Now, where does that leave wilderness?
buy rainforest land. In this way, it is claimed, rainforest will be protected (see section B.5 for why such arguments are nonsense). As ecologists desire the rainforest because it is wilderness they are unlikely to “transform” it by human labour (its precisely that they want to stop). From Rothbard’s arguments it is fair to ask whether logging companies have a right to “transform” the virgin wilderness owned by ecologists, after all it meets Rothbard’s criteria (it is still wilderness). Perhaps it will be claimed that fencing off land “transforms” it (hardly what you imagine “mixing labour” with to mean, but nevermind) — but that allows large companies and rich individuals to hire workers to fence in vast tracks of land (and recreate the land monopoly by a “libertarian” route). But as we noted above, fencing off land does not seem to imply that it becomes property in Rothbard’s theory. And, of course, fencing in areas of rainforest disrupts the local eco-system — animals cannot freel
