I recently came across this article calling for the end of rock stacking (or cairns) in the wilderness. The argument has been bouncing around my head for quite some time, but it took me some days to determine why a) I disagree and b) why I can't get it out of my head without discussing it.
The author views these cairns as intrusions in the wilderness - reminders that other humans have been here before, and likens them to graffiti. As reasons against stacking them, she points out that moving stones hastens erosion, disturbs native plants, and destroys potential homes for insects and burrowing mammals. Her main argument (and the one that I believe annoyed her to the point where her wrote this) rests on the fact that a cairn is an "unwelcome reminder of humanity" that degrades an "already beautiful landscape." This thought comes from the attractive self-delusion that we have somehow not already profoundly altered the landscape, and this is a dangerous type of environmentalism.
Untouched wildernesses do not exist in North America; I will change my opinion on this when I see a woolly mammoth or a ground sloth. The introduction of the Clovis culture to the Americas abruptly ended an age filled with megafauna. If photographing one of those was on your wilderness checklist, it was not the cairns that interfered, but human activity (on the plus side, I'm glad I no longer have to worry about sabertooth tigers sneaking up on me while I'm focused stacking rocks in the wilderness). Nowhere on the surface of the earth is unaffected by humans. Central Greenland is losing ice faster than ever before; mountaineers in the Himalayas report changing conditions over the past decades, with more rocks visible and more frequent avalanches. The Amazon Rainforest is shrinking faster than monkeys can shake their tales. Unless the author is carbon neutral (I'd even accept her buying carbon offset credits), she, too, leaves a little human footprint tracking around the globe.
That is all secondary to the core of my disagreement with this ethos. This article posits a false dichotomy between the "wilderness" and "man-made environments." Nature is not something that is outside; we are inside nature, and then we make little boxes in nature that we go into to hide from nature. Sometimes we pile a bunch of boxes on top of each other, and connect them so carefully that we can temporarily forget about nature. We invert the natural order and call nature the "outdoors" and whatever we created our "natural environment" (I'm a "city boy," for example). Should our boxes of security be "invaded" by nature (I just had a fire ant visit my pen-holder), there are always exterminators to call.
Fetishizing untouched wilderness is dangerous. It doesn't exist, and any attempts to create it foster an unhealthy dichotomy between ourselves and nature. Humans, our cave paintings, our rock piles, our cities, and our greenhouse gases all exist within nature. It is far too late to try to keep the humans in their human boxes and the nature everywhere else.
Don't knock over stacks of stones. Instead, allow nature back into your human boxes. Go birdwatching. Build a bat-house. Grow plants on your windowsills. Try growing oyster mushrooms on your compost. Learn about the trees in your neighborhood and what their vital signs are. If you want to feel connected to the sublime, I suggest starting in your own backyard.
