Wilderness is often understood as self-willed land, not subject to the will of a domesticator or cultivator. People, and all the ways we enact our will on the world are antithetical to this definition of wilderness. Our trash, roads, buildings and invasive plats, like the English ivy pictured above, are not wild.

This wildlife restoration site in Portland, OR is part of an ongoing English ivy removal project. English ivy is an introduced species that outcompetes native plants for nutrients and sunlight, severely diminishing the biodiversity of forested areas. In this case, ivy removal is an instance of human will returning the land to a more “wild” state, which runs counter to our typical understanding of wilderness.