Weekly Prompt: Wilderness Lost

What wild place is no more, paved over or ploughed through?

Between 1992 and 2009 the world lost a tenth of its wilderness or 1.2 million square miles (3 million square kilometres). For some perspective, the entire Amazon rainforest covers an area of just over 2 million square miles.

According to this study published in 2016 there has been an almost 30 percent loss of wilderness in South America and a 10 percent loss globally.

In January 2019, a staggering 121,000 fires had broken out in Brazil, half in the Amazon Basin. Nearly all of these fires were man-made, often deliberately set as part of slash and burn agriculture. Cattle ranching accounts for 80% of Brazil’s deforestation.

If this rate continues, we will have lost all wilderness within the next 50 years.

James Watson, University of Queensland professor and director of science at the Wildlife Conservation Society

Loss of wilderness threatens biodiversity, the water and nitrogen cycles as well as pollination. Once the damage is too much, Watson says there is no scientific evidence that a degraded ecosystem can ever return to its original condition.

There is a direct correlation between a loss of habitat and a decline of animal population visualised in these images from Africa Geographic.

Imagine the wild places you’ve known and how they’ve changed in your lifetime, how they will go on to change in the lives of the next generation.

This week write of a wild place that is no more

Perhaps somewhere from your childhood that is no longer there, paved over to become a drive-in or a shopping mall.

Or maybe another planet pristine in its isolation subtly ruined the moment humanity sets foot on its surface contaminating one biosphere with our own.

No environment on this planet is safe from the eventual encroachment of humankind. Not even Antarctica. We may not slash and burn on that continent but the heat of our fires elsewhere are shifting that landscape on a daily basis.

Search this world (or another) for a setting, a former wild place, a paradise lost and bring it back to our minds in 300 words exactly.

Use the tag: Wilderness Lost

Tell us a story of heroic defence, of corporate greed, or tragic mistakes.

Remind us of what we have lost.

Next week, we get a bit more hopeful, with Wilderness Found.

Lastly, if you have any ideas for Microcosm here’s the suggestion box: