Our Future Environment

Over the past year I have interviewed and interacted with people who explore caves in the northeastern United States. This grounded theory research originally began with a broad question and a sub-question, respectively: How do cavers think and feel about caving, access to caves and the practice of caving by others? How does the physical space of caves affect cavers’ social interactions to other cavers?
Background
Caving is an extreme sport similar to scuba diving, climbing, or whitewater rafting but is intentionally guarded from media and the inexperienced. The people, places and events of caving are removed from the touristic and media spotlight because of the scientific value inherent in caves and cave life and the danger inherent in exploring a complex underground space.
A caver is an individual who has the skills and tools to safely visit a wild cave with minimal impact and who professes a genuine interest in caves and in the activity of caving (Seiser, 2003).
A cave can be defined as any natural cavity in rock underground or leading underground; frequently restricted to those openings capable of entry by man (Cullingford, 1962, 560). Caves described as “commercial caves” have built staircases, lighting, and guided tours. These commercial caves are not considered “wild caves” and are not explored by cavers. Wild caves are actively growing and changing and, in most cases, are not altered to make entering or maneuvering inside the cave easier. These wild caves are what cavers most often explore and protect and are usually owned by an individual on his or her private land. Non-profit cave conservation groups can also own wild caves or commercial caves and some commercial caves are managed by the state or national park service.
In general, caving refers to any type of cave exploration outside of commercial caves. People cave for various reasons ranging from recreation to scientific analysis but many cavers engage in all or a few of these different practices and may or may not cognitively or physically separate them. Caving groups of three to eight people, in a manner ranging from a formal posting of a planned trip to a spontaneous road trip, will often explore a cave purely for a recreational purpose. However, caving for a recreational purpose alone is not a globally accepted practice. In the United States recreational caving is not outside of accepted caving norms as long as the trip is led by an experienced caver and is not on legally restricted property. Most often, caving for recreation, exploration, researching, mapping, photography, or any another purpose is not separated from another activity. This is possibly why a caving social network of grottos (a caving club or group is called a grotto) came to exist. Accomplishing any caving activity necessitates a group of people interested in caves with the skills to provide resources and accomplish tasks.
Cave Research Findings
In this caving research, I investigated social, spatial, physical and sensory experiences discussed and observed during interviews and caving trips. Interestingly, research participants and myself did not share the same definition of “access to caves”. This portion of my main question was originally in the context of caving groups gaining access to caves on private property. However, in interviews cavers discussed gaining access to caves by becoming friends and developing trust with other cavers and private property owners rather than going through formal legal channels. I subsequently began to question and observe more closely the social relations among cavers.
For cavers in this study, caving creates an opportunity to place oneself in nature across time and space, opens up a “new world” with privileged views, is a “visual spectacle” and allows exploration of the “last frontier”. A small number of cavers also stated that developing social relationships with other cavers allowed them to travel across the United States and to other countries and learn about the difference in geography. Cavers stated that they learned about aspects of the environment or speleology that were unknown to them before caving and only by staying in caving and talking to others did they realize why protecting caves was important. However, cavers did not discuss this as central to why they began or have continued to cave recreationally.
A central reason to continue caving, according to this study’s findings, is the influence of trust and social interaction among cavers and land-owners. “You trust others with your life, exclusivity is a safety issue” and “…social politics are necessary, we’re an underground society”. When comparing interview responses with actual behavior trust and physical ability played an important part in each caving trip. For example participants often cave with a few close friends, on land owned by people they know, and independent of formal caving groups. Cavers overwhelmingly expressed that the reasons for continuing to cave are as largely because of the social environment as because of the physical. The actual role that the social environment plays in caving is its ability to increase access to resources. Caving resources benefit cavers and land-owners alike, some are as follows: increase in monetary value of cave land, continued exploration opportunities, knowledge transfer between cavers and land-owners, scientific research and discovery, cave and land conservation and responsible caving practices.

Filed under: caves, anthro of property, observations and opinions, natural landscape on April 20th, 2008