Caring for and Healing the Earth

Tracker School Caretaker Classes

Nov 2001 Caretaker Class

Page 15 of 20

 

Friday November 2, 2001
Medicine Waters
(Page 2 of 3)

 

The destruction of the Medicine Waters   

 
These pictures were taken during the Caretaker class in Nov 2001.

The entire Medicine Waters area has over the years been turned into a giant playground for ATVs, ORVs, dirt bikes, dune buggies and monster trucks.

Here's a couple of pictures of a couple of their "fun" circles, where they can drive at great speed around the trees.

Notice the exposed tree roots, showing where the level of the soil used to be.

 
  
This embankment is about 4 feet high!
  
General desolation of the entire area.

The Medicine Waters stream is in the distance. 

  
Here's one of the gang, showing off his stuff in a dune buggy. He drove back and forth, round in a circle several times. 
  
Looking away from the Medicine Waters stream, there are larger patches of forest still more or less intact. But these are diminishing rapidly.

The pace of destruction has accelerated over the past year or two. Many previously unaffected areas of the forest now have tire tracks through them. 

  

Tom Brown Jr. at the Medicine Waters telling the class about the extent of the destruction.
(To find out more about Tom Brown, read a short bio of Tom Brown Jr. on the Wildwood Survival website.)

  
Is there any hope to bring this area back to what it once was??
  
The anguish of seeing a once pristine area trashed and degraded, the ground torn up by the off-road vehicles, trees cut down for party fires, and garbage strewn about in the healing waters of the stream.

To find out more about Tom Brown, read a short bio of Tom Brown Jr. on the Wildwood Survival website.

  
Update from Kevin Reeve, Apr 26, 2002:

Thought I'd give you all an update on the Pine Barrens, the maze in
particular.  Because of additional destruction, this past advanced tracking class was altered.  The Anvil and Crucible no longer exist as tracking areas.  We had to find other sub-standard areas. Destruction caused by vehicular traffic has rendered them useless.  There is no more hard sand, and there is no more moss at either location.  We are loosing the battle.
Cannot tell about the war.

--Kevin

 

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These photos were taken at the Caretaker class in Nov 2001
Copyright © Walter Muma

 
 

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