ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the arc of Carolyn Merchant’s direct and indirect influences on work, particularly now forming a bridge between completed landscape history of Point Reyes National Seashore here in northern California, and developing a new focus on the history of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado. Wilderness designation in large portions of the surrounding Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forests and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park have increasingly bureaucratized the landscape, requiring permits for research projects where the ecologists once had fairly free rein. From studying how ideas of preservation become inscribed on working landscapes, to investigating the ways in which field science shapes and is shaped by the landscape around it, the author continue to find inspiration and insight from Merchant’s scholarship.
