Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural) are natural environments on Earth that have not been

significantly modified by human activity, or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural
cultivation.[1][2] The term has traditionally referred to terrestrial environments, though growing
attention is being placed on marine wilderness. Recent maps of wilderness[3] suggest it covers roughly
one-quarter of Earth's terrestrial surface, but is being rapidly degraded by human activity.[4] Even less
wilderness remains in the ocean, with only 13.2% free from intense human activity.[5]

Some governments establish protection for wilderness areas by law to not only preserve what already
exists, but also to promote and advance a natural expression and development. These can be set up in
preserves, conservation preserves, national forests, national parks and even in urban areas along rivers,
gulches or otherwise undeveloped areas. Often these areas are considered important for the survival of
certain species, biodiversity, ecological studies, conservation, solitude and recreation.[6] They may also
preserve historic genetic traits and provide habitat for wild flora and fauna that may be difficult to
recreate in zoos, arboretums or laboratories.

History

Ancient times and Middle Ages

From a visual arts perspective, nature and wildness have been important subjects in various epochs of
world history. An early tradition of landscape art occurred in the Tang Dynasty (618–907). The tradition
of representing nature as it is became one of the aims of Chinese painting and was a significant influence
in Asian art. Artists in the tradition of Shan shui (lit. mountain-water-picture), learned to depict
mountains and rivers "from the perspective of nature as a whole and on the basis of their understanding
of the laws of nature … as if seen through the eyes of a bird". In the 13th century, Shih Erh Chi
recommended avoiding painting "scenes lacking any places made inaccessible by nature".[7]

For most of human history, the greater part of Earth's terrain was wilderness, and human attention was
concentrated on settled areas. The first known laws to protect parts of nature date back to the
Babylonian Empire and Chinese Empire. Ashoka, the Great Mauryan King, defined the first laws in the
world to protect flora and fauna in Edicts of Ashoka around the 3rd century B.C. In the Middle Ages, the
Kings of England initiated one of the world's first conscious efforts to protect natural areas. They were
motivated by a desire to be able to hunt wild animals in private hunting preserves rather than a desire to
protect wilderness. Nevertheless, in order to have animals to hunt they would have to protect wildlife
from subsistence hunting and the land from villagers gathering firewood.[8] Similar measures were
introduced in other European countries.
However, in European cultures, throughout the Middle Ages, wilderness generally was not regarded
worth protecting but rather judged strongly negative as a dangerous place and as a moral counter-world
to the realm of culture and godly life.[9] "While archaic nature religions oriented themselves towards
nature, in medieval Christendom this orientation was replaced by one towards divine law. The divine was
no longer to be found in nature; instead, uncultivated nature became a site of the sinister and the
demonic. It was considered corrupted by the Fall (natura lapsa), becoming a vale of tears in which
humans were doomed to live out their existence. Thus, for example, mountains were interpreted [e.g, by
Thomas Burnet[10]] as ruins of a once flat earth destroyed by the Flood, with the seas as the remains of
that Flood."[9] "If paradise was early man's greatest good, wilderness, as its antipode, was his greatest
evil."[11]

Bee pollination is important both ecologically and commercially, and the decline in wild bees has
increased the value of pollination by commercially managed hives of honey bees. The analysis of 353
wild bee and hoverfly species across Britain from 1980 to 2013 found the insects have been lost from a
quarter of the places they inhabited in 1980.[6]

Human beekeeping or apiculture (meliponiculture for stingless bees) has been practised for millennia,
since at least the times of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece. Bees have appeared in mythology and
folklore, through all phases of art and literature from ancient times to the present day, although
primarily focused in the Northern Hemisphere where beekeeping is far more common. In Mesoamerica,
the Mayans have practiced large-scale intensive meliponiculture since pre-Columbian times.[5]