The Wild Next Door: Between City Limits and Sacred Lands Film and Educational Guide

The Wild Next Door is a documentary film that explores the complexities of managing high use, urban proximate wilderness. Explored through the case of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness outside of Seattle, Washington, the film highlights the many perspectives of wilderness management in an alpine landscape, including current and former Forest Service managers, Tribal council members, visitors, scientists, and nonprofit partners. The video also highlights how Tribal leadership and multi-actor collaboration offer opportunities to resolve the most pressing issues facing a beloved landscape.

The film was inspired by the many people who have dedicated their lives to conservation of cultural and ecological heritage, including through lands that have been protected through the 1964 Wilderness Act, a keystone policy that protects over 110 million acres of federal public lands across the U.S. Recognition that people hold many different wilderness values and that federal public lands and federally-designated wilderness are Tribal homelands is foundational to our collective ability to steward these lands on behalf of past, present, and future generations. Additionally, the ability for people to return to wild spaces is one important way to reconnect with our shared humanity and deeply rooted connections to nature. 

As urban areas grow, the demand for access to wild spaces does, too. Wilderness areas that are readily accessible from urban centers—so-called “urban-proximate wilderness”—simultaneously offer the possibility to meet the needs of many, while they are at risk of being “loved to death.” Yet many people care about these lands. This offers unprecedented opportunities to shift towards collaborative management strategies, pool resources and efforts, and identify strategies to steward the last of our wild spaces on an increasingly interconnected planet.