In this discussion, provide an ethical argument whether or not people should respond to Yellowstone wildfires. The purpose of this discussion is to evaluate wilderness intervention.
In Chapter 7 of DesJardins, read the discussion topic “Wilderness Management: Fighting Fires in Yellowstone” on pp. 149-151. Use information from this reading, as well as other assigned texts from this Module, to answer these discussion questions from the text.
“For one hundred years after the creation of Yellowstone National Park in 1872, fire suppression was the guiding policy of wilderness management, in both national parks and national forests.… As early as the 1940s, the U.S. Forest Service had begun to use fire as a tool for managing some forests.… By the early 1970s, many parks, including Yellowstone, had adopted a fire policy that would allow certain naturally occurring fires to burn unchecked, as long as they did not threaten lives and property.” (DesJardins 149–150)
After a major forest fire, should the U.S. Forest Service actively replant trees, or should it “let nature take its course”?
Does your answer depend on the cause of the fire? Why or why not?
What exactly is the natural course of things?
What values would you cite in defending the decision to preserve an area such as Yellowstone National Park?
Would those values be different for defending the protection of wilderness areas in the deserts of the American Southwest? (Desjardins 151)
