’s paper was the first submitted for this Special Issue, and provided a review of the environmental science of population growth (46). It discussed issues that block dialogue, such as growthism, anthropocentrism, denial, religious and cultural taboos, fear of being called a racist, the issue of rights claims, seeking political power through numbers, the framing of social justice issues, and sophistical claims regarding racism. They explored ways forward to gain dialogue, and also considered success stories. They concluded that addressing the broader implications of population size and growth remained a difficult exercise that urgently needed greater dialogue rather than denial – “The starting point for such a dialogue should be that population, as a driver of environmental crises, must be no longer ignored, denied or stigmatized (just as overconsumption and the growth economy cannot be ignored)

World population has trebled since 1953

World population has trebled over the seven decades of my life (59). You can estimate that it took way over ~12,000 years to reach one billion people by the beginning of the 1800s (60). However, it rose to two billion in just over one hundred years later, around ~1924, an astonishing growth rate that has continued to accelerate since it then took a similar length of time to quadruple population to 8 billion. This is the only evidence I offer that has any chance of being undeniable. If you believe that this population growth has no consequence, then there is nothing else I can say. However, I don’t have children, but I look after those of others. I fear for the future of wild nature. I also fear for those children, and the children of the future, that they will have a world with a diminished and wholly depauperate wild nature – they will never be able to experience the biophysical reality of wilderness that I have. It will be the final vanquishing of the spirit of wild nature by a species that is so exceptional that it has squandered the one trait of that exceptionalism that gives us the ability to decide not to destroy the world.

Mark Fisher 6 February 2023

(1) Thank Goodness Nancy Was Here! Celebrating Nancy Morton, 1952-2021. Susan Morgan and John Davis on behalf of the Rewilding team. Rewilding Institute January 21, 2021

https://rewilding.org/thank-goodness-nancy-was-here/

(2) NumbersUSA bids farewell to friend and fearless wilderness warrior Dave Foreman (1946-2022) Leon Kolankiewicz, NumbersUSA 18 November 2022

https://www.numbersusa.com/blog/numbersusa-bids-farewell-friend-and-fearless-wilderness-warrior-dave-foreman-1946-2022

(3) Fisher, M. (2020) NATURAL SCIENCE AND SPATIAL APPROACH OF REWILDING - Evolution in meaning of rewilding in Wild Earth and The Wildlands Project. Self-willed Land March 2020

http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/rep_res/REWILDING_WILDEARTH_WILDLANDS_PROJECT.pdf 

(4) Dave Foreman. PROTECTOR OR PROVOCATEUR? Sports Illustrated MAY 27, 1991

https://vault.si.com/vault/1991/05/27/protector-or-provocateur-dave-foreman-cofounder-of-the-radical-group-earth-first-faces-trial-for-conspiracy-also-at-issue-to-what-extremes-may-environmentalists-protests-go

 (5) David Foreman, Hard-Line Environmentalist, Dies at 75, David Foreman, Hard-Line Environmentalist, Dies at 75, Clay Risen, New York Times Sept. 28, 2022

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/28/us/david-foreman-dead.html

(6) Foreman Founds Earth First! Summary. WikiSummaries, Last updated on November 10, 2022

https://wikisummaries.org/foreman-founds-earth-first/

(7) Howie Wolke (2006) Earth First! A Founder's Story. The Anarchist Library 6 April 2006

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/howie-wolke-earth-first-a-founder-s-storyClay Risen, New York Times Sept. 28, 2022

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/28/us/david-foreman-dead.html

(8) “Earth First Statement of Principles and Membership Brochure” (memo)(September 1980) Environment & Society Portal

https://www.environmentandsociety.org/mml/earth-first-statement-principles-and-membership-brochure-memo

(9) Dave Foreman, 1947 – 2022. Earth First!

https://earthfirstjournal.news/2022/09/27/dave-foreman-1947-2022/

(10) Earth First! 1(1)(November 1) 1

https://www.environmentandsociety.org/sites/default/files/key_docs/ef_1_1_1.pd

(11) Editorial, Dave Foreman. Earth First! 1(2)(December 21) 5

https://www.environmentandsociety.org/sites/default/files/key_docs/ef_1_2_1.pdf

(12) Foreman, D. (1982) An environmental strategy for the 80s. Earth First! 2(8)(September 21) 7

https://www.environmentandsociety.org/sites/default/files/key_docs/ef_2_8_sm_0.pdf

(13) Dave Foreman, Howie Wolke and Bart Koehler (1983) WILDERNESS PRESERVE SYSTEM. Earth First! 3(5)(21 June) 9-11

https://www.environmentandsociety.org/sites/default/files/key_docs/ef_3_5_1.pdf

(14) Noss, R. (1983) A Taoist Reply (on Violence), Earth First! 3(7)(September 23) 13

https://www.environmentandsociety.org/sites/default/files/key_docs/ef_3_7_1.pdf

(15) Dave Foreman’s Legacy, Karen Pickett, Remembering Dave Foreman, 1946–2022, Trees Foundation November 15, 2022

https://treesfoundation.org/2022/11/remembering-dave-foreman-1946-2022

(16) Murray Bookchin and Dave Foreman (1989) Defending the Earth: A Debate

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-and-dave-foreman-defending-the-earth-a-debate

(17) Murray Bookchin (1987) Social Ecology versus Deep Ecology: A Challenge for the Ecology Movement. Anarchy Archives

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/socecovdeepeco.html

(18) Foreman, D. (1991) Dreaming Big Wilderness. Wild Earth 1(1)(Spring 1991) 10-13

http://www.environmentandsociety.org/mml/wild-earth-1-no-1

(19) Fisher, M. (2003) Self-willed land - the rewilding of open spaces in the UK

http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/rep_res/SELF.pdf

(20) Washington, H.G. (2006) The Wilderness Knot. Thesis submitted for Doctor of Philosophy, University of Western Sydney

https://researchdirect.westernsydney.edu.au/islandora/object/uws%3A44/datastream/PDF/download/citation.pdf

(21) How much does wild nature mean to you? Self-willed land January 2020

www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/ecocentric.htm

(22) Wollemi Wilderness, Haydn Washington with Ian Brown, Blue Mountains nature

https://bmnature.info/conservation-wilderness-wollemi.shtml#:~:text=The%20Wollemi%20Wilderness%20lies%20between,edge%20of%20the%20Sydney%20Basin.

(23) How the Wollemi Pine was found, the Wollemi Pine

https://www.wollemipine.com/resources/HowtheWollemiPinewasFound.pdf

(24) Wilderness Truths – Debunking Wilderness Myths

https://www.wildernesstruths.org.au/

(25) Myth 3: Wilderness is a state of mind, a concept, not a place, Wilderness truths

https://www.wildernesstruths.org.au/myths/myth-3-wilderness-state-mind-concept-not-place

(26) Washington, H. (2012) Human dependence on nature: How to help solve the environmental crisis. Taylor Francis

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Human_Dependence_on_Nature/y97_7SmhunMC?hl=en&gbpv=0

(27) Washington, H (2016) Comment on "Reimagining NSW: going beyond ‘wilderness’ and finding fresh ways to relate to our environment",  Scherrer, P and others, The Conversation August 2, 2016

https://theconversation.com/reimagining-nsw-going-beyond-wilderness-and-finding-fresh-ways-to-relate-to-our-environment-62978#comment_1046218

(28) Haydn Washington, Blue Mountains nature

https://bmnature.info/conservation-people-haydn-washington.shtml

(29) Washington H (2017) How I came to ecocentrism: A sense of wonder. The Ecological Citizen 1(Suppl A): 7–9

https://www.ecologicalcitizen.net/pdfs/v01sa-02.pdf

(30) Wilderness Act 1987 No 196, NSW Legislation

https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/whole/html/inforce/current/act-1987-196

(31) Books By Dave Foreman, Amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B000APEUQA?_encoding=UTF8&node=266239&offset=0&pageSize=12&searchAlias=stripbooks&sort=author-sidecar-rank&page=1&langFilter=default#formatSelectorHeader

(32) Books By Haydn Washington, Amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Haydn-Washington/e/B07FSYPBJV%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

(33) Karen Pickett (2022) Dave Foreman’s Legacy, Remembering Dave Foreman, 1946–2022. Trees Foundation November 15, 2022

https://treesfoundation.org/2022/11/remembering-dave-foreman-1946-2022/

(34) Kopnina, H. (2023) A life of deep connection: A tribute to Haydn Washington (1955–2022). The Ecological Citizen 6(2): epub-087.

https://www.ecologicalcitizen.net/pdfs/epub-087.pdf

(35) Foreman, D. (2011) Man Swarm and the Killing of Wildlife, Ravens Eye Press LLC, Durango, CO

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Swarm-Killing-Wildlife-Dave-Foreman/dp/0981658474

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url:www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/wild_pop.htm

www.self-willed-land.org.uk  mark.fisher@self-willed-land.org.uk

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