Is There a Need for a New Preservation? The Philosophy and Politics of Wilderness Today

I present a philosophical account of wilderness called ‘Wilderness for Wildness’ (WfW). WfW makes two claims: wilderness is an area of relatively high wildness, and wilderness is valuable for its relatively high wildness. I motivate WfW by offering a crisp definition of wildness and arguing that the historical wilderness preservation movement celebrated this quality. I then demonstrate WfW’s resilience to common wilderness criticisms. In upshot, adapting preservation for today is needed to evaluate humanity’s appropriate ecological role in a planet of accelerating change. I close by sketching what the politics of ‘New Preservation’ might look like over the coming decades.