SAVE DONNER SUMMIT

Last Child in the Woods vs. Foster/Syme

Destroying the Village In Order to Save It

Many of us remember it well. At the beginning of the first Royal Gorge presentation in March, Todd Foster held up a book and declared it provided the philosophical justification for his development. The book made it clear, he said, that the children of the nation are being deprived of nature, and he and his partner Kirk Syme had a solution. So central was this book to their world view, it was asserted, that everyone on their staff was required to read it.

The book is "Last Child in the Woods" by Richard Louv. And before I address the absurdity of Mr. Foster's contention, I need to stress that at least a portion of his remarks were accurate: this is, indeed, an important book. Marshaling an impressive array of evidence, Louv demonstrates that sustained exposure to nature is beneficial to both the mental and physical health of children. But children today are characterized by an estrangement from nature unlike any other time in history. This is due to many reasons, some of which stem from the easily-observable effects of our technological culture, including video games and an increasingly sophisticated media.

Other reasons, however, arise from our culture of fear. In the past, working and playing outdoors was an integral part of life. Many of the older residents of the lakes (myself included) remember a childhood in which we could roam freely in the wild margins of our neighborhoods. Our parents thought nothing of shoving us out the door in the morning because beyond the still primitive television there was little to do inside the house. We discovered the hidden wonders of vacant lots and local woodlands, and engaged in creative, free-form play. Many parents today, Louv contends, are reluctant to let their children roam. Whether because of the parental desire to reduce risk in the face of relentless media attention to child abductions, or merely from a desire to control every aspect of a child's life, children today must cope with increasing demands and restrictions that rob them of play time, especially in nature.

When Richard Louv speaks of "nature", he means not just the wild nature that is usually associated with wilderness. For Louv, nature also includes anyplace where natural forces are untended, places he labels "unofficial countryside." These would not only encompass urban greenbelts and parks, but also vacant lots and even a drainage ditch. The important thing is to allow children to play in them. He points out that many highly-urbanized cities in Europe have more open space for play than most American suburbs. Scandinavia, especially, is noted for creating natural play space within cities. In this context, if Foster/Syme were truly concerned about the juxtaposition of high-density development and open space, they could have just as easily accomplished this in an urban setting. In a personal communication, Louv wrote: "I realize exurban development is going to continue, whether I like it or not, and I would rather it be the kind that exposes kids to nature, rather than more of the same. Still, I would urge all of us to find ways to redirect as much of this into the existing urban regions that will need redevelopment." Nature can, indeed, be preserved or restored anywhere, even in the inner cities, where it would certainly be of more value to the very children who need it most.

But of course, land in cities is very expensive, and the greatest return on investment can now be realized in buying relatively inexpensive rural land (especially if it is highly scenic) and covering it with expensive second homes, a phenomenon that is occuring all over the American West. And an even greater return is realized from condos and timeshares, as Hal Clifford in "Downhill Slide" so amply demonstrates.

Nowhere in "Last Child" does Richard Louv advocate the conversion of wild land into resort communities as a means of attaining the goal of getting children back to nature. One could even conclude that Louv implicitly denies this use by its omission. Instead, Louv emphasizes the conversion of former working landscapes -- the abandoned farms of the Great Plains and the Northeast are his two primary examples -- into new "green towns" with ample untended spaces. He dwells at length on the vision of Wes Jackson of the Land Institute in Kansas, who advocates the redistribution of people to ecologically sustainable working landscapes. However utopian this may sound, it certainly does not include the building of a Disneyfied "camp" with nature centers and bottled experiences.

It must be kept in mind that Royal Gorge is planning a development of second homes, not primary residences, and this necessarily makes the exposure of children to nature very limited indeed. To this end, Louv admits that putting children into a "natural" setting, especially for short periods of time, is no guarantee that they will respond to it. By extension, and by its very complexion, a ski resort has a tendency to separate recreation and nature; it can be little more than a snowy sand box. A child on a ski slope could be considered to be getting fundamentally the same experience of nature as a child in an urban concrete skate park.

Following Louv, who stresses the importance of local natural history education, Foster/Syme claim they will build a "nature center" on the Summit in fulfillment of Louv's mandate. In so doing, they would have us believe that this addition makes everything else more palatable, while glossing over the very real destruction of a thousand acres of wildland in order to realize their "vision." The entire enterprise, it would seem, is predicated on the assumption that we were born yesterday, and as such comes across as nothing less than insulting. I am reminded of the phrase that came out of the Vietnam war, one that represented the absurdity of a certain world view: we must destroy the village in order to save it.

There is much more, of course, in "Last Child". My advice is get the book and read it. Our children will benefit. Ultimately, it is not merely the proximity to nature that will encourage them to preserve what precious little is left; what we teach them is just as important, and this does not require a ski resort or a condo in the woods. As Richard Louv says, "The most effective way to connect our children to nature is to connect ourselves to nature."

This article courtesy of Bill McGuire.

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