Treesearch

For many indigenous peoples in North America, wild mountains and rivers and other natural formations exist as physical beings formed as part of a whole by forces that interconnect people with them. This perspective frames a discussion around an idea that expresses time and space as wrapped up in the mountain. If time is within the being of place and space within the mountain, actions to remove parts of the mountain remove pieces of time, such as in the case of putting roads on Mt. Graham in Arizona, damming the Skokomish or drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.The task and its...

Conservation in many of the African countries differs in terms of approaches but it is generally accepted that no matter what system is adopted all aim at protecting the resources in an optimum condition, as would be practicably possible through application of the most contemporary acceptable methodologies. All aim to balance development that assures acceptable levels of resource impacts while taking into consideration benefit to local communities. Proactive communities and the private sector are key dimensions to ensure this achievement in the real sense. Presently, conservation aims at...

The location of the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park wilderness areas along an international border and within a World Heritage Site and Transfrontier Conservation Area, provides unique opportunities and challenges for the stewardship of these areas. Although the wilderness areas were proclaimed more than 30 years ago, wilderness-specific planning, management and monitoring is a recent focus that is challenging managers and scientists to develop alternative management methods for the wilderness areas. Although the wilderness areas are buffered by the Park and transfrontier area, managers are...

The phrase ‘May you live in interesting times’ links well with the sub-discipline of landscape ecology. Recent research in landscape ecology and associated disciplines (for example, conservation biology) provides significant challenges to the traditional conceptions of wilderness and conservation science, and may in part reflect upon our view of contemporary society as being characterized by complexity and uncertainty. Four selected implications of landscape ecology research for wilderness advocates and managers are identified and described. These issues relate to the importance of...

In the areas adjacent to Ruaha National Park where rural communities exist, much more work and education is required to enable them to benefit directly and indirectly from tourism and managing their own natural resources.

The effective planning, implementation, and monitoring of a wilderness education program will ultimately produce measurable results that can be instrumental in achieving wilderness management goals and objectives. This paper will provide a simple step-by-step overview of how to develop and maintain a successful wilderness education program through planning, implementation, and monitoring. It may also serve to help build “consistent wilderness education program standards” for wilderness managers around the globe.

Traditional ecological knowledge within specific cultural and geographical contexts was explored during an interactive session at the 8th World Wilderness Congress to identify traditional principles of sustainability. Participants analyzed the traditional knowledge contained in ten posters from Canada and Alaska and identified and discussed the traditional principles of sustainability inherent in specific examples. An invited panel discussed the opportunities and challenges of incorporating traditional principles of sustainability in wilderness management. This paper reports on principles...

A relationship with nature begins at birth when the neonate is a silent participant at the elaborate rites. A number of specified plant species are used during this ceremony and a highlight is the holding of an ‘umbrella’ of Mahonia leschenaultiana over the mother and the newborn—to protect them from the destructive influence of a star called keihhtt. In fact, the baby’s face is never exposed to the outdoors for this reason, until the naming ceremony occurs after a couple of months. At the naming rites, the child’s face is ceremonially exposed in front of the dairy temple of the hamlet, by...

Emergent processes dominate modern social orders as well as natural ones. Research in the 1920s concluded that complexity and importance of local knowledge made it impossible to centrally plan complex economies. Subsequent experience in the Soviet Union and elsewhere confirmed these arguments. Further, organizations charged with performing tasks they could not accomplish redefined their tasks in terms that were good for them. The same pattern of organizational impossibility and redefining of tasks appears in studies of salmon hatcheries and salmon farms: attempts to impose centralized...

One aspect of wilderness often not considered by managers is that of how to manage cemeteries within wilderness boundaries. In wildernesses where humans have left their mark, particularly such as those found in the eastern United States, wilderness staff may find themselves in the role of cemetery manager as well as wilderness manager. The challenges are many. A manager must balance wilderness values with the deep emotional need of people to bury and honor their dead. This may require making decisions regarding requests for motorized access, burial, maintenance, and reconciling national...