Since the name of this pop-up is “Natural Conversation”, I say we keep the conversation going because I have a few other thoughts I want to add to the topic of nature and its accessibility.
The issue of how to deal with the overcrowding of natural places is one that is all too familiar. I’m lucky enough to live in a corner of the country that is quite beautiful—at least according to my taste—but is also, and you’ll excuse my language, in the middle of fucking nowhere. But while here I can merrily go walk the woods without encountering a single soul (I see more deer than humans), that is not true if you leave my corner of the country and venture just a few hours west, up on the Alps.
Things are getting so out of hand that residents and land owners are protesting by putting up turnstiles on the trails. The idea itself is rather stupid since you can just walk around it, and it’s meant to be a protest on what’s happening in some of the shockingly gorgeous locations we have here, but it also raises some important questions about how to deal with this issue.
And it’s not just about the trash that is inevitably left behind by people who have no sense of decency (I’m a big proponent of bringing back corporal punishment for this type of stuff btw, but I want it to be creative: if you behave like an animal with no sense of decorum your punishment should be to go around walking on all four and picking up litter with your mouth) it’s also about the ramifications of making all these places inaccessible, for all intents and purposes, to the people who love them and respect them.
The issue with certain natural contexts is that there’s an asymmetry: you only need one dickhead who goes around the mountains yelling and screaming to ruin the peace and silence for everybody else. And that is unfortunate.
But what should we do? I hear Cody’s argument about making parks more expensive. It’s something that has been proposed to “solve” the overtourism issue that is plaguing Venice. But the risk is to make natural beauty only accessible to the people who can afford it, and that is something that shouldn’t happen.
It’s an unfortunate complex societal problem that I suspect will not get solved anytime soon, and it’s part of a broader set of issues that are facing society, issues that are worsening over time, unfortunately. Issues that are exacerbated by technology and social media, and by an incentive structure that does nothing to reward good behaviours.
All this is symptomatic of another issue I have noticed (and maybe I have written about already), which is the lack of accountability. The governments, at all levels, who should be responsible for making sure these issues are addressed, more often than not do nothing, and they face no consequences. The people who trash these places face no consequences. Nobody seems to be held accountable for anything anymore, and the people who care are left standing there, trying to clean up the mess. That can’t be the path forward, and this is true for the nature around us, but also society at large.
I don’t really have a good picture to share that’s related to anything I just wrote about, so I’m gonna leave you with one that is the representation of what nature should be and still can be, if we get our shit together.
— M
