A simple idea: some places should remain wild
14 June 2018
Updated July 2026: This article has been revised to reflect the conservation philosophy that has developed through the work of Keep It Wild Australia. The founding belief remains unchanged: protected landscapes should be cared for with humility and passed to future generations with their natural character and public purpose intact.
Australia’s national parks and wilderness areas hold a special place in our landscape and culture. They give people the opportunity to step away from the pace and expectations of everyday life and experience nature on its own terms. They can challenge us, restore perspective and remind us that we are entering places that were not created for our convenience.
Keep It Wild Australia began in 2018 with a simple belief: not every landscape needs to be developed, improved or made more comfortable. Some places should remain largely as they are.
My name is Darren Edwards, and I have spent much of my life walking, camping and exploring the Australian bush. Through those experiences, I have come to understand that access to wild places carries responsibility. Enjoying a landscape does not give us an unlimited right to reshape it around the needs and preferences of our own generation.
We are not the owners of these places. We are their temporary custodians.
We inherited them from those who came before us, and the decisions we make now will shape what our children, their children and generations beyond them are able to experience. Conservation is therefore about more than protecting plants, animals and ecosystems. It is also about preserving future choices.
A gradual change in how protected landscapes are viewed
Over the years, I have watched a shift in the way national parks and wilderness areas are discussed. They are increasingly viewed not only as places set aside for conservation and public enjoyment, but also as opportunities for tourism investment, premium accommodation and commercial visitor experiences.
Most of this change does not arrive through one dramatic decision. It occurs incrementally. A commercial hut is described as a small intervention. A new service route is considered necessary to support it. Additional facilities are then justified by the expectations created by what has already been built.
Each proposal may appear reasonable when considered on its own. Together, however, they can change the character, purpose and public meaning of a protected landscape.
This is why Keep It Wild is not opposed to every track, campsite or visitor facility. Publicly managed infrastructure has an important role where it is genuinely needed to protect the environment, support safety and manage existing use. Tracks, boardwalks, basic campsites, tent platforms, toilets and modest shelters can help people experience a place responsibly without turning it into a commercial product.
The important distinction is between infrastructure that serves the conservation purpose of the park and development that asks the park to support a private tourism enterprise.
Wildness cannot be reduced to scenery
Wilderness is not defined only by the absence of buildings. It is also found in the relationship between people and place.
Wild landscapes ask us to prepare, make judgements and accept uncertainty. Weather may alter the plan. A campsite may be basic. A route may demand effort and self-reliance. These are not necessarily shortcomings waiting to be solved. They are part of what makes the experience different from one that has been carefully designed, serviced and packaged around the visitor.
When every inconvenience is treated as a problem requiring infrastructure, the landscape may remain visually impressive, but something important begins to disappear. We stop adapting ourselves to the place and begin expecting the place to adapt to us.
Wildness also has value beyond human use. A landscape does not need to attract more visitors, generate tourism revenue or support a commercial venture to justify its protection. It has value because it remains ecologically intact, culturally meaningful and capable of existing on terms that are not entirely determined by us.
Access carries responsibility
Keep It Wild does not seek to lock people out of nature. Australia has an extraordinary network of parks, reserves and walking tracks, and I believe people should have broad opportunities to experience them.
However, access does not mean every person must be able to have every experience in every landscape. Some places are well suited to accessible walks, family campgrounds and substantial visitor facilities. Others are fragile, remote or valuable precisely because relatively little has been built within them.
Providing a diverse network of outdoor experiences is different from reshaping every protected landscape around the same expectations of comfort and convenience.
It is also difficult to describe an experience as equitable access when participation depends on purchasing an expensive accommodation package or exclusive guided journey. Premium tourism may have a legitimate place, but it does not need to be embedded within national parks. Gateway towns, existing tourism precincts and private land can provide accommodation, hospitality and commercial services while allowing protected areas to remain genuinely public.
Restraint is part of stewardship
We often measure progress by what we build, expand or announce. Conservation sometimes requires a different measure.
Choosing not to develop a place is not a failure to act. It can be a deliberate decision to recognise that the landscape already has value and that future generations may be grateful we resisted the urge to take every opportunity available to us.
A development that is not built leaves choices open. Permanent infrastructure narrows them, and even the failure of the business behind it may not undo the change. Buildings, access routes and service infrastructure can remain long after the forecasts, governments and companies that justified them have passed.
Keep It Wild Australia exists to encourage a more thoughtful starting point. Before asking how a new tourism experience should be built, we should first ask whether it belongs inside a protected area at all. Before accepting claims about visitation and economic benefit, we should consider what permanent changes are being made and who will inherit them.
This is not opposition to tourism, outdoor recreation or public access. It is a belief that national parks have a particular purpose and should not be treated like every other part of the economy.
An idea that began in 2018
Keep It Wild began as a response to the growing pressure to develop protected landscapes, but it has always been grounded in something deeper. It is a reminder that our generation has no greater claim to these places than the generations that came before us or those still to come.
If you spend time in nature, you are already part of this conversation. The expectations you carry into the bush, the developments you support, the places you promote and the way you speak about access all help shape what these landscapes become.
Good stewardship asks us to enjoy wild places without assuming they must be changed for us. It asks us to recognise limits, think beyond our own lifetime and know when enough has already been built.
Our responsibility is not to leave our mark on every landscape we inherit. It is to care for these places well and pass them on with their natural character, public purpose and future possibilities intact.
We are not owners of Australia’s wild places. We are custodians, and sometimes the greatest act of stewardship is choosing to leave a place alone.
Find out more at Keep It Wild Australia.
