Limit and otherness of nature: A reflection on the [impossible?] relationship between humans and nature

Abstract

The bourgeoisie of the 18th century dreamed of abandoning the traditional compact city, which it considered vicious and pernicious, to colonize a space that it identified with the intrinsic goodness of nature defended by Rousseau and which it visualized as the incarnation of the lost biblical Eden. However, this initiative will profoundly alter the immaculate and untamed condition of the new habitat, which will end up transformed into a sort of fantasy that mixes and confuses the manmade landscapes of the rural world with the authentically wild landscapes of the natural world. Overcoming this confusion is a critical issue that contemporary thinking only began to consider at the end of the 20^th century when humankind began to become aware of the inexorable decline of natural areas. This article attempts to point to the intrinsic value of wilderness as something distinctly different from the idea of civilisation by trying to identify contemporary initiatives to intermediate specifically between the two notions -in efforts to safeguard mountain gorilla habitat in Bwindi and in the reclamation of a wetland in the Chinese city of Qunli- and through the conceptual conflict displayed by the High Line project in New York.