droid said:
Ian Adams said:
I don't think there is a parallel to caving .....
Ian
Anywhere there is modern human interaction with the 'natural' environment, it is degraded from that 'natural' state. That's the parallel.
That's a loose parallel, but not mine.
My point is that we have not used our enormous power in harmony with and respect for the natural resources that created it. We are arrogantly and ignorantly cutting ourselves off at the root. The danger of that oblivious attitude does not have a direct parallel in caving, as our health as humans does not much depend on caves. The fact that our ways of using the land have been a huge success, materially, immediately, superficially, have blinded us to the fact that they have been tragically hurtful to communities, that is, places, including all of their people, plants, animals, water and soil.
So we have not learned restraint, respect or responsibility from the societies we live in. How can we be expected to show them once passing into a cave entrance?
Droid's observation that the earth heals, and relatively rapidly, is clearly factual. This is why I'm not drawing a parallel between land and caves, but between
our behavior in both. Arguments like Droid's, that the earth will heal, have been used to permit all sorts of abuses (of course it cannot heal if our abuses continue to accelerate). If cavers carry the carelessness of such philosophies underground, consciously or not, they will do much harm.
This is part of a line of questions to understand what might happen to caves without BCA. Would the decrease in caver numbers (if there would be one) and an increased difficulty in getting some access (if there would be one) create a net positive or negative, conservation-wise. My guess, based on what I've read here, is that it wouldn't make much difference.