Treesearch

This paper explores the influence of demographic and spatial variables on individual participation in wildland area recreation. Data from the National Survey on Recreation and the Environment (NSRE) are combined with GIS-based distance measures to develop nonlinear regression models used to predict both participation and the number of days of participation in wilderness and primitive area recreation. The estimated models corroborate previous findings indicating that race (black), ethnicity (Hispanic), immigrant status, age, and urban dwelling are negatively correlated with wildland...

This paper is divided into a brief background section followed by Part I: Biodiversity Points, and Part II: Suggestions that are needed for the ecological integrity of actual and potential protected areas in Myanmar. Part I consists of general and Myanmar Biodiversity Considerations, and Part II consists of the following suggestions: (l) international financial and technical assistance, (2) establishing more protected areas, (3) transboundary protected arrangements, (4) creating Protected Study Areas (PSAs), (5) establishing Protected Natural Areas (PNAs) of small areas of high biodiversity...

Preserving the last remnants of wild country requires effective legislation, adequate finances, and appropriate policies, but in addition it requires the permanent presence of dedicated park rangers. For the International Ranger Federation, a ranger is a person who works in protected areas, and, among other tasks, is responsible for the protection of the natural and associated cultural resources. Within this broad definition are rangers with very different levels of formal education, and different levels of skills and experience, but all of them are on the frontline of protecting landscapes...

Conservationists rely heavily on support from sectors of the population that want wildlife and wild places protected, but for whom it is not a priority. Support for conservation is widespread but not deep and seems to be weakening. This must be changed. Some of the obstacles are material—such as, fewer people have spent any part of their childhood immersed in nature. But many of the obstacles to deepening support among various constituencies rests with conservationists’ prejudices: a belief that if people know the facts they will do the right thing; that truth by itself can overcome...

There is evidence that Wilderness reduces costs for livestock depredations caused by the endangered and threatened gray wolf (Canis lupus) in the northern Rockies and upper Midwest, U.S.A. From 1995 to 2004, direct costs for compensation in the northern Rockies came to only 47 to 78 percent of losses anticipated at wolf reintroduction and projected from non-wilderness habitat. Compensation was lowest in the wilderness-rich, central Idaho recovery area ($69/wolf/year), more than doubling in greater Yellowstone ($160/wolf/year) where private ranches commingle with extensive grazing leases on...

This paper looks at the definition and concept of national security, and examines how the environment is linked with national security. The traditional, state view of national security that guides most foreign policy includes the concepts of military power, sovereignty and geopolitical stability. This paper advocates broadening the definition of security to include protection of the environment. Access to natural resources, or their depletion and degradation, affects human welfare and can result in the breakdown of political stability. The assumption behind adding the environment as a...

Ninety-five percent of Yosemite National Park is designated wilderness. More than 30 million people live within a day’s drive of the park, and visitation to the wilderness is more than 400,000 people annually. Yosemite is also popular with researchers. In recent years the park has received about 100 research permit applications per year, of which about 75 percent are in wilderness. While the existing permit application system considers the impacts of such proposals, it doesn’t necessarily do so in the context of wilderness character. In the last 4 years, Yosemite wilderness managers have...

Friluftsliv is a unique Norwegian cultural heritage, which is believed to be of great importance to modern society. A brief introduction to the cultural roots of this Nature caring tradition is given. Friluftsliv is a legitimate child of European Romanticism- said to be a “protest movement” against the Age of Enlightenment. Artists and philosophers were the leaders of an offensive against the philosophy of the French founding father of the natural sciences, René Descartes, reducing free Nature into res extensa (having only measurable dimensions and no value in itself). The European...

Strong institutional and systemic barriers prevent traditional political and economic institutions from effectively managing national forests in the United States. Despite consistent support for ecological values by the public, Congress does not protect them, and existing political institutions are not designed to respond effectively to citizens with these concerns. The major difficulty is that modern institutions do not effectively represent publics that are not geographically isolated. On the other hand, tribes such as Wisconsin’s Menimonee in governing their commons have managed forests...

The semi-autonomous Territory of Nunavut in Arctic Canada requires a policy that induces economic diversification and equity for the Inuit population. Though mining continues as the primary economic activity, a focus on preserving Inuit wilderness skills would support cultural continuity and diversification of the Nunavut economy. Traditional Inuit life ways draw no line between culture and the environment. Guiding travelers in the Arctic provides a modest income and cultural integrity. Learning stewardship from northern peoples, we can restore our environment that technological culture...