Treesearch

Nine indicators of biodiversity conservation have been defined by the nations participating in the Montreal Process for assessing sustainability of temperate and boreal forests. Five of these indicators address compositional and spatial diversity of ecosystems; two address species diversity; and two are indirect measures of genetic diversity. Our objective was to evaluate their applicability for assessing biodiversity on rangeland ecosystems. In addition to assessing applicability, we also address whether data and methods exist to measure each indicator, and review research that is needed...

Malawi is critically short of fuelwood, the primary energy source for its poverty-stricken populace. Deforestation from 1981 to 1992 in Mwanza District in southern Malawi was assessed using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values calculated from multitemporal Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS) images. A control site, where vegetation change was assumed to be minimal, was used to account for the large effect of phenology on NDVI variability between images, and to reveal more subtle differences indicative of changes in percentage woody canopy cover. The average annual deforestat...

This research compared the differences found between manager-defined and visitor-defined social standards for wilderness encounters in Mount Rainier National Park. Social standards in recreation areas of public land are defined by what is acceptable to the public, in addition to the area’s management. Social standards for the encounter indicator in Mount Rainier’s General Management Plan are based on current use at the Park and research performed in other wilderness areas. It was hypothesized that these standards are not representative of user’s level of acceptability. This hypothesis was...

Bulletin boards are a frequently used method of communicating minimum impact behaviors to wilderness visitors. But how effective are they? What types of visitors are most likely to pay attention to the messages posted there? This study used a field experiment to identify visitor characteristics associated with attention to minimum impact messages posted on a bulletin board located along a heavily used trail into the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. The results indicated that the bulletin board was most effective for hikers and overnight users. Personal utility of the messages posted on the...

Impacts of global climate change on the biophysical components of wilderness areas have the potential to alter their recreational utility of wilderness areas. Concomitantly, the frequency and patterns of both land-based and water-based wilderness recreation activities will be affected. Despite the difficulty of responding to the unclear dimensions of global climate change, it is essential for wilderness recreation managers and policy-makers to acknowledge, and make provisions, for the multifaceted implications of these effects. This paper examines the effects of global climatic change on...

Ponderosa pine forests in which frequent fire regimes continue up to the present would be invaluable points of reference for assessing natural ecological attributes. A few remote forests on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park come close to this ideal: never-harvested, distant from human communities and fire suppression resources, and with several low-intensity fires in the past century—a highly unusual recent fire regime in the Southwest. Recent fires appear to have played a crucial role in preventing the increases in forest density that characterize most southwestern pine forests....

Names are important. The name “wilderness” is fraught with historical baggage obfuscating the most important role of wilderness areas for contemporary conservation. The received wilderness idea has been and remains a tool of androcentrism, racism, colonialism, and genocide. It privileges virile and primitive recreation, because the main reason wild lands were originally preserved is for such utilitarian purposes. The wilderness idea is associated with outmoded equilibrium ecology and ignores the ecological impact of at least eleven thousand years of human inhabitation of the Americas and...

Quantitative estimated of carbon inventories are needed as part of nationwide attempts to reduce net release of greenhouse gases and the associated climate forcing. Naturally, an appreciable amount of uncertainty is inherent in such large-scale assessments, especially since both science and policy issues are still evolving. Decision makers need an idea of the uncertainty in carbon estimated in order to consider tradeoffs between known effects, possible outcomes, and preferred consequences. While an ultimate goal of assessments in to minimize uncertainty, a more immediate concern is to...

There is a substantial body of scientific literature on defining and managing the quality of wilderness experiences. Two conceptual frameworks derived from this literature—carrying capacity and the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS)—suggest that wilderness recreation experiences can be defined through indicators and standards of quality, and that wilderness recreation should be managed to ensure that standards of quality are sustained over time. This paper briefly describes the conceptual frameworks of carrying capacity and ROS; reviews the growing literature on wilderness-related...

To understand how participants in a natural resource planning situation described the nature of consensus, we interviewed scientists, agency planners and managers, and public representatives in two planning processes on the Bitterroot National Forest in west-central Montana. While most interviewees felt the agency had included affected interests and felt that the problem could be resolved through public participation, disagreements about the problem definition occurred. Most could "live with" the decision of the agency, but some could not. People varied in their capacity to assimilate the...