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Here's some food for thought about the fate of wildness.
Pasted below are excerpts from two web pages. The first is a recent news release celebrating National Tourism Week with Shoppertainment®. The second begins with the words: "New Nature-Based Attraction To Offer Close-Up Look At American Wilderness. Stepping Inside The Great Outdoors May Soon Be As Close As The Local Shopping Mall."
Both speak of the same physical place...
... a shopping center called "Ontario Mills".
BUT, do they speak of more that this?
Do they speak of Wilderness?
Do they speak of America's National Parks?
Do they speak of The Great Outdoors as envisaged by leaders of the tourism, entertainment and wreckreation industry?
AND does this represent a genuine threat to the spirit of wildness and to wild places? Perhaps the final article pasted below can help answer those questions.
Scott
----- begin quoted-----
April 26, 2001 - Press Release
Ontario Mills Celebrates National Tourism Week With Discounts For
Tourists Mall Offers $1000 in Discounts to Tourists Who Travel More
Than 50 Miles
ONTARIO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 26, 2001--In honor of National
Tourism Week (May 6-12), Ontario Mills will offer tourists a coupon
book filled with more than $1000 worth of discounts and special savings
at the many shopping, dining and entertainment venues at Ontario Mills.
<<SNIP>>
The Travel Industry Association's most recent comprehensive travel
survey reveals that shopping is the most popular activity for both U.S.
and international travelers. U.S. travelers spent nearly $100 billion
dollars shopping last year. Vacationers spent an average of $462 per
trip shopping in 1999. Last year, more than 20 million shoppers visited
Ontario Mills.
The Mills Corporation was the first shopping center developer in the
United States to recognize the importance of tourism to its company
business and its tenants.
The Mills Corporation's centers across the USA were the first to offer "Shoppertainment®,'' which combines the best of shopping, dining and
entertainment under one roof. This unique combination and exciting
selection of value-oriented stores and attractions has made The Mills
Corporation's centers popular destinations for people of all ages.
<<CONTINUES>>
-----SECOND ARTICLE-----
New Nature-Based Attraction To Offer Close-Up Look At American Wilderness
Stepping Inside The Great Outdoors May Soon Be As Close As The Local Shopping Mall
(SEPTEMBER-1997) -- Preparations are under way to open what may be the
next new trend in entertainment -- getting back to nature by stepping
inside the great outdoors. The American Wilderness Experience (AWE),
features over seventy species of live animals in simulated natural
habitats representing over 500,000 square miles of deserts, forests,
mountains, valleys and seashores without traveling beyond a local
shopping mall.
In just an hour and a half, the AWE is designed to both entertain and
educate visitors on ecosystems located throughout the United States by
incorporating a unique blend of technology, ecology and wildlife
discovery. All of the elements of the animals' natural habitats,
including full spectrum lighting, proper climate conditions, rocks,
trees, and other material to simulate their natural environments, have
been recreated.
This week, the animals moved into their new wilderness environment and
will have over a month to get used to their creature comforts before
the doors open to nature lovers.
AWE has gone to great efforts over the last year to obtain animals from
zoological parks, aquariums, rehabilitation centers, and also from pest
control situations where the animals were scheduled for destruction.
The first AWE will open at Ontario Mills in Southern California at the
end of October with others scheduled to open in Arizona, Texas, and
Southern Florida next year highlighting the "Best of America's
Wilderness."
------ THIRD ARTICLE------
http://www.trimtab.com/pol-column2.html
Technotainment. . .or, Can Hollywood Save the World? (This article
appeared in the Winter 97/98 issue of "Ideas & Information about
Development Education," published by the Development Education
Committee of the International Development Conference.
http://www.idc.org) What will it take for the public to demand that all
businesses be socially responsible? Will our knowledge of what needs to
be done to improve the world ever become knowledge "whose time has
come?"
<<SNIP>>
I recommend that the international development community take a hard
look at leveraging its knowledge, where possible, and offering it to
those Technotainment businesses in search of leading edge educational
content. One prospect, from a recent USA Today article about amusement
parks, is the Ogden Entertainment company, which recently opened its
first $13 million, 30,000 square foot "American Wilderness Experience"
in California's Ontario Mills mall. Designed to give visitors the
experience of being in a realistic redwood forest, this could be the
ideal place for people to learn how to protect real forests around the
world.
<<CONTINUES>>
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- Various 
