Wilderness is land that humans neither inhabit nor cultivate. Through the ages of western culture, as the human relation to land has changed, the meaning and perception of wilderness also has changed. At first, wilderness was to be either conquered or shunned. At times, it was the place for contrition or banishment, as in the biblical account of the Israelites condemned to wander 40 years in the wilderness. To European settlers of North America, wilderness was the untamed land entered only by the adventurous or perhaps the foolhardy. But the wilderness also held riches, making it new land to be exploited, tamed, and ultimately managed. Few saw wilderness as having value in its own right.

The idea of wilderness as land deserving of protection and preservation for its own sake is largely a product of late nineteenth and twentieth century North American thought. Rapidly expanding cultivation and industry not...