The Meeting of Urban and Wildland - Pranneil

When urban and wild areas meet, decisions must be made about when the wild space must be curtailed on behalf of urban growth. Likewise, managers must know when plans for urban growth must be reigned in on behalf of wild space. Wisconsin's population is projected to grow by nearly 30% from 2000 to 2030. The most population dense areas are in the South-Eastern regions, but many of the fastest growing counties are in the North, and in relatively rural areas: 

Growth since 2010

Lyme's disease

Notice some overlap in the fastest growing counties (shown as red) with high Lyme's disease prevalence (dark blue), especially in Door County. 

Wild-Urban Interface

Looking at the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI), we see that areas with high interface are often those with high rates of Lyme's disease.

All this is to say that diseases which arise from wildland-urban interaction such as Lyme's disease is certainly a challenge that land managers must grapple with, more so in future decades as urban and wild land clash more and more. More terrifying menaces than Lyme's may threaten us, such as Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). As WUI grows, the prion will have more opportunity to jump from deer to human populations. 

What can a land manager do to reduce WUI? I think suburban and exurban development should be looked at first. Lyme's disease first became a problem in the exurban Connecticut towns of Lyme and Old-Lyme (where the disease takes it's name). If we can reduce urban sprawl and focus on building more dense and livable cities, then there will be less chance for zoonosis. Whats more, simply less wildland needs to be disturbed by urban development.

 Another option is to focus on habitat management. If we can bring back pre-settlement ecosystems such as prairies and forest, deer populations will be less dense. 

 

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The fact that we are taking this course means that we all must have some love for the outdoors, and probably for the wilderness of the Midwest. This raises the human phenomena of loving something more then the said thing can handle. Can we love Wisconsins wilderness without destroying it? It seems that after two hundred some years of plundering everything we can from this land, what we want most now is to just be with it.

 We are now older and wiser, running for the arms of our mother after raising hell in our childhood. There is scarce little that I want more than for every Midwesterner to experience the stupefying coolness of heart that the northern forests bring, when the cotton wood seeds dance among the old birch, as if taken by the spirit of the woods. To hear a roaring river, to sleep beside it for a few. laying like sardines, shivering in the tent, because us city-dwellers did not know the chill of a Northern night. If the old trees were uprooted, and terrible strip made for road so that a row of cabins might be layed down in this spot, I would cry. At this moment I must say that only a tent should be pitched if one wants to experience the land. I must also confess that this conclusion is likely due to my lack of funding at present, or the foreseeable future, with which I might buy a cabin in such a wonderful forest.

 No, it is certainly not an easy issue, about how we can love the wildland without carving it up with roads. But, how can we love it without getting near? If we can do as little disturbance as possible, walk gently and with awareness, I have such a feeling that the wildland would still love to have us. After all, the land wouldn't be putting on such a show if no audience were expected. 

As long as we are being good audience members; paying for our ticket so as to support the production, being respectful, we are welcome. But if we are not respectful audience members, the show will be interrupted and we will be thrown out. Make no mistake, the cast will quickly find their positions again (for they are professionals), and the audience of deer and birds will remain.