To Cabin or Not to Cabin?

    The cabin view, serene and peaceful may seem harmless. In fact, it may seem the opposite to harmful, since it is providing you a summer vacation away from your own worries. Now what is the cabin view? Let’s start up with some imagery to begin. 

Image Credit: https://www.brysoncitycabinrentals.com/vacation-rental-home.asp?PageDataID=160898

    Ah, the relaxing breeze from the lake and the opportunity to go fishing as a recreational summer activity. These “fun” summer activities in your cabin could be contributing to a greater ecological impact than you may even realize. Sharing of urban-wild spaces often leads to various negative outcomes for the surrounding ecosystems, but could also have effects on you as well! 

Image credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_rod

    One particular summer activity is boating. Boating is an activity that is often paired with fishing and could result in some ecological consequences. Many times, you would tow your boat from your house to your vacation spot. The migration could have ecological consequences of it’s own. You can be introducing bacteria, disease, invasive species, etc. from the transportation of the boat and introducing it to the new wildlife. We already know how detrimental it can be for native populations from the introduction, we could likely decimate the affected population. Not only that, but you could be contracting disease from the foreign wildlife yourself. A significant example is getting Lyme’s disease from Ticks in these rural areas. You may also contract Chronic Wasting disease from Ticks in Southern Wisconsin. The disease originates from deer and has a 100% mortality rate with significant symptoms that lead to your death. You not only put the surrounding ecological populations at risk, you are at risk yourself. 

Image credit: https://www.stocksy.com/3455532/landfills-and-their-plastic-polution

    Your cabin also bears similar effects on the environment. Building houses in the midst of a wildlife leads to causing edge effects. The species become at risk for increased wind disturbance, higher temperatures, lower humdities, higher tree mortality, and  reduced canopy height. You force the wildlife to move 100m into interior habitat to be shielded from these effects, decreasing the size of their environment. It also clusters all of the species into a more confined space which increases competition and reduces fitness.

    Not only does building your cabin destroys habitat, it also contributes to other edge effects like pollution. Humans are constantly polluting the surrounding environment with direct pollution. Factors such as garbage, smoke, carbon monoxide, etc. Not only will direct pollution affect the environment, but also nutrient and salt pollution would be increased in the wildlife, greater soil erosion or compaction, and delivering or creating favorable conditions for invasive species. The seemingly harmless cabin does not seem so harmless anymore. 

Image credit: https://www.aurecongroup.com/blog/posts/navigating-a-digital-future-why-its-time-to-leave-the-cave

What can we do? To build a cabin or not to build a cabin? Of course a cabin has only been an example I have been using but this applies in the broad generalized scope as well. We know for a fact that many industries, either that be the technology industry or fast fashion industry has been disastrous for the environment. Our marine systems are ridden with micro plastics, intensive logging for housing development, soil contamination from batteries leaching Pb and SB, native populations being decimated from the introduction of invasive species, etc. All these impacts are things we are causing, which all come back to us and affect our own human health drastically. Of course, if the question was simply not to build a cabin, it would be an easy trade off to save the environment. However, this issue extends beyond that. We cannot just go back to the cave times, that is simply not politically feasible. Instead, we need to find a balance. I think we can all agree that the output of clothings from fast fashion and batteries from many companies is unnecessarily high. Instead, we should be working in our current system and drastically reducing the production and consumption of unnecessary goods; Creating policy would ultimately shift us away from being a materialistic culture. What this would allow for is less pollution into wild spaces, less destruction of habitats for more urban development (factories, houses, roads, etc), and less migration to move around goods. Less migration and shared urban-wild spaces would lead to less disruption of wildlife and less introduction of invasive species. It would also lead to other factors like less fragmentation of habitats since we wouldn’t be continuing to build more roads and houses. We would be able to produce a healthier environment and our urban-wildlife would be able to both share resources and spaces.

Takeaway Message: Our behaviors should not be eliminated but should be significantly reduced to protect the environment.