Treesearch

This paper summarizes a dialogue session that focused on two concepts that strongly influence nearly all wilderness management: wildness and naturalness. The origin and value of these concepts are discussed, as well as the dilemma and irony that arises when wilderness managers contemplate manipulating the environment to restore naturalness at the risk of reducing wildness. To illustrate this irony, a case study of a proposed large-scale manipulation to stop the loss of cultural resources in the Bandelier Wilderness is discussed. It is concluded that large scale wilderness restoration based...

Introduction to Volume 5 of the proceedings.

Like many wilderness areas, Denali National Park and Preserve faces a variety of challenges in its wilderness management planning. As an Alaska conservation unit that has been significantly expanded by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 (ANILCA), Denali faces the additional responsibility of acknowledging that its management of controversial issues affects how other wilderness areas are managed throughout the state. Advocates of managing Denali as wilderness in its purest sense encourage the park to see its wilderness management planning as the “last chance to do...

The Okefenokee Swamp is a 200,000 ha palustrine, freshwater wetland in the southeastern United States managed as a National Wildlife Refuge and a National Wilderness Area. Wildfires frequently occur, modifying vegetation structure and creating the swamp landscape mosaic. Following extensive wildfires in 1954-1955, the Suwannee River was impounded by a dam (Suwannee River Sill) built outside the Wilderness Area but within the Refuge to exclude fire reoccurrence. By the late 1980s indications were that fire was not being excluded, although the swamp hydrology and vegetation suggested changes...

Land is a composite good, the price of which varies with its characteristics, including proximity to amenities. Using data from sales of land near Green Mountain National Forest wilderness areas in a hedonic price model, a positive relationship between proximity to protected wilderness and market values is revealed. The applications of this result include improved consideration of the positive economic impacts of land conservation and new mechanisms for financing land conservation.

Wilderness is a concept that has both a physical and a perceptual meaning. Wilderness images have been collected by a number of researchers in recent years in an attempt to understand precisely what wilderness users consider wilderness to be. This paper sets out to analyze the original works of three researchers, studying three distinct sample populations so that wilderness perception comparisons can be made. The results of this research show striking similarities and differences of perception, between different study samples. They show that many people have a common perception of wildernes...

Science is an appropriate and necessary use of wilderness. The long-term protection of wilderness, including decisions related to the planning and management of wilderness resources, use and values, requires an understanding often available only through scientific investigation. In addition, wilderness provides opportunities for scientific understanding not available in other, less protected areas. Yet the acquisition of scientific information often requires activities that affect wilderness resources and values. Decisions about what scientific activities are appropriate and necessary in...

Wilderness managers are forced to make increasingly difficult decisions about where to focus limited resources. Traditionally, areas of high visitor use and high impact are prioritized over areas of light use and light impact. However, areas that contain little to no human impact and contain the qualities that lead to the area’s designation as wilderness are most precious and have the greatest potential to be responsive to management. We mapped attributes of the Gros Ventre Wilderness in Wyoming to demonstrate how the most precious, vulnerable and responsive areas can be identified and...

Isle Royale National Park is a remote island ecosystem in Lake Superior. A long-term research program investigating the wolf and moose populations in the Park has provided the public and scientific community with valuable information on the ecology of these species in this wilderness setting. A persistent decline within the wolf population led to a change in the direction of the research program and research methods used, leading to concerns about the impacts of the research efforts to the wilderness values in the Park. An expert panel review was used to review the issue and provide...

Canadian National Parks within the Rocky Mountains recognize that human use must be managed if the integrity and health of the ecosystems are to be preserved. Parks Canada is being challenged to ensure that these management actions are based on credible scientific principles and understanding. Grizzly bears provide one of only a few ecological tools that can be used to guide the management of human activities. Grizzly bear needs, as they relate to habitats, movement corridors, habituation and human risk management, were assessed from three spatial scales (regional landscape, landscape...