Treesearch

Antarctica is often described as one of the world’s last wildernesses. Since 1990, tourism to this wilderness is developing rapidly. In a period of 15 years, the number of tourists that make landings in Antarctica has increased from 2,500 (1990/91) to more than 23,000 (2004/05). The diversity of tourist activities is also increasing. The 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty explicitly provides Antarctica’s “wilderness values” legal status, but do wilderness values indeed play a role in the current international debate on Antarctic tourism management? This...

With more than 13 million acres (5,260,913 ha) of land and in excess of 9 million acres (3,642,171 ha) of designated Wilderness, Alaska’s Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve is the largest national park in the United States and includes the country’s largest single-name wilderness area. Park managers face a variety of challenges in managing consumptive and nonconsumptive uses of the park and its resources while at the same time protecting wilderness values. When it was created, efforts were made to protect the fragile resources of its varied ecosystems while at the same time...

The measurement of water quality and stream health in wilderness areas is made difficult by the need to use non-motorized modes of travel. In Wyoming, data on streams in the high-altitude Cloud Peak Wilderness are scarce. The monitoring of stream health of the Tongue, Powder and Big Horn Rivers at lower altitudes can be made more meaningful by the collection of baseline data on chemical and biological factors upstream in the tributary creeks of the Cloud Peak Wilderness.

Friends of the Inyo is a non-profit, conservation organization dedicated to preserving public lands and wildlife of the Eastern Sierra. First founded in 1986, Friends of the Inyo hired its first staff person in 2000. Today, the organization enjoys a vibrant and growing membership of 500 individuals and employs three people-Executive Director, Paul McFarland (the organization’s first staff person), Wilderness Stewardship Coordinator, Jamie Anderson, and Bookkeeper, Darren Jones. Together, they carry out a diverse program of monitoring, education, and natural history interpretation on the...

Despite low use densities and a largely absent development footprint, parks in arctic environments are confronted with questions similar to more heavily used protected areas. Many of these questions concern the character of experiences visitors seek and for which agencies attempt to provide opportunities. These experiences, like others, have a variety of dimensions, such as solitude, adventure, naturalness, scenery, and so on. Understanding these experiences and ensuring that visitors have an opportunity to experience them are major challenges for stewardship organizations, given the...

This paper reviews the emerging wild land policy in the United Kingdom-in England and Wales in particular-and the environmental, social, political and economic drivers that make extensive protected wild land areas a possibility in what is otherwise a crowded and intensively developed island nation. Various future scenarios for wild land and rewilding in England and Wales are described including some warnings about the threats from renewable energy developments. Should there develop a strong political will, the paper concludes that there remains a core of significant wild lands in key areas...

Wild land in Scotland has been subject to steady attrition due to various types of development. This paper explores approaches that might be used to describe this attrition in Scotland, in order to promote more informed debate and assist policy development. Current digital map databases showing roads, bulldozed trails, plantation forest and hydropower schemes were backdated using historic maps, allowing these developments to be quantified in the Affric-Kintail-Knoydart area in the late 19th century, the 1950s and at the present time using Geographical Information Systems. Accessibility...

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA)—a United Nations effort to assess the health of major global ecosystems—reported that over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable time in history. Around two thirds of the ecosystems services (anything from fresh water to air) are being degraded or used unsustainably. Since 1994, the Chicago Wilderness coalition—a public-private alliance of well over 120 organizations—has pursued a concerted policy to restore and manage the ecosystems that surround Chicago (the third largest city in the...

This research examined the nature of experience for visitors to the Ross Sea Region (RSR) of Antarctica. By monitoring visitors before, during, and after their onsite visit, using a mixed methodology approach, several interesting themes have arisen. In terms of advocacy, are we preaching to the converted? Is advocacy the awareness or the action? How do we adequately measure such aspects? Do we mean action or intent? Are we looking for action in an Antarctic sense or more generally? While presenting the visitor situation in the RSR and the context of this study, these questions are a few...

Although wilderness designations require congressional action, state-level political decisions usually determine whether and when Congress formally acts to designate new wilderness areas. In some cases, such as in Alaska, the issue of wilderness protection becomes nationalized and a wide range of interests beyond the borders of the state shape the eventual policy. But in most states, the fate of wilderness proposals is largely a function of local economic, political, and ecological issues and concerns. While the issues are different in each state, there is great value in comparing the...