points by michael1999 1 day ago | 0 comments
Every ecosystem on the planet besides recent settlements like Hawaii or Antarctica are co-evolved with human beings. "Pristine wildness" is almost always a myth.
[–] ctkhn 1 day ago
That's not totally true. The way we have lived since the 1950s has made a lot of difference. Even where people have lived for a long time, highways and major roads since 1950 in terms of danger are a step change (or two) compared to earlier roads and have essentially walled off areas from wildlife traveling between them.
[–] anfilt 1 day ago
The thing is a lot of these rural areas were farms before 1950 or if we got back further before even the Meji Restoration in Japan.
It's actually more of a recent phenomenon that a lot these small villages and towns now becoming basically vacant in Japan.
People have been in Japan for many thousands of years at this point.
[–] mschuster91 1 day ago
> "Pristine wildness" is almost always a myth.
Which is half true, half not.
If you re-introduce certain keystone species, the rest follows automatically - the most well-known and well-studied example being the wolf in Yellowstone [1].
[1] https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/wolf-r...
[–] freecodeio 1 day ago
what?
People may have generally existed in these regions, but the scope of ecological impact & evolutionary pressure is more recent.