International Journal of Wilderness, Vol 11 No 3, December 2005

Eastern U.S.Wilderness8th World Wilderness CongressMinimizing nonconforming usesMadagascar

I N T E R N A T I O N A L

Journal of WildernessDECEMBER 2005 VOLUME 11, NUMBER 3

FRONT COVER The magnificent El Carmen escaprment, one of the the “skyislands” of Coahuilo, Mexico. Photo by Patricio Robles Gil/Sierra Madre.

INSET Ancient grain grinding site, Maderas del Carmen, Coahuilo, Mexico.Photo by Vance G. Martin.

FEATURES3 Is Eastern Wilderness ”Real”?

BY REBECCA ORESKES

SOUL OF THE WILDERNESS4 Florida Wilderness

Working with Traditional Tools after a HurricaneBY SUSAN JENKINS

STEWARDSHIP7 A Truly National Wilderness

Preservation SystemBY DOUGLAS W. SCOTT

13 Keeping the Wild in WildernessMinimizing Nonconforming Uses in theNational Wilderness Preservation SystemBY GEORGE NICKAS and KEVIN PROESCHOLDT

19 Developing Wilderness Indicators on theWhite Mountain National ForestBY DAVE NEELY

22 Understanding the Cultural, Existence, andBequest Values of WildernessBY RUDY M. SCHUSTER, H. KEN CORDELL, andBRAD PHILLIPS

26 8th World Wilderness Congress GeneratesConservation ResultsBY VANCE G. MARTIN

SCIENCE AND RESEARCHPERSPECTIVES FROM THE ALDO LEOPOLDWILDERNESS RESEARCH INSTITUTE

30 Social and Institutional Influences onWilderness Fire StewardshipBY KATIE KNOTEK

31 WildernessIn Whose Backyard?BY GARY T. GREEN, MICHAEL A. TARRANT, UTTIYORAYCHAUDHURI, and YANGJIAN ZHANG

EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATION39 Changes in the Aftermath of Natural Disasters

When Is Too Much ChangeUnacceptable to Visitors?BY JOSEPH FLOOD and CRAIG COLISTRA

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES42 Wilderness Conservation in a Biodiversity Hotspot

BY RUSSELL A. MITTERMEIER, FRANK HAWKINS,

SERGE RAJAOBELINA, and OLIVIER LANGRAND

WILDERNESS DIGEST46 Announcements and Wilderness Calendar

Book Review48 How Should America’s Wilderness Be Managed?

edited by Stuart A. KallenREVIEWED BY JOHN SHULTIS

2 International Journal of Wilderness DECEMBER 2005 • VOLUME 11, NUMBER 3

EDITORIAL BOARDPerry Brown, University of Montana, Missoula, Mont., USA

Vance G. Martin, WILD Foundation, Ojai, Calif., USAAlan Watson, Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, Missoula, Mont., USA

John Shultis, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, B.C., CanadaSteve Hollenhorst, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho, USA

Rebecca Oreskes, White Mountain National Forest, Gorham, N.H., USAH. Ken Cordell, Wilderness and Trends Research Forestry Sciences Laboratory, USDA Forest Service, Atlanta, Ga., USA

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFJohn C. Hendee, Professor Emeritus, University of Idaho Wilderness Research Center, Moscow, Idaho, USA

MANAGING EDITORChad P. Dawson, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, N.Y., USA

ASSOCIATE EDITORS—INTERNATIONALGordon Cessford, Department of Conservation, Wellington, New Zealand; Karen Fox, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; Andrew Muir,Wilderness Foundation Eastern Cape, South Africa; Ian Player, South Africa National Parks Board and The Wilderness Foundation, Howick, Natal, Republic ofSouth Africa; Vicki A. M. Sahanatien, Fundy National Park, Alma, Canada; Won Sop Shin, Chungbuk National University, Chungbuk, Korea; Anna-LiisaSippola, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland; Franco Zunino, Associazione Italiana per la Wilderness, Murialdo, Italy.

ASSOCIATE EDITORS—UNITED STATESGreg Aplet, The Wilderness Society, Denver, Colo.; David Cole, Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, Missoula, Mont.; John Daigle, University ofMaine, Orono, Maine; Don Fisher, USFS, Washington D.C.; Joseph Flood, East Carolina University, Greenville, N.C.; Lewis Glenn, Outward Bound USA,Garrison, N.Y.; Glenn Haas, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colo.; Troy Hall, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho; William Hammit, ClemsonUniversity, Clemson, S.C.; Greg Hansen, U.S. Forest Service, Mesa, Ariz.; Dave Harmon, Bureau of Land Management, Portland, Oreg.; Bill Hendricks,California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Calif.; Ed Krumpe, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho; Jim Mahoney, Bureau of Land Management,Sierra Vista, Ariz.; Bob Manning, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vt.; Jeffrey Marion, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, Va.; Leo McAvoy,University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn.; Michael McCloskey, Sierra Club; Christopher Monz, St. Lawrence University, Canton, N.Y.; Connie Myers,Arthur Carhart Wilderness Training Center, Missoula, Mont.; Roderick Nash, University of California, Santa Barbara, Calif.; David Ostergren, NorthernArizona University, Flagstaff, Ariz.; Marilyn Riley, Wilderness Transitions Inc., Sausalito, Calif.; Joe Roggenbuck, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, Va.;Holmes Rolston III, Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, Colo.; Susan Sater, U.S. Forest Service, Portland, Oreg.; Tod Schimelpfenig, National OutdoorLeadership School, Lander, Wyo.; Rudy Schuster, SUNY-ESF, Syracuse, N.Y.; Elizabeth Thorndike, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.; Jay Watson, The WildernessSociety, San Francisco, Calif.; Dave White, Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz.

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International Journal of Wilderness DECEMBER 2005 • VOLUME 11, NUMBER 3 3

FEATURES

E D I T O R I A L P E R S P E C T I V E S

Lately I’ve been at several meetings or events and lis-tened to people talk about “real” wilderness. Theywere making a distinction between what they saw

as large, wild areas with few people both in the westernUnited States and elsewhere, versus wilderness in the East,areas surrounded by human populations, long ago impactedby human use. These are smaller areas, usually strugglingto find a semblance of balance between human use and theidea of self-willed land.

It reminded me of when people talk about “real jobs.”After working seasonally for many years, in the mountains,on farms, as a cross-country ski patrol, it took me a longtime to get a “real job,” which I understood to be one withbenefits and year-round commitments. Once I got one ofthose jobs it didn’t seem any more or less “real” to me. Iguess I never have quite understood the distinction.

The references to “real” wilderness got my head spin-ning. I did what I usually do when my mind is spinning: Itook a walk in wilderness. Eastern wilderness. I walked bymyself, getting wet from rain-soaked trees and grasses thatoverhung the trail, past moose tracks and marten scat, by afree-flowing river that sang not for my benefit but becauseof its own nature. It all seemed pretty real to me.

The area I walked in, as is the case with many easternwildernesses, was not untouched by humans. It had beenlogged; railroads had once crisscrossed its landscape, al-though most people could not tell today. In the history of

the landscape, people had made a choice to move from ex-ploitation to protection. Humans had made a consciouschoice to change their relationship with the land.

The East is in many ways where the U.S. National Wilder-ness Preservation System was born. From Bob Marshall’sroots in the Adirondacks, to Howard Zanhiser’s cabin inthe Adirondack woods where he created the WildernessAct, the eastern United States has helped forge the nation’swilderness ethic. In those early years of the wildernessmovement, the East served as a cautionary tale against ram-pant exploitation. Now, eastern wilderness symbolizes thatsome recovery can come with careful stewardship. The Eastcontinues to be filled with wilderness stewardship chal-lenges. Still, amidst a rising population and increasingimpacts to the natural environment, islands of wildernessrepresent our changing relationship to the land.

This issue focuses on and celebrates wilderness steward-ship in the eastern United States and around the world,from Doug Scott’s history of wilderness designation to adiscussion of how Madagascar proposes to address some ofits wilderness stewardship dilemmas. This issue is full oftales about the struggles of designating and caring for wilder-ness and attests to the rich history of people and theirrelationship to wilderness. Eastern wilderness certainlyseems real to me—and to the millions of people who livenear it. After all, our relationship with the land is as realand as meaningful as we make it. IJW

Is Eastern Wilderness “Real”?BY REBECCA ORESKES

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S O U L O F T H E W I L D E R N E S S

FEATURES

Florida WildernessWorking with Traditional Tools after a Hurricane

BY SUSAN JENKINS

Clearing up after one hurricane is an immense task. Clearing up after three hurricanes—hurricanesCharley, Frances, and Jeanne—can seem insurmountable. In November of 2004, the national forests inFlorida requested assistance from wilderness and traditional tools experts throughout the Forest Service.An assessment team was assembled to determine the best and most sensitive approach to reopening theFlorida National Scenic Trail and Juniper Run through some of the most unique and protected habitats inFlorida. Despite the dangerous conditions posed by hundreds of downed trees along the trail and in thewaters of the run, the team was tasked with devising a safe plan that would not require the use of anymotorized or mechanized equipment in accordance with the values detailed in the Wilderness Act of1964. The team was highly successful. Not only were the Florida National Scenic Trail and Juniper Runsafely reopened, but traditional tool skills that were instrumental in the settlement of Florida long agowere rejuvenated and found to be just as useful and relevant today as they were in our past. The follow-ing article is a firsthand account and interpretation of the effort as written by recovery team memberSusan Jenkins, a wilderness ranger from Idaho who came to Florida to participate in the work.

—Michelle Mitchell, USDA Forest Service, National Forests in Florida

January comes in cold and damp on the Florida Na-tional Scenic Trail and the Juniper Springs Canoe Run.Both are found in the Juniper Prairie Wilderness onthe Ocala National Forest. It is a different world here.

The mornings are freezing but the day quickly warms.Walking along the tall grasses, we are soaked with sweat.The 75-degree weather feels stifling, and the humidity soaksus as though we are breathing under tepid water. It is noteven hot or really humid yet.

Days later we are jumping out of canoes into swampmuck to our chests. We are too cold to rest during the day.Methane gases bubble up and the stench is … interesting.Our frustration mounts when saws bind repeatedly as em-bedded sand in both oak and bay trees dull the cuttingteeth. In the middle of the run the tension and binds withinthe trees change as the current pulls the limbs back andforth as we saw beneath the surface. We can’t even saw intothe palms as the pith repeatedly pinches the steel. Oursharpened axes chip and ring as they strike the downedoaks covering the trail and waterways. At the end of the

day, we have traveled less than a hundred yards. But this isa unique chance to see the amazingly different country.

There is no doubt that this is a beautiful and uniqueplace. As we travel from one end of the wilderness to theother, we encounter a landscape shifting from small pondsand lakes to swamps, runs, and prairies. Vegetation variesas this complex countryside changes from hardwood tolongleaf islands historically shaped by fire. The JuniperCanoe Run is canopied by live oaks with Spanish mosshanging from its branches. As we work to clear the water-way, alligators and water moccasins become a dailyhappening that takes a while to get used to. There are tickchecks at night, and the chiggers and mosquitoes are bitingevery warm evening.

Different and incredibly beautiful. Many of us workbetween two large wildernesses encompassing 3 millionacres (1.2 million ha) with one gravel road between them.But this country becomes more valuable as there is so littleleft. In a single afternoon we drive around the entireperimeter of the Juniper Prairie Wilderness. You have so


Figure 1—Florida Trail Association members Megan Griffin andSara Griffin of Tallahassee demonstrate one way to use thecrosscut saw with the help of Dr. Don Jastad. Photo courtesy ofFlorida Trail Association.

many visitors, and there is not muchwildland remaining. … How do youplan and deal with the managementdecisions needed to preserve some-thing so unique? It is easy for any ofus to see why people come from as faraway as Venezuela and Germany to bea part of the Florida Trail Association’sefforts to work in this wilderness.

Outdoor enthusiasts and winter hik-ers are aware of the destructionhurricanes Charley, Frances, Jean, andIvan inflicted on nearly all segments ofthe Florida National Scenic Trail(Florida Trail). In October, after the lastof the storms had passed, it was esti-mated that 80% of the 1,400-mile trail(2,258 kilometers) was either closed orunder assessment for damages. But thevolunteers and land managers that carefor this trail are innovative and dedi-cated. Despite having to deal withrepairs to their own homes and prop-erty as a result of the storms, peoplecame out in force to rebuild sections ofthe trail and remove blowdown thatblocked trail access. In four months,volunteers from the many differentchapters of the Florida Trail Associa-tion (FTA) had cleared most of the trail.Bridges, boardwalks, and campsiteswere cleaned and repaired.

The nine-mile (14.5 km) section ofthe Florida Trail within the JuniperWilderness called for some creativethinking and problem solving. This isthe only section of the Florida Trailpassing through designated wildernessthat was affected by the hurricanes. Trailusers, volunteers, and land managersrealize that the Juniper Prairie is a raresetting in Florida’s national forests. And,like the wilderness areas in the west-ern states, a different type ofmanagement approach is called for. Theuse of traditional (non motorized) toolshas been a keystone for managing wil-derness since 1964, when theWilderness Act was enacted. One of the

most positive outcomes of its passageis that certain skills that may otherwisehave vanished have been kept alive.This is one of the benefits of wilderness.

Some individuals believed that us-ing traditional tools would not be aviable alternative when reopening theimpacted trails and canoe runs. Oth-ers saw the recovery efforts in adifferent light. This was an opportu-nity to reopen the trails and canoe runsand to revitalize skills that had notbeen a part of the maintenance of theFlorida Trail for many years. Florida’sforest-related culture is filled with ex-amples of traditional tool use. Crosscutsaws, axes, and rigging equipmentsuch as hoists and winches figuredstrongly into logging operations, roadand trail construction, and the build-ing of structures. The Wilderness Actrequires the use of nonmotorizedmeans in designated wilderness exceptin fire-related emergencies, law en-forcement, and medical emergencysituations. We tried to develop an edu-cational context and recovery plan thatallowed for the work to be accom-plished safely and efficiently whilefully meeting the directives of the act.

In other places, we sometimes en-counter resistance to the use of handtools as a means of performing trail main-tenance for accomplishing trail andrestoration work. Many people believethat chain saws and motorized rock drillsare the only effective means for openingand reconstructing mountain pathways.Our work in Florida has been viewed ina different light. And the feedback wereceived from managers and wildernessvisitors will increase our resolve whenwe return to our jobs out west.

As we visited with hikers fromFlorida and all over the world whilecutting the hiking trails, we were over-whelmed with the positive responses.People told us how important it wasto know that traditional hand-tool

skills are still alive, and many quicklydeveloped an emotional involvementin just knowing that these means arebeing used to accomplish the jobs athand. As often happens, when com-plex recovery projects are initially laidout, individuals look at the sheeramount of work to be done. Manycompare tool options for the job ratherthan comparing the tools within thecontext of the work to be done.

A chain saw is definitely faster andeasier to use than a crosscut saw. How-ever, in the heavy blowdown that wehave encountered from high winds, wehave seen that only a small percent-age of the work involves sawing. Mostof the job lies in moving the materialsafter the sawing has been finished. Inaddition to working within JuniperPrairie Wilderness, our crews wereasked to clear downed trees from thenonwilderness portions of AlexanderCanoe Run where chain saws are aviable method for accomplishingwork. We brought power saws along,but we were unable to use them effec-tively, as most of the sawing had to bedone under water in order to clear therun to a depth allowing for outboardmotors. We quickly returned to handtools and cleared the run in a few days.

Initial examination of the FloridaTrail and Juniper Canoe Run showedimpacts from the hurricanes thatseemed horrendous, with trees piledinto huge jackstraws. With a seemingly


overwhelming task ahead, a recoveryprogram was put in motion. Landmanagers from the national forests inFlorida and the Nez Perce andClearwater National Forests in Idahodesigned a plan to promote strongerpartnerships among local forests, his-torical societies, and the FTA in orderto complete the work in an economicfashion. Long-term plans were devel-oped to promote these partnershipsand cooperation into the future.

Upon arrival in Florida, tool train-ers from the western regions of theU.S. Forest Service met with local land

management employees and volun-teers to embark on a four-day trainingprogram with classroom and practi-cal sessions. Learning about traditionaltools is more than just learning howto swing an ax or run a saw in thewoods. Good tool usage is part skilland physical ability, but efficient worktakes place when planning and layoutare present in the working process.

The practical sessions were de-signed to let everyone involved learnhow to use the hand tools and riggingequipment to their full advantage. Par-ticipants quickly understood that

traditional crosscut saw and ax skillsalong with skyline logging techniqueswill continue to play an important partin trail and bridge maintenance andrestoration in backcountry areas. Witha never-ending need to continue trailmaintenance, there will be plenty oftime to perfect technique.

The training was geared towardteaching and reviving skills; how-ever, it was also about learning howthese tools coupled with unlimitedimagination can be used to solveall sorts of trail construction andreconstruction problems in the back-country. As trainers, the bestfeedback we can receive is seeingideas and thoughts taking root inparticipants. By the end of the train-ing, what began as a four-day sessionstretched into five, and FTA volun-teers from around the state began toreevaluate methods of constructionfor future Florida National ScenicTrail projects using the traditionaltool skills they had learned. IJW

SUSAN JENKINS was formerly awilderness ranger on the Nez PerceNational Forest in Idaho and is now on theTongass National Forest in Alaska. E-mail:[email protected].

From BIODIVERSITY HOTSPOT on page 45

Figure 2—Juniper Springs run in the Juniper Prairie Wilderness located in Florida (USDA Forest Service).Photo by Deborah Caffin.

RUSSELL A. MITTERMEIER, Ph.D., ispresident of Conservation International andis a prominent primatologist, herpetologist,and wildlife conservationist with more than30 years of field experience. He also servesas chairman of IUCN’s Primate SpecialistGroup, IUCN’s Regional councillor forNorth America and the Caribbean, andhas a long history of professional involve-ment in Madagascar. Email:[email protected].

FRANK HAWKINS is technical directorfor Conservation International inMadagascar. Originally from the UK, hehas lived in Madagascar for nearly 20years, starting out with research on theconservation biology of birds. He hasalso worked on the biogeography,conservation, and distribution ofMalagasy carnivores and primates.

SERGE RAJAOBELINA is the secretarygeneral of Association Fanamby, aconservation organization in Madagascar.E-mail: [email protected].

OLIVIER LANGRAND, Ph.D., is senior vicepresident of Conservation International’sAfrica and Madagascar Division. He has20 years of experience in internationalbiodiversity conservation programplanning, and management, and is anexpert on the birds of the southwesternIndian Ocean islands.


STEWARDSHIP

Today the National Wilderness Preservation Systemincludes 166 units east of the Rocky Mountains,comprising some 4,245,000 acres (1.7 million hect-

ares)—nearly 9% of all designated wilderness in the 49 statesother than Alaska (www.wilderness.net, accessed April 8,2005). In this article, “east” means the half of the continentalUnited States east of the Rockies and embraces a wide vari-ety of forest types, prairie grasslands, wetlands, and swamps.

Those who conceived and enacted the Wilderness Actenvisioned a single system of areas held to one definitionand stewardship mandate nationwide. They laid down twofundamental ideas:

1. Wilderness areas will be diverse in size and wildness. InAldo Leopold’s words, “In any practical [wilderness] pro-gram the unit areas to be preserved must vary greatly insize and in degree of wildness” (Leopold 1949, p. 189).

2. The defining concept of wilderness was never some idealof pure, virgin nature. The framers of our national wil-derness policy welcomed opportunities to preserve suchareas, but their wilderness definition embraces landswith past human impacts. One founder of The Wilder-ness Society, Harvey Broome, wrote to Peter J. Hanlonon May 18, 1962: “A wild area is not necessarily a vir-gin area, but is one without roads and mechanizedmeans of transportation… .” (The Wilderness Societyarchives, Western History Collection, Denver PublicLibrary). Broome was addressing the suitability of theShining Rock Wilderness (North Carolina), now a unitof the wilderness system.

In 1947, leaders of The Wilderness Society set in motionthe campaign that led to the enactment of the WildernessAct. Howard Zahniser, the society’s executive director, drafted

the legislation. As first introduced in 1956, the bill namedeach federal land unit involved. Later, generic languagereplaced this long list of forest, park, and refuge units, butthe original list demonstrates that the sponsors always in-tended a nationwide wilderness system. The list includedthe U.S. Forest Service (USFS)–administered BoundaryWaters Canoe Area (Minnesota) and Linville Gorge (NorthCarolina); national wildlife refuges, including Moosehorn(Maine), Okefenokee Swamp (Georgia), and Wichita Moun-tains (Oklahoma); and national park areas, includingEverglades (Florida), Great Smoky Mountains (Tennessee andGeorgia), and Shenandoah (Virginia) (U.S. Senate, 1956).All involved were aware that these and other eastern unitsinvolved lands disturbed by past human impacts.

During Senate debate, Senator Thomas Kuchel (R-CA),responded to concern that there would be reason:

for fear or trepidation on the part of Senators represent-ing Eastern States that forest areas within their States …could not … become a part of the wilderness system. Ideny it. … If the distinguished senior Senator from

A Truly NationalWilderness Preservation System

BY DOUGLAS W. SCOTT

Figure 1—Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge Wilderness in New Jersey (Fish & WildlifeService). Photo by Robert Johnson.


tabulation of the acreage of the wilder-ness areas to be immediately protected.Chairman Aspinall characterized theseareas, which became statutorily desig-nated wilderness in the 1964 act, ashaving been “administratively desig-nated as having wildernesscharacteristics.” He explained howclosely his committee reviewed thesenew areas before approving them:

Parenthetically, I note for therecord that 2 years ago whenour Committee on Interior andInsular Affairs was consideringwilderness legislation therewere only 6,822,400 acres ofland [administratively] desig-nated as “wilderness,” “wild” and“canoe” and that the increase of2,317,321 acres that has takenplace since then has been ac-complished by the Departmentof Agriculture after coordina-tion with the Committee onInterior and Insular Affairs.”(Aspinall 1964, p. 16,846)

The framers of the Wilderness Actdesigned a practical law applicable to therealities of land use history. SenatorClinton P. Anderson (D-NM), lead spon-sor of the Wilderness Act and chairmanof the Senate committee, carefully ex-plained the two-sentence definition:

The first sentence is a defini-tion of pure wilderness areas,where “the earth and its com-munity of life are untrammeledby man.” … It states the ideal.The second sentence definesthe meaning or nature of anarea of wilderness as used inthe proposed act: A substantialarea retaining its primevalcharacter, without permanentimprovements, which is to beprotected and managed soman’s works are “substantiallyunnoticeable.” The second ofthese definitions of the term, giv-ing the meaning used in the act,is somewhat less “severe” or“pure” than the first.” (Anderson1961, p. 2), emphasis added.

Senator Kuchel spoke with particularauthority as one of the 10 original co-sponsors of the wilderness bill in June1956, the second most senior Repub-lican member of the Committee onInterior and Insular Affairs, whichapproved the bill in 1961, and thecommittee’s most senior Republicanwhen it reapproved the bill in 1963.

In its final form, the law immediatelydesignated four eastern areas, includingthe Shining Rock Wilderness (NorthCarolina) that the Forest Service estab-lished administratively in May 1964. Theentire area showed fading evidence ofextensive railroad logging and slash firesthat occurred between 1906 and 1926(USFS 1993). After visiting the area,Harvey Broome, then president of TheWilderness Society, wrote to Peter J.Hanlon on May 18, 1962:

The fact that it has been cut-over and burned-over is unfor-tunate, but areas of this size arelimited in number in the eastand … it is desirable to set suchaside as there is opportunity. …The need is so great in the eastand southeast that it is fortu-nate that Shining Rock is be-ing considered … and in fiftyor one hundred years it willreach a high degree of restora-tion. (The Wilderness Societyarchives, Western History Col-lection, Denver Public Library)

In including this and the other wil-derness areas immediately designatedin the act, the floor leader in the Houseof Representatives noted that his “com-mittee, in effect, was reviewing each ofthese areas individually” (Aspinall1964, p. 16846), finding that each hadbeen defined with precision and metall of the criteria of the soon-to-be-en-acted law—including areas in both theEast and West that had a history of ear-lier human impacts. As the House ofRepresentatives debated the WildernessAct, Shining Rock was included in a

Figure 2—Aerial view of Cedar Keys Wilderness in Florida (Fish& Wildlife Service). Photo courtesy of Fish & Wildlife Service.

Figure 3—Lye Brook Wilderness in Vermont (USDA ForestService). Photo by John Romanowski.

Florida wishes to introduceproposed legislation creating awilderness out of any of thearea owned by the Govern-ment of the United States in hisown State, let him do so. …That would be precisely whatwould be required of him if theproposed wilderness legisla-tion were enacted into law.(Kuchel 1961, p.16919)


In 1964, eastern areas qualified aswilderness according to both the For-est Service and Congress. Yet six yearslater the agency opposed congressionaldesignation of new wilderness areas inWest Virginia with similar land use his-tories of decades-old logging. In 1971the USFS associate chief speaking be-fore the Sierra Club’s BiennialWilderness Conference on September24 noted that “areas with wildernesscharacteristics as defined in the Wilder-ness Act are virtually all in the West”(Roth 1988, p. 39). For its own politi-cal reasons, the agency hierarchyadopted a new “purity” interpreta-tion—that no land with a history ofhuman disturbance, east or west, couldqualify as wilderness. This purity in-terpretation was consciously evolved byagency leaders (Costley 1972).

The USFS quietly drafted an alter-native to the Wilderness Act toestablish a system of wild areas withinthe land of the national forest systemand peddled it on Capitol Hill. Theirbill (S. 3699, 92nd Congress, 2nd ses-sion) was described as necessarybecause eastern areas “do not meetthe strict criteria of the WildernessAct” (Aiken 1972, p. 20570). Mem-bers of Congress who championedthe Wilderness Act resolved to turnback this misinterpretation. Repre-sentative John Saylor (R-PA), leadsponsor of the Wilderness Act in theHouse, challenged those:

who tell us [the act] is too nar-row, too rigid, and too pure inits qualifying standards to al-low any formerly abused landsor lands with present abusethat can be restored with time.I fought too long and too hard,and too many good people inthis House and across this landfought with me, to see the Wil-derness Act denied application… by this kind of obtuse orhostile misinterpretation ormisconstruction of the public

law and the intent of the Con-gress of the United States.(Saylor 1973, p. 849)

Senator Henry Jackson (D-WA)warned his colleagues that

a serious and fundamentalmisinterpretation of the Wil-derness Act has recentlygained some credence, thuscreating a real danger to theobjective of securing a trulynational wilderness preserva-tion system. It is my hope tocorrect this false so-called“purity theory” which threatensthe strength and broad appli-cation of the Wilderness Act.(Jackson 1973, p. 754)

Senator Frank Church (D-ID),leader of the Senate debate on theWilderness Act, observed that “the ef-fect of such an interpretation wouldbe to automatically disqualify almosteverything, for few if any lands on thiscontinent—or any other—have es-caped man’s imprint to some degree”(Church 1973a, p. S737). Churchpointed out that the Wilderness Actitself “placed three eastern areas intothe National Wilderness PreservationSystem [that] … had a former historyof some past land abuse,” explaining,“This was by no means a so-calledgrandfathering arrangement. It was,and is, a standing and intentional pre-cedent to encourage such areas to befound and designated under the actin other eastern locations” (Church1973a, p. S738).

In launching their purity inter-pretation, the Forest Service hierarchy

was out of step with the other agenciesworking correctly under the WildernessAct criteria. Presidents recommendednew wilderness areas in national parksand national wildlife refuges in the East,and Congress steadily added these areasto the wilderness system—lands witha history of land use impacts, such asrefuge wilderness areas, including GreatSwamp (New Jersey, 1968), Seney(Michigan, 1970), and WichitaMountains (Oklahoma, 1970).

Wilderness advocates and theircongressional allies responded to theForest Service legislation with acounter bill, the proposed EasternWilderness Areas Act. At hearings,Senator Church emphasized the threatthe purity misinterpretation posed tothe vision of a single nationwide sys-tem of wilderness areas, telling theForest Service: “If we [adopt yourinterpretation] we will be saying, ineffect, that you can’t include a compa-rable area in the West in the wildernesssystem. That is the precise effect ofyour approach, because you will haveredefined section 2(c) of the Wilder-ness Act” (Church 1973b, p. 31).

The framers of the Wilderness Act designeda practical law applicable to the realities

of land use history.

Figure 4—“Snowshoer” on Baker Peak in Big Branch Wildernessin Vermont (USDA Forest Service). Photo by George Wuerthner.


In the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act(Public Law 93-622) signed by Presi-dent Gerald Ford on January 3, 1975,Congress designated 16 new wilder-ness areas totaling 206,988 acres(83,800 hectares) of national forestslands east of the Rockies. The final leg-islation adopted some elements of theForest Service–inspired bill, but didnot alter the definition and intent ofthe Wilderness Act. Congress hadflatly repudiated the most seriousthreat to the vision of a nationwidewilderness system.

Understanding the legislative his-tory of the Wilderness Act and theEastern Wilderness Areas Act helpsreinforce seven important lessons:

1. The National Wilderness Preserva-tion System is just that—national.Wilderness areas east and west aresubject to the same criteria and stew-ardship mandate. The Forest Servicenow administers 121 wilderness ar-eas comprising some 1,950,000 acres(789,473 hectares) east of theRockies. Widened to all agencies,there are 166 wilderness areas com-prising 4,245,000 acres (1.7 millionhectares) in that region, including

most recently the Gaylord NelsonWilderness in Apostle Islands Na-tional Lakeshore (Wisconsin) signedby President George W. Bush in De-cember 2004.

2. Our National Wilderness Preser-vation System is wildly diverse.The wilderness system, still a workin progress, already fulfills AldoLeopold’s vision that in any practi-cal wilderness program, the areaswill be diverse in both size and de-gree of wildness. Of the smaller areasnearer population centers, Leopold,Bob Marshall, and the otherfounders of The Wilderness Societyobserved that “although one cannotobtain in them the adventure, thedependence on competence [for sur-vival], and the emotional thrill of theextensive wilderness, they are theclosest approximation to wildernessconditions available to millions ofpeople” (The Wilderness Society1935, p. 2).

3. There is no “eastern wildernessact.” The law signed January 3,1975, has no short title, whichwould usually be found in section

one. In fact, this law has no sec-tion one, reflecting a clerical errorback when “cut-and-paste” meantjust that. Dropped on the cuttingroom floor was the short title “East-ern Wilderness Areas Act,” the titleof the Senate-passed bill and theversion approved by the Housecommittee. The word Areas in thistitle signals that this was simplyone more law designating addi-tional areas within the one-systemstructure of the Wilderness Act.Had the title been “Eastern Wilder-ness Act,” some might argue itimplied a separate legal regime forwilderness areas in the East.

4. Congress, not the agencies, de-cides what lands are suitable aswilderness. Federal agencies pro-vide recommendations on proposedwilderness legislation. But executivebranch recommendations are notdefinitive; recommendations alsocome from other interested parties.As exemplified by the Eastern Wil-derness Areas Act, Congress acts asa “court of appeals” to which citi-zens may appeal when they feel anagency’s political leadership is mis-interpreting the act or taking anunsatisfactory position on the di-mensions of a proposed area.

5. Purity: “A misperception ex-ists—let’s get rid of it.” The puritytheory is demonstrably at oddswith the congressional intent of theWilderness Act. Congress has des-ignated many wilderness areaswith a history of human impacts,whether over an entire area (as istrue of the Gaylord Nelson Wilder-ness designated in 2004) or in aportion, as is typical in lower el-evation valleys or plateaus in theWest where some evidence of ear-lier human impact can almost

Figure 5—Shenandoah Wilderness in Virginia (National Park Service). Photo courtesy of National Park Service.


invariably be found. Nonetheless,the purity theory is raised periodi-cally by agency personnel, interestgroups, or members of Congresswho do not know this history orare unsympathetic to new wilder-ness designations. I like the adviceone Forest Service official offeredat an agency workshop in 1983:“Understand that there is one, andonly one, National WildernessPreservation System as establishedby Congress. The Wilderness Sys-tem is dynamic and diversifiedthroughout our Nation. … Amisperception exists—let’s get ridof it” (Joy 1983, p. 6).

6. Restoration is an importantissue for wilderness managers.Given the fact that no wildernessarea is or could be utterly “pure,”administrators are presented withchallenges concerning possibleactive steps to restore what someperceive to be more “natural” eco-system function. My own view isthat east or west, great hesitationis needed in decisions to activelymanipulate a wilderness environ-ment in the name of restoring whatwe might perceive as more naturalecosystem function. A fundamen-tal underpinning of wildernessphilosophy and the Wilderness Actis that in these areas we meetnature on its terms, with humil-ity—including the humbleawareness that ecological “certain-ties” we perceive today may provewrong with greater knowledge inthe future. As Howard Zahniserput it, in wilderness we should be“guardians, not gardeners” (Zahniser1963, p. 2).

7. Congress has worked to getwilderness closer to urban popu-lations. Congress has made a

particular effort to protect wilder-ness areas near where people live,beginning with the1968 designa-tion of the San Gabriel Wildernessadjacent to Pasadena, California.Today the system includes theSandia Mountain Wildernessand the Pusch Ridge Wilderness,literally on the city limits of Albu-querque and Tucson, respectively.For the same reason, where theopportunities for protecting wilder-ness areas are so constrained, as inthe eastern half of the countrywhere federal lands are so rare,Congress has shown a consistentstrong interest in securing near-the-people wilderness areas.

ConclusionThe rich legislative history docu-mented by the framers and championsof the Wilderness Act is reinforced inthe legislative history of more than 120laws adding new lands to the wilder-ness system. This history consistentlydemonstrates that in its broad pur-pose and fine details, this is a practicallaw thoughtfully shaped by practicalpeople. As in the eastern wildernessdebate, we have an obligation to sus-tain their practical vision and notwander into misinterpretations thatwould hamstring the building of theNational Wilderness PreservationSystem.

In statutory language in the Ver-mont Wilderness Act of 1984,Congress chose to remind us of itslong, consistent application of the fun-damental features of the WildernessAct. It is a concise statement not lim-ited to Vermont or the East—a

statement every agency wildernesssteward and every wilderness advocateshould keep readily at hand:

The Wilderness Act establishesthat an area is qualified andsuitable for designation as wil-derness which (i) though man’sworks may have been presentin the past, has been or maybe so restored by natural influ-ences as to generally appear tohave been affected primarily bythe forces of nature, with theimprint of man’s work substan-tially unnoticeable, and (ii)may, upon designation as wil-derness, contain certain preex-isting, nonconforming uses,improvements, structures, orinstallations, and Congress hasreaffirmed these establishedpolicies in the designation ofadditional areas since enact-ment of the Wilderness Act,exercising its sole authority todetermine the suitability ofsuch areas for designation aswilderness.” (Public Law 98–322, Section 101[a][5]) IJW

REFERENCESAiken, George. 1972. Congressional Record,

June 13, 20570.Anderson, Clinton P. 1961. Wilderness Act:

Hearings before the Senate Committeeon Interior and Insular Affairs on S. 174.87th Congress, 1st session, February27–28.

Aspinall, Wayne. 1964. National WildernessPreservation System. Congressional Record,July 30, 16846, bound edition.

Church, Frank. 1973a. The Wilderness Actapplies to the East. Congressional Record,January 16 (daily edition).

Church, Frank. 1973b. Eastern wildernessareas: Hearing before the Subcommittee onPublic Lands on S. 316. Senate Committeeon Interior and Insular Affairs, 93rd Con-gress, 1st session, February 21.

Costley, Richard J. 1972. An enduring resource.American Forests (June): 8.

The purity theory is demonstrably at odds with thecongressional intent of the Wilderness Act.


Jackson, Henry. 1973. Congressional Record,January 11, 754.

Joy, Charles R. 1983. One National WildernessPreservation System—Resolving the percep-tion of eastern, western, and Alaskan wilder-ness. Transcript of a talk at the University ofIdaho Wilderness Workshop, Moscow, ID,October 12, 1983 (author’s files).

Kuchel, Thomas. 1961. Establishment ofNational Wilderness Preservation System.

Congressional Record, September 5, 16919,bound edition.

Leopold, Aldo. 1949. A Sand County Almanac.New York: Oxford University Press.

Public Law 93-622. 1975. Eastern WildernessAreas Act, 88 Stat. 2096, January 3.

Public Law 98–322. 1984. Vermont WildernessAct of 1984, June 19, 98 Stat. 253, Section101(a)(5).

Roth, Dennis M. 1988. The Wilderness Movement

and the National Forests. College Station,TX.: Intaglio Press.

Saylor, John. 1973. Legislation to save eastern wil-derness. Congressional Record, January 11, 849.

The Wilderness Society. 1935. The WildernessSociety: Reasons for a Wilderness Society.Dated January, 21, 1935 in The WildernessSociety archives, Western History Collection,Denver Public Library.

U.S. Forest Service. 1993. Area History (texton official map) of the Shining RockWilderness and Middle Prong Wilderness,Forest Service Recreational Guide R8-RG23, revised June 1993, Pisgah NationalForest, NC.

U.S. Senate. 1956. S. 4013, 84th Congress,2d session, June 7.

U.S. Senate. 1972. S. 3699, 92nd Congress,2d session, June 13.

www.wilderness.net. 2005. accessed April 8, 2005.Zahniser, Howard. 1963. Guardians not gar-

deners (editorial). The Living Wilderness(Spring–Summer): 2.

DOUGLAS W. SCOTT, a wildernessadvocate since the late 1960s, is policydirector of the Campaign for America’sWilderness, 2820 E. Madison St. #303,Seattle, WA 98112, USA([email protected]), and author of TheEnduring Wilderness: Protecting Our NaturalHeritage through the Wilderness Act(Golden, CO.: Fulcrum Publishing, 2004).

Figure 6—Ellicott Rock Wilderness in North Carolina and South Carolina (USDA Forest Service). Photo courtesy of USDAForest Service.

From ALDO LEOPOLD on page 30

this research, Leopold Institute scien-tists developed a simple monitoringtool to measure and monitor changein trust levels among participants inthe forest’s collaborative planning pro-cess for fuels treatment. Scientists,managers, and the public are activelycollaborating to incorporate resultsfrom these research efforts into man-agement decisions.

The use of management-ignitedprescribed fire in wilderness in theNorthern Rockies offers another ex-cellent opportunity for LeopoldInstitute scientists to better understandsocial and institutional influences on

wilderness fire stewardship. Scientistshave assessed public support for pre-scribed fire in wilderness with a surveyof visitors to the Bob Marshall Wilder-ness Complex. In addition, a10,000-acre (4,016 ha) prescribedburn in the Scapegoat Wilderness isserving as a case study for a focusedassessment of public response to pre-scribed fire by members of the publicresiding in wilderness-proximatecommunities.

Scientists at the Leopold Instituteseek to be responsive to national ini-tiatives on fire and fuels management(e.g., the National Fire Plan and the

Healthy Forests Initiative) by provid-ing land managers with theinformation needed to restore andmaintain natural fire regimes in wil-derness while protecting both local andnational values across the landscape.This type of research will be critical inthe future for understanding trade-offsmade by decision makers at the inter-face between wilderness andnonwilderness lands. IJW

KATIE KNOTEK is a research assistant insocial science at the Aldo LeopoldWilderness Research Institute, Box 8089,Missoula, MT 59807, USA.


STEWARDSHIP

IntroductionForty years after passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act, it isincreasingly clear that, despite the best intentions of thelaw, many lands within the National Wilderness Preserva-tion System (NWPS) are degrading. One of the greatestemerging challenges to protecting the wild character of theselands is the preponderance of special provisions or noncon-forming uses that have been included in subsequentwilderness bills. These provisions not only allow activitieswithin wilderness that are inappropriate and degrade indi-vidual areas, but more importantly the cumulative impactof these special provisions threatens to diminish the corevalues that distinguish wilderness from other public lands.

Overview: Wilderness Has Its OwnMeaning and WorthTo understand the manner in which wilderness conditionsare being eroded and wilderness character degraded, wemust first understand what wilderness is, what wildernesscharacter means and symbolizes, and then we can deter-mine what standards are necessary for protecting wildernessas a unique resource.

1. Wilderness—legal definition. The statutory definitionfor wilderness in the United States is found in Section2(c) of the Wilderness Act. The framers of the act in-tended that the first sentence of this section wouldestablish the meaning of wilderness: In testimony beforethe final Senate hearing on the wilderness bill in 1963,the bill’s chief author, Howard Zahniser, testified that “thefirst sentence defines the character of wilderness…In thisdefinition the first sentence is definitive of the meaningof the concept of wilderness, its essence, its essentialnature—a definition that makes plain the character oflands with which the bill deals, the ideal.”

Keeping the Wild in WildernessMinimizing Nonconforming Uses in the

National Wilderness Preservation System

BY GEORGE NICKAS and KEVIN PROESCHOLDT

A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where manand his own works dominate the landscape, is herebyrecognized as an area where the earth and its com-munity of life are untrammeled by man, where manhimself is a visitor who does not remain [emphasesadded]. (1964 Wilderness Act, Sec. 2[c]).

By law, wilderness is to remain in contrast to mod-ern civilization, its technologies, conventions, andcontrivances. This intent is underscored in Section 4(c)of the act, expressly prohibiting commercial enterprisesand permanent roads. With only very narrow excep-tions it prohibits temporary roads, motor vehicles,motorized equipment, motorboats, aircraft landings,mechanical transport, structures, or installations in wil-derness. These incompatible activities are prohibitedbecause allowing their intrusion blurs the distinctionbetween wilderness and modern civilization, dimin-ishing wilderness character and the unique values thatset it apart.

l to r: Co-authors George Nickas and Kevin Proescholdt.


Congress also specified thatwilderness would be untrammeled,meaning free of the human intentto manipulate, alter, control, orsubjugate nature. In wilderness,the forces of nature would be al-lowed to shape the landscape andthe interplay of plants and animalswithout intentional human inter-ference. In this definition,Congress defined the core quali-ties of wilderness. It also providedstatutory direction for how hu-

mans will interact with wilderness,what our relationship will be withthese special places. In wilderness,Congress clearly intended thathuman activities and technologieswill not dominate or develop thelandscape, and will not manipu-late natural processes.

2. Wilderness Character—what thelaw seeks to preserve. Theoverarching statutory mandate in theWilderness Act is to preserve thewilderness character of each wilder-ness within the NWPS. Numerouscourts have found that preservingwilderness character is the purposeof the Wilderness Act. See, for ex-ample, Wilderness Watch v. Mainella(2004, 11th Circuit Court of Ap-peals) and High Sierra Hikers Assn. v.Blackwell (2004, 9th Circuit Courtof Appeals). This principal tenet ofthe law is described in Section 4(b):

Each agency administering anyarea designated as wildernessshall be responsible for preserv-ing the wilderness character ofthe area and shall so administersuch area for such other pur-poses for which it may have beenestablished as also to preserve itswilderness character. (1964 Wil-derness Act, Sec. 4[b])

Preserving wilderness charac-ter includes protecting the naturaland scenic qualities of the land-scape, natural soundscapes, andthe free play of ecological and evo-lutionary processes. Wildernesscharacter also includes the absenceof those things that diminish it,such as human-built structures,roads, bridges, campsites, highlydeveloped trails, motor vehicles,mechanized equipment, crowding,mining, and livestock grazing.

Like personal character, wilder-ness character involves intangiblequalities as well. These components

include outstanding opportunitiesfor solitude and primitive and un-confined recreation, and theassociated experience of freedom,self-reliance, risk, adventure, discov-ery, and mystery. Wilderness is aplace set apart—both physically andpsychologically—from modern civi-lization and its commercial andmaterial distractions.

Perhaps the best attempt todefine and embrace all these aspectsof wilderness character came in theU.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s2001 Draft Wilderness StewardshipPolicy. This policy stated in part:

Preserving wilderness characterrequires that we maintain thewilderness condition: the natu-ral, scenic condition of the land,biological diversity, biologicalintegrity, environmental health,and ecological and evolutionaryprocesses. But the character ofwilderness embodies more thana physical condition. … Thecharacter of wilderness refo-cuses our perception of natureand our relationship to it. Itembodies an attitude of humil-ity and restraint that lifts ourconnection to a landscape fromthe utilitarian, commodity ori-entation that often dominatesour relationship with nature tothe symbolic realm servingother human needs. We pre-serve wilderness character byour compliance with wildernesslegislation and regulation, butalso by imposing limits uponourselves.” (2001, p. 3714)

How Nonconforming UsesAre Degrading WildernessThe unique values that characterizelands within the National WildernessPreservation System are being steadilydegraded. The reasons can be broadlycategorized as (1) increased motorized use,(2) commercialization, (3) manipulationof natural processes, and (4) chang-ing types and levels of recreational use.

Figure 1—Jetboat on the Main Salmon River, Frank Church-Riverof No Return Wilderness. Motorboat use has increaseddramatically since Wilderness designation. Photo courtesy ofWilderness Watch.

Figure 2—Water truck filling desert bighorn sheep guzzler in theNorth Maricopa Mountain Wilderness. Photo courtesy of Bureauof Land Management.

Figure 3—Guzzler under construction in the North MaricopaMountains Wilderness. Photo courtesy of Bureau of LandManagement.


Special provisions in new wildernessbills exacerbate these problems and arebecoming paramount in the overallthreats to wilderness nationwide.

Nonconforming UsesDiminish WildernessCharacterNonconforming uses diminish an area’swilderness character and the opportu-nity for present and future generationsto experience the unique benefits ofauthentic wilderness. Section 4(d) ofthe Wilderness Act is titled “SpecialProvisions.” These so-called noncon-forming uses are compromises thatdiminish wilderness character, but werenonetheless written into the originallaw. These special exceptions are quali-fied to various degrees so as to providefederal wilderness managers with theability to regulate these uses to mini-mize their impacts on wilderness.

With the exception of honoring pri-vate existing rights and for firemanagement, the Wilderness Act re-quires that the other activities beadministered to protect wilderness char-acter. For instance, the exception forcommercial services allows for commer-cial outfitting and guiding only to theextent the services are both necessary andproper for realizing wilderness benefitsand done in a manner that protects thewilderness character of the areas. Inother words, whereas the Wilderness Actallowed for some nonconforming activi-ties, the law also provided managers withthe tools they needed to ensure that theimpacts from these exceptions would berare and carefully controlled. Unfortu-nately, the good intentions of the law arenot always being realized on the ground.

The responsibility for regulating theuses allowed by special provisions fallsto federal agencies that have often notbeen supportive of good wildernessstewardship. All four agencies are fall-ing woefully short in meeting their

stewardship responsibilities (see, e.g.,Pinchot Institute for Conservation2001). Given the lack of commitmentto or understanding of good steward-ship on the part of some managers,exceptions in wilderness bills often re-sult in far more damage to wildernesscharacter than the writers and support-ers of these exceptions anticipated.

The Central Idaho Wilderness Act(CIWA), which designated the Riverof No Return Wilderness (later namedthe Frank Church-River of No ReturnWilderness), is a case in point. Whenthat law was passed in 1980 there wereeight airplane landing strips in thewilderness in public use on nationalforest land. Under the Wilderness Act,the Forest Service had the authorityto close any or all of the landing stripsand was moving in that direction onat least two. A special provision inCIWA prohibited the Forest Servicefrom closing any landing strip “inregular use on national forest lands”at the time of designation without theexpress approval of the state of Idaho.This provision effectively precludedclosing any of the existing strips andin fact has resulted in far worse con-ditions. Under pressure from pilotsand the state, the Forest Service re-cently recognized four more meadowsas additional historic landing strips, in-creasing the total number to 12.Furthermore, the landing of airplanesin the wilderness has exploded tomore than 5,500 each year, much of itfor practicing touch-and-go landingsand for “bagging” airstrips—activitiesthat have nothing to do with access-ing the area for wilderness purposes.

Another special provision in CIWAprohibited the Forest Service from re-ducing motorboat use on the mainSalmon River to a level below that whichoccurred in 1978. Forest Service reportsprepared at the time indicate there wasa relatively small number of jetboats

using the main Salmon River. The up-per 40 miles (64.5 kilometers) ofdesignated Wild River received less thanone jetboat trip per day in 1978. Today,the Forest Service permits 18 commer-cial companies unlimited trips forhauling rafters, hunters, anglers, andsightseers up and down the entire lengthof the 85-mile-long (137-kilometer-long) Salmon River. In 2003 the agencyalso tripled (to 40 boat-days per week)the amount of private jetboat use al-lowed during the summer season. Thereare no limits on off-season trips. In short,special provisions in the CIWA have al-lowed the largest contiguous wildernessin the lower 48 states, an area that shouldprovide the ultimate wilderness experi-ence, to instead be riddled with landingstrips and unlimited airplane and jetboatuse. It is also important to note thatmuch of the motorized use occurs inorder to facilitate commercial services(outfitting and guiding), a WildernessAct exception that itself is limited to thedegree that the activity is both necessaryand proper in a wilderness context.

One of the most widespreadexamples of the unanticipated conse-quences of special provisions is theCongressional Grazing Guidelines(CGG) that Congress first included ina Colorado national forest wildernessbill in 1980. The Guidelines have been

Figure 4—Cowboy camp in the Emigrant Wilderness; the so-called Congressional Grazing Guidelines allow for supportingactivities including fences, line cabins as part of livestock grazingoperations in Wilderness. Photo by George Nickas.


included in most national forest andBureau of Land Management (BLM)wilderness bills since that time. Live-stock grazing was “grandfathered” intothe 1964 Wilderness Act, which pro-vided that, subject to reasonableregulation, livestock grazing shall beallowed to continue in those areaswhere it was an established use. The1980 grazing guidelines opened thedoor to a variety of more abusive uses.The guidelines authorized ranchers touse motor vehicles and equipment andto develop new “improvements” forcertain livestock management activi-ties provided there were no “practicalalternatives” and where such activitiescannot “reasonably and practically beaccomplished on horseback or foot.”The CGG have been incorporated inthe Forest Service Manual at FSM2323.22 and can be viewed atwww.fs.fed.us/im/directives/fsm/2300/2320.1-2323.26b.txt.

Most wilderness advocates at thetime felt the impact of the guidelineswould be minor and result in motorvehicle incursions only under the mostrare of circumstances. Most wildernessareas designated prior to 1980 had littleor no domestic livestock grazing withintheir borders. In those wildernesseswith substantial livestock grazing, theuse of motor vehicles as part of those

grazing operations was rare or nonex-istent. To many, the impact of the CGGseemed very minor at the time. In thelate 1990s, as part of an appeal chal-lenging a U.S. Forest Service decisionallowing motorized access to a lineshack on the Mazourka Allotment inthe Inyo Mountains Wilderness in Cali-fornia, neither Wilderness Watch northe Forest Service was able to identifya single instance where the Forest Ser-vice had permitted motorized access ina Wilderness for grazing purposes.

That situation is changing becausemany of the wildernesses added to thesystem in the past two decades, par-ticularly those in the IntermountainWest and the desert Southwest, are ex-tensively grazed by cattle or sheep.Ranchers have become increasinglyaccustomed to using off-road vehiclesin these areas. The BLM in particular,which now administers about one-quarter of all wildernesses, has provenwoefully lenient in allowing ranchersto drive off-road vehicles in wilderness.For example, in administering theSteens Mountain Wilderness in easternOregon, the BLM allows ranchers un-restricted use of motor vehicles fortending their cattle. The CongressionalGrazing Guidelines are more restrictivethan the BLM’s implementation of themon Steens Mountain. However, environ-mentalists have been unsuccessful intrying to prevent unlimited driving,whereas local congresspeople have con-sistently pressured the BLM to interpretthe Guidelines in the most lenient fash-ion. The BLM relies on ambiguouslanguage in the Steens Act to justify itsactions.

Further damage to wilderness canbe traced to the guidelines. In 2002 afederal court, relying on the grazingguidelines, ruled that the Departmentof Agriculture was justified in killinga large number of mountain lions inthe Santa Teresa Wilderness in Arizona

in order to protect domestic livestock(Forest Guardians v. Animal & PlantHealth Inspection Serv., 2002, No. 01-15239, U.S. Court of Appeals for theNinth Circuit, 309 F.3d 1141).

These examples represent just a fewof the threats presented by special pro-visions in wilderness bills, and they alsohighlight the unintended consequencesthat arise from making such exceptions.Most managers have been unable orunwilling to regulate or limit these non-conforming uses. Thus even whendiscretionary safeguards have been in-cluded in legislation, they have provenineffective for protecting wildernesscharacter from the harm that resultsfrom special provisions.

This array of nonconforming usesdecreases the recognizable core quali-ties that define wilderness across thesystem. It brings about a gradual de-cline in the overall wilderness standardsthat govern the NWPS. Some noncon-forming uses in wilderness may seemsmall, or of little impact in a NationalWilderness Preservation System thatencompasses more than 660 areas and106 million acres (42.9 million hect-ares). But each nonconforming useviolates the ideal and integrity of wil-derness and diminishes the wildernesscharacter and symbolic value of all wil-derness areas in the system. Thecumulative impact of hundreds of non-conforming uses is significant.

Precedence inNonconforming UsesNonconforming uses allowed in onewilderness bill are replicated—andoften expanded—in subsequent wil-derness bills. Once an exception ismade in one bill, it becomes harderto exclude similar exceptions in fu-ture wilderness bills. Whereas somemay argue that there are no bindingprecedents, that each bill is a uniquesituation, history argues otherwise.

Figure 5—Airplanes and outfitter camp in the Arctic WildlifeRefuge Wilderness. Some commercial outfitters take advantageof provisions in the Alaska wilderness bill to conduct aircraft-intensive hunting operations. Photo courtesy of US Fish andWildlife Service.


Three noteworthy examples of pro-visions that have become troublesomeprecedents for other bills include (1) theCongressional Grazing Guidelines dis-cussed above, (2) motorized access forstate fish and game departments, and(3) access to private land inholdings(nonfederal lands) within wilderness.

Special language allowing for vehicleuse for wildlife management first ap-peared in the 1984 WyomingWilderness Act. The exception was verynarrow and for a specific purpose: al-lowing motorized access to a specificlocation in the Fitzpatrick Wildernessfor capturing bighorn sheep. The pro-vision applied only to a 6,000-acre(2,409-hectare) addition to theFitzpatrick Wilderness in order to allowoccasional motorized access for captur-ing and transporting bighorn sheep. Thetrapping program had been conductedfor many years to transplant bighornsfrom the Wind River Mountains to othermountain ranges throughout the Westwhere Rocky Mountain bighorns hadbeen extirpated.

Six years later, Congress greatly ex-panded motorized access and otherwilderness-damaging activities underthe guise of wildlife management in 39new wildernesses designated in theArizona Desert Wilderness Act. TheArizona Desert Wilderness Act of 1990referred to a memorandum of under-standing (MOU) between the BLM, theForest Service, and the InternationalAssociation of Fish and Wildlife Agen-cies as guidance for the types ofactivities that should be allowed in wil-derness. The MOU allows for predatorcontrol, constructing artificial watersources, poisoning streams, stockingnonnative fishes, and, in many cases,the use of motor vehicles and motor-ized equipment in carrying out theseactivities. Although the federal landmanagers retain authority to regulateor limit any activity under the MOU,

they are often unable or unwill-ing to do so. MOUs are notlegally enforceable unless theyare incorporated into statutes,as is the case in a growing num-ber of wilderness bills.

There are now permanentroads in some wildernessesused for constructing, operat-ing, and maintaining artificialwater developments, called“guzzlers,” which are designedto artificially inflate the num-bers of bighorn sheep andother game species. In variousforms, this exception for mo-torized uses for fish and wildlifemanagement has been continued inseveral subsequent wilderness desig-nations, including the Los PadresCondor Range and River ProtectionAct (1992), the California Desert Pro-tection Act of 1994, the Clark CountyConservation of Public Land and Natu-ral Resources Act of 2002, and theLincoln County Conservation, Recre-ation, and Development Act of 2004.

Access to inholdings that are sur-rounded by wilderness provides a thirdexample of how precedents are unex-pectedly set when damaging provisionsare included in a wilderness bill. Theframers of the Wilderness Act antici-pated the potential conflict betweenwilderness protection and the desires ofprivate landowners wanting access totheir inheld lands. In those cases wherethe desired access is incompatible withwilderness protection, the 1964 act of-fers the inholder “adequate access” oran “exchange for federally owned landin the same state of approximately equalvalue” (Section 5[a]). An opinion fromthe U.S. attorney general in 1980 con-cluded that wilderness managersretained the right to deny access thatwould be harmful to wilderness andcould offer an exchange instead:

The language of 5(a) indicates

that a landowner has a right toaccess or exchange. If he is offeredeither, he has been accorded allthe rights granted by the statute.If you offer land exchange, thelandowner has no right of accessunder 5(a). (43 Op. AttorneyGen. 243, 269, 1980)

It was an excellent solution to a prob-lem with dangerous potential to degradewilderness. Within the 106-million-acre(42.9-million-hectare) NWPS, there arewell over one-half million acres(202,345 hectares) of inholdings inthousands of widely scattered individualparcels. By giving land managers theauthority to offer an exchange ratherthan allow harmful access, the act as-sured that the right decision forwilderness could be made every time.Yet, here again, special provisions in newbills have begun to erode the protectionsensured by the Wilderness Act.

A provision inserted into the AlaskaNational Interest Lands ConservationAct (ANILCA) in 1980 dealt the firstblow to the protections afforded in Sec-tion 5(a). That provision states that thesecretary of agriculture “shall providesuch access to nonfederally owned landwithin … the National Forest System …adequate to secure the reasonable useand enjoyment thereof.” Whereas everyother provision in ANILCA applies only

Figure 6—Non-conforming uses of motorboats and truck portages degradethe wilderness character of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness inMinnesota. Photo by Kevin Proescholdt.


to Alaska, the reference to “NationalForest System” led the Forest Serviceto conclude that the provision appliesto all national forest lands, includingwilderness, in the lower 48 states. TheU.S. Department of Agriculture hascodified this interpretation in its regu-lations applying to all national forestwildernesses. For its part, the BLM hasalso applied the access language ofANILCA to all lands under its jurisdic-tion. Whether or not the agencies havecorrectly interpreted this special pro-vision in ANILCA, it has severelyhampered the ability to protect wilder-ness by offering a land exchange in lieuof allowing potentially harmful access.It is important to note, however, thatthe courts have not yet ruled on thequestion of whether this section(1323[a]) of ANILCA effectivelyamended the Wilderness Act.

As with other special provisions, the“access” exception in ANILCA is beingrepeated in subsequent bills. In 1994 theCalifornia Desert Protection Act (CDPA)included access language nearly identi-cal to ANILCA, thereby ensuring that thisweakening provision would apply to the69 areas and millions of acres of wilder-ness designated by the CDPA. Subsequentlaws designating Wilderness in Oregonand Nevada have included variations ofthe language used in the CDPA.

As a result of access provisions in-cluded in the above-mentioned laws,the BLM and Forest Service have be-gun approving motorized access (andrelated road development and improve-ments) to inholdings for a variety ofinappropriate uses in wilderness. Theseinclude weekend camping and stargaz-ing (Palen-McCoy Wilderness, CA),building and operating a horse breed-ing and dude ranch (Mt. TiptonWilderness, AZ), campground develop-ment (Kalmiopsis Wilderness, OR), andcommercial outfitting and guiding(Steens Mountain Wilderness, OR).

Protecting WildernessCharacter in LegislationIt is imperative that wilderness advo-cates oppose the use of specialprovisions in new wilderness bills.Forty years of experience in implement-ing the Wilderness Act have shown thatthe special provisions in various wil-derness bills are leading to seriousdegradation to both the Wildernessideal and to the Wilderness condition.

• Avoid nonconforming uses in newwilderness designations. Wilder-ness advocates should keep proposalsfor designating new wildernessesclean of nonconforming uses, whileworking to remove such provisionsfrom bills introduced in Congress.

• Keep wilderness bills brief andfree of special management lan-guage, even if the intent of thelanguage is simply to reiterate theprovisions of the Wilderness Act.The simplest and most straightfor-ward way to address this problemis to eschew special language andinstead include a statement sayingthe area is to be managed in accor-dance with the Wilderness Act.

• Minimize the impacts of any newnonconforming uses in wilder-ness legislation. Phase out thenonconforming uses over time. Con-gress included motorboat phaseoutsfor specific lakes in the 1978 Bound-ary Waters Canoe Area WildernessAct. Limit the impacts from noncon-forming uses allowed in theWilderness Act that might not bephased out over time. Examples ofsuch use include livestock grazingand some commercial services. Placethe nonconforming uses outside ofthe wilderness boundary if possible.

• Consider alternative designationsif special provisions that compro-mise the ability to manage the areaas wilderness can’t be avoided andif protection is needed for an area

from other uses such as loggingor ATVs. In the 60,000-acre(24,096-hectare) Rattlesnake areathat borders Missoula, Montana,Congress designated the lower halfof the area, which is popular for dayhiking, mountain biking, and horse-back riding, as the RattlesnakeNational Recreation Area and themore remote upper half as the Rattle-snake Wilderness.

ConclusionWilderness advocates must ensure thatspecial provisions in new wilderness billsand incompatible uses in existing wilder-nesses are not allowed to further degradethe wilderness character of NWPS units.We must seize opportunities to stem theerosion of wilderness standards and thegradual degradation of the system that isoccurring due to special provisions inwilderness legislation. By taking anaggressive stance against new noncon-forming uses we can ensure that we passon to future generations the “enduringresource of wilderness” that the framersof the Wilderness Act sought to preserveand that future generations deserve toinherit. IJW

REFERENCESPinchot Institute for Conservation. 2001. Ensur-

ing the Stewardship of the National Wilder-ness Preservation System: A Report to theUSDA Forest Service, Bureau of Land Man-agement, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Na-tional Park Service, US Geological Survey.Washington, DC: Pinchot Institute.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2001. DraftWilderness Stewardship Policy (Jan. 16,2001). Federal Register, Vol. 66(10).

GEORGE NICKAS is the executive directorof Wilderness Watch, P.O. Box 9175,Missoula, MT 59807, USA. E-mail:[email protected].

KEVIN PROESCHOLDT is a member of theboard of directors of Wilderness Watch andthe director of wilderness and public landsfor the Izaak Walton League of America,1619 Dayton Avenue #202, St. Paul, MN55104, USA. E-mail: [email protected].


IntroductionWilderness stewards across the United States face a wide arrayof challenges in meeting the mandates of the Wilderness Act.The seemingly contradictory requirements to manage an areafor use and keep it untrammeled, ensure solitude, and providefor primitive and unconfined recreation; protect and managefor natural conditions, and keep the imprint of humans’ worksubstantially unnoticeable are a tall order to meet regardlessof location. In the eastern United States, with its dense urbanand suburban population, a long history of agricultural andindustrial development, relatively small parcels of publiclands—and even smaller parcels of wilderness—make thesechallenges increasingly difficult. Providing an enduringresource of wilderness in the face of a growing, developingpopulation and high or increasing recreation use sets thestage for difficult management decisions. Even the tools tomanage people and their impacts on wilderness have effectsthemselves. In this context, each management action becomesa trade-off of sorts, compromising one value for the othertoward the lofty goal of maintaining wilderness character.

The Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) planningapproach has served managers well through the years bysystematically clarifying the acceptable point of compromisebetween legitimate and sometimes conflicting uses ofwilderness. We can clearly describe to the public just howmuch impact, or change, we can tolerate by identifyingmeasurable indicators and the standards that serve asthresholds, and management actions needed when thosestandards are exceeded. For LAC to work, good indicatorsmust be selected that are clearly observable, measurable—often by seasonal employees rather than trainedresearchers—and defensible as representative of overallchange in wilderness conditions.

To help get ahandle on the widerange of possibleselections, potentialindicators have beentraditionally groupedinto two categoriescharacterized as bio-logical or biophysicaland social. Initiallythis division seems tomake sense, allowing us to think on one hand of impactson the land resulting from human use and on the otherhand of experiential impacts caused by interactions withpeople. However, this grouping neglects the true complexityof interactions between people and their internal andexternal environments. In addition, restrictive managementactions tied to either purely biophysical impacts or purelysocial can be problematic. Our publics have often shownan unwillingness to accept limits on recreational use ofwilderness based on social indicators alone. At the sametime, it can be extraordinarily difficult to make the casethat significant effects on the overall health of a wildernessecosystem result primarily from recreation impacts and,therefore, require limits on recreation use.

After wrestling with the limitations of these groupings,the Wilderness Planning Group on the White MountainNational Forest (WMNF) began thinking about types ofindicators in slightly different ways for a modified LACprocess we used to shape the wilderness management portionof our revised WMNF Land and Resources Management Plan.This process helped us come to terms with which indicatorsto emphasize in the WMNF plan document.

STEWARDSHIP

Developing WildernessIndicators on the

White Mountain National ForestBY DAVE NEELY

Article author Dave Neely


LAC Indicator SelectionWe asked ourselves a basic questionwith each indicator: What is ourprimary concern? Or, in other words,why are we concerned withmonitoring this impact? Wediscovered that we ended up withthree basic answers, and theseprovided the basis for our categories:

(1) concern for the overall health ofthe ecosystem; (2) concern for thesocial experience of an area; and (3)concern for the condition of the locallandscape and the quality of the socialexperience dependent on thecondition of the landscape (see figure1). This led us to develop our threeindicator categories: biophysicalindicators, social indicators, andaesthetic indicators.

For the WMNF plan, biophysicalindicators include measures of humanimpact on the land in terms of theoverall biological health and quality ofthe large-scale environment—oureffects on the ecosystem as a whole.Many of these impacts arise fromactions and events that occur outsideof wilderness; for example, our localair quality concerns stem largely fromautomobile and industrial emissions,and high or increasing pH levels inwilderness streams are mostinfluenced by acidic precipitationrather than local point-sourcepollution. These indicators wereconsidered distinct from othersbecause the primary concern is for thehealth and quality of ecosystems andecosystem components—watersheds,airsheds, wildlife and vegetativepopulations—rather than for thequality of the human experience basedon those components. While recog-nizing that an unhealthy ecosystemhas an effect on the human wildernessexperience, we should be concernedwith polluted water, or acid rain, orendangered species for many reasonsabove and beyond the effect on humanrecreation experience in a particularwilderness.

Our social indicators includehuman-to-human impacts, but onlyimpacts resulting from immediatecontact, such as meeting multipleparties throughout the day along atrail, encountering a large, loud group

Figure 1—The Great Gulf Wilderness on a clear day. Photo byRob Esty, USFS.

Figure 3—Fire damage in the Sandwich Range Wilderness—after. Photo by Karen Clarey, USFS.

Figure 2—Fire damage in the Sandwich Range Wilderness—before. Photo by Karen Clarey, USFS.

at a mountain summit, or anencounter with a backcountry ranger.These indicators are categorized asdistinct from others because they arestrictly a measure of how peopledirectly affect other people, and theprimary concern is for the humanexperience in terms of type, quality,and frequency of interaction withothers.

Aesthetic indicators measurehuman impacts on the land, but—unlike the broad-scale biophysicalcategory—are measures of how directhuman impacts on the immediatelandscape affect the human experienceof the wilderness. These impacts areusually local in scope, constrained toan immediate area, and resultprimarily from recreation use. Assomething of a combination of the firsttwo groups, they measure a socialimpact to a biophysical resource andare concerned with the resultingexperience of that impacted resource.Those common recreation impactsmanagers face on a day-to-day basis—trash in a campsite, proliferation ofcampsites around a pond, a bouldercharred by campfires (see figure 2 and3), or graffiti carved into a tree—fallinto this category. With theseindicators the primary concern is forthe human experience as it derivesfrom the health and quality of theimmediate, local landscape. Thisdistinction is made, in part, based ona belief that whereas excessive soilcompaction due to heavy campsite useor proliferation of campsites around apond are indeed problematic, theseimpacts are unlikely to have an effecton the overall health and productivityof the soil or the quality of water acrossthe wilderness ecosystem. Even theoft-cited problem of human wastedisposal seems unlikely to affect waterquality generally within a watershedand is not on the scale of regionwide


acid rain deposition. With these typesof recreation impacts, the concernseems to be very local and immediatein nature, and perhaps the greatesteffect is on the experience of sub-sequent wilderness users (see figure 4).As such, the driving managementrationale to mitigate them stems fromthe human experience.

From a practical, managementperspective these groupings haveseveral benefits. Generally, the large-scale concerns covered in thebiophysical category have solutionsoutside the scope of federal wildernessmanagers’ authority (e.g., enforcementof the Clean Air Act, increased fuelefficiency standards in vehicles,operation of coal-fired power plants)(see figure 5). Direct management ofhuman-to-human social interactionscan be ineffective, have little publicsupport, may need to be heavilybureaucratic to have any measurableeffect, and may be inconsistent withthe unconfined aspect of thewilderness experience. The aestheticindicators were believed to be moredefinable, be measurable by field staff,and include obvious impacts that thepublic generally supports mitigating.The tools to address these issues—themanagement actions triggered byexceeding the standards—wereviewed by the planning team asreasonable, effective, and usually quiteconsistent with wilderness values.

With these observations as ourstarting point, we were able to selectindicators that we felt served the LACprocess for our small, heavily usedeastern wildernesses. Biophysicalindicators are actually covered in theoverall monitoring section of ourWMNF Forest Plan, and include air

quality; water quality; presence ofthreatened, endangered and sensitivespecies; and presence of nonnativeinvasive species. Social indicatorsselected were (a) trail use levels, (b)destination use levels, and (c) visitorperception of crowding and quality ofexperience. Aesthetic indicatorsselected were (a) campsite density, (b)campsite size, and (c) presence of litterand human waste.

ConclusionThis process of indicator categorizationhelped us clarify our efforts in the LACapproach of defining standards andmanagement actions. We alsorecognized that each category seemedto tie directly to language from theWilderness Act, and this served as ameans to confirm that we were indeedmonitoring important aspects ofwilderness character. Our selection ofbiophysical indicators relates tolanguage in the Wilderness Act aboutproviding an area that retained its“primeval character and influence” andwas “protected and managed so as topreserve its natural condition andwhich…generally appears to have beenaffected primarily by the forces ofnature” (Section 2). Our selection ofsocial indicators relates to language inthe Wilderness Act about ensuring“outstanding opportunities for solitudeor … unconfined type of recreation”(Section 2). Our selection of aestheticindicators relates to language in theWilderness Act about maintaining areas“without permanent improvements …with the imprint of man’s worksubstantially unnoticeable” (Section 2).

The five wildernesses on the WhiteMountain National Forest are withina one-day drive of nearly one-quarter

Figure 4—Campsite impacts, Sandwich Range Wilderness. Photoby Karen Clarey, USFS.

Figure 5—A clear day in the Presidential Range–Dry RiverWilderness. Photo by Dave Neely, USFS.

of the population of the United States,and are within a four-hour drive ofMontreal and Sherbrooke, Quebec.We believe that the LAC planningprocess and the sections of theWilderness Management section ofour draft WMNF Land and ResourcesManagement Plan will ensure thecontinued opportunity to experiencewilderness character within thesesmall, heavily visited wildernesses foryears to come. IJW

DAVE NEELY is the assistant district rangerfor recreation and wilderness on theAndroscoggin Ranger District, WhiteMountain National Forest, 300 Glen Road,Gorham, NH, 03581-1399, USA. E-mail:[email protected].


IntroductionA deeper understanding of public values regarding theNational Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS) is ofinterest to researchers and managers. Wilderness valueswere defined in the National Survey on Recreation and theEnvironment (NSRE) (Cordell, Betz, and Green 2002;Cordell, Tarrant, and Green 2003a; Cordell, Tarrant, andGreen 2003b) and it is conducted periodically by the U.S.Forest Service in part to track public attitudes toward thenatural environment and public lands (Cordell et al. 2003a).The NSRE has provided a rich quantitative examination ofwilderness value trends since 1995 using a module ofwilderness value questions. Eighteen separate wildernessvalue questions have been developed and used. This articlefocuses on three values in particular: (1) cultural, (2)existence, and (3) bequest values.

Cultural value refers to the importance of wilderness as asource of symbols affecting human culture. The developmentof American heritage can be linked to wilderness and nature(e.g., Native Americans, pilgrims, pioneers, cowboys). Anappreciation of national origins is important for an individual’s

sense of self-identity and is aided by wilderness symbols(Hammond 1985). Present-day culture is also evolving throughwilderness. The phenomenon of wilderness activities reshapingculture is represented by the popularity of wildernessrecreation. In addition, many basic cultural traditions shapeour society and are of high value. A parent teaching a child tofish or how to make a campfire is a culturally rich experience.Wilderness is a means to pass cultural and family traditionsbetween generations. Cultural value was measured in the NSREby an individual’s response to the following statement:Wilderness is important because nature and wildlands areimportant symbols of American culture.

Existence value is the satisfaction felt by an individualjust knowing that wildlands exist (Cordell et al. 2003a).An individual may express existence value for the resourcewithout having visited the wilderness in the past or havefuture intentions to visit. Originating from economic con-cepts, existence value was first described as the amountone would be willing to pay to preserve wilderness, re-gardless of visitation (Blomquist and Whitehead 1995). Thecurrent definition has been expanded to include an altruis-tic desire to preserve the wilderness for the good ofhumanity and the spiritual well-being that may result fromwilderness existence. Finally, it was conceptualized thatintrinsic meaning could be expressed as part of the exist-ence value of a resource. Existence value was measured inthe NSRE using the following statement: It is importantjust knowing that wilderness exists.

Bequest value encompasses elements of both cultural andexistence values in that it is the value derived from beingable to hand down natural resources to future generations sothey can also experience wilderness values (Mountford andKepler 1999; Rolston 1985). Bequest value was conceptual-

STEWARDSHIP

Understanding the Cultural,Existence, and Bequest Values

of WildernessBY RUDY M. SCHUSTER, H. KEN CORDELL, and BRAD PHILLIPS

Article co-author Rudy M. Schuster


ized as having an element of steward-ship or responsibility for the resource.Bequest value was measured in theNSRE by asking how important it wasto the individual knowing that futuregenerations will have wilderness areas.

Exploratory StudyIn an attempt to better understandthese three wilderness values, quali-tative in-depth interviews (Rubin andRubin 1995; Taylor and Bogdan 1998)were conducted to explore the origi-nal wording of the NSRE questions.Each participant was read the intro-duction to the wilderness module usedon the NSRE and the value statements.Interviewees were asked to elaborateon what they understood the value tomean. Interviews were conducted inthe spring of 2004 and ran approxi-mately 30 to 60 minutes in length.Fifteen interviews were conducted.This exploratory research used a pur-posive sampling method throughposting calls for participants on theInternet, in newsletters of volunteerorganizations, and at local libraries.The current study attempted to pull adiverse sample that was not dependenton recreation participation.

Because the NSRE wilderness mod-ules specifically address federalwilderness values, the respondents’understanding of context was exam-ined. Each participant was read thefollowing paragraph, similar to onefrom the NSRE survey, providing anoverview of the NWPS:

The purpose of this interview isto help us understand howAmerican citizens value wilder-ness, and the benefits people re-ceive from these areas. When wetalk about wilderness we meanfederal land that the WildernessAct of 1964 allowed Congress topreserve as part of the NWPS.These lands cannot then be usedfor purposes such as timber har-vesting, developing ski resorts,

or building highways. To date,Congress has added over 660wilderness areas to the NWPS toprotect wildlife, scenery, water,and recreation opportunities,and to keep these areas wild andnatural.

Although participants were instructedto answer the interview questions withthe NWPS in mind, references to des-ignated wilderness were rare. Frequentreferences to activities not allowed infederal wilderness areas, such as driv-ing automobiles, suggested a lack ofunderstanding of the NWPS. How-ever, the results may still accuratelymeasure wilderness values. Respon-dents may value all types of wildernessand other protected or otherwise un-developed areas in the same ways.

When analyzing data concerningcultural, existence, and bequest val-ues the following three themesemerged: preservation of wilderness,modern society’s connection to wilder-ness, and off-site inspirational use ofwilderness. Interviewees used thesethemes to provide context for howsocial values were realized from wil-derness. Thus, the themes providecontext for understanding the valuesand support their existence.

Preservation of WildernessAlthough participants were not explic-itly asked questions regarding theamount of wilderness in the UnitedStates, all expressed opinions on thematter. The range of responses to thisissue bore most directly on existenceand bequest values. Some, such asMike, a 51-year-old business consult-ant, lamenting a quickly diminishingwilderness resource, felt uncomfort-able endorsing only an existence value.

We have to work hard to keepexisting wilderness areas and toadd new wilderness areas. It’snot enough to know thatthey’re there.

Others, such as Ted, a 58-year-oldattorney, while recognizing potentialthreats to the quality of wilderness,saw no urgency regarding the ques-tion of quantity.

Notwithstanding my percep-tion that human beings are justvoracious animals that con-sume everything in sight likearmy ants, I still think thatAmerica’s wilderness is simplyso vast that I don’t think thatit’s ever going to be expended.… In other words, I just don’tsee even America at its mostaggressive ever really exhaust-ing wilderness as a resource.

Responding negatively or positivelyto the amount of designated wildernesshad an impact on how respondentsviewed their responsibility toward futuregenerations. Participants that sensedperil to wilderness resources were morelikely to refer to intrinsic wilderness val-ues and view their bequest as not just agift, but also as a responsibility. Forexample, Derek, a 22-year-old student,expressed the following:

It should be something thatpreserves it, as I preserved itfor them. They should preserveit for their children.

On the other hand, Jennifer, a 39-year-old real estate agent, whoremarked that wilderness is not in perilbecause nothing “terribly stupid is go-ing to happen anytime soon,” saw thebequest simply as an opportunity forfuture generations to enjoy the samerecreational experiences as she has:

My kids and grandkids shouldhave the opportunity to see thesethings and not lose them forever.It’s just a great experience that Iwould want to have continued.

When they felt that wilderness re-sources were threatened, respondentsspoke of an ongoing, bequeathed re-sponsibility, as well as the intrinsicworth of wilderness. When immediate


threats were not perceived the respon-dents referred to enhanced recreationalopportunities for their children andgrandchildren. Both viewpoints statedthat preserving wilderness for futuregenerations was extremely important.

Modern Society’sConnection to WildernessThe concern that contemporary soci-ety has lost touch with wildernesssurfaced in reference to all three val-ues and was expressed in two differentways. Several respondents indicatedthat society is no longer connected toits biophysical roots. Jim, a 38-year-old minister, spoke of this severancefrom the natural world:

I took my son down south [towilderness] so he could seehow things are. That every-thing ain’t mainstream, noth-ing but cars. I think that’s whatour kids are missing. Missingthat connection with nature it-self… . It was the first time he’dever seen a real horse. He said,“Dad, look at that big ol’ dog!”“That ain’t no dog, boy!”

Derek agreed:The whole frontiersman idealwas pivotal … and even in theearly 20th century that sort ofadventurous frontier spirit per-sisted. But recently, as we’vemoved away from wilderness,I think we’ve lost touch withwhat it really means. … I guesswe don’t really have a pictureof what the wilderness is any-

more because we’re not inregular contact with it. Wedon’t know how to deal with itas we did 100 or 200 years ago.I think the image has changed.

The loss of cultural significance wasmore important to the majority of re-spondents than the diminishingknowledge of the natural world. Con-cern for a societal disconnection towilderness, coupled with the ability ofeach interviewee to name cultural sym-bols derived from wilderness, revealedthe personal importance of wildernessas a source of cultural symbols.

Off-site Inspirational Useof WildernessThe off-site use of wilderness as a sourceof inspiration was common to all of therespondents. Many used this idea to re-spond to the existence value statement.All respondents expressed that it is im-portant to simply know that wildernessexists, whether or not they actually evervisit it. Several explanations were given.First, an intrinsic value of natural sys-tems and organisms was recognized bysome. Second, the off-site use of naturalareas as sources of inspiration, visual-ization, or objects of meditation wasimportant to many. Finally, the statementwas often interpreted to encompass op-tion value, as with Steve, a 34-year-oldretail store manager:

It’s very important to knowthat it’s there. It’s great to

know that that could be youroutlet or your place to lookforward to going to. It’s a pre-served option.

Using wilderness as a source of in-spiration or an object of meditationwas the value most often expressed inresponse to the existence value state-ment. As Ted stated:

It provides an opportunity forinspiration that’s rare enough.I mean, I’m guilty of being acouch potato, but I think it’s away to simply remind peoplethat there’s more to life thanMTV and the Super Bowl.

Barbara explained thatif you put your head in there[wilderness], you’re morepeaceful.

Derek even described the meditativeexperience he was having during theinterview:

For a second there I thoughtof being miles away from ev-erything else and being atpeace and all that other stuffwe use nature for.

All 15 respondents referred to such off-site use at various points in theinterview. Many interpreted the exist-ence value statement by referring tosuch use. Regardless of whether thiswas applied to existence value or not,however, the majority of respondentsreported a powerful off-site inspira-tional component of wilderness.

Cultural Value When read the statement “Wildernessis important because nature andwildlands are important symbols ofAmerican culture,” six participants’initial responses were negative or am-bivalent. However, respondentsreadily provided symbols from natureand wildlands relating to Americantraits during the interviews. Initialnegativity appeared to be based on the

Respondents expressed that wilderness had intrinsicworth and directly linked the value of wilderness to

society as a source of inspiration, means ofunderstanding human relations to nature,

and a cultural symbol.


perceived society–nature disconnectpreviously discussed. Respondentsinterpreted the cultural value state-ment as referring to the value thatsociety as a whole places on wilder-ness, not their own personal valuation.

Existence ValueFor nine of the 15 participants, exist-ence value was interpreted as meaningthat wilderness can provide spiritualor personal inspiration without hav-ing to visit the area. Because existencevalue encompasses a variety of off-siteuse values, the interpreted meaningcomports with the researcher-intendedmeaning of existence value as the sat-isfaction one feels that a wildernessexists regardless of whether one visitsthe area. Respondents did not refer toother components of the theoreticalunderpinnings of existence value (in-trinsic worth and altruism). Thisstatement was interpreted as intended.However, respondents’ interpretationwas narrower in scope than the theo-retical definition of the construct.

Bequest ValueMost participants spoke of bequestvalue as a gift carrying responsibility.Interviewees indicated that future de-velopment options should not beexercised and that future use should beconsistent with current value systems.Thus, participants made it clear that thebequest of wilderness was of the holis-tic wilderness and not simply ofundeveloped land for future use. Thebequest of wilderness was seen as thebequest of cultural ideas to future gen-erations by interviewees who expresseddiscontent concerning societal discon-nect with nature. Although allrespondents regarded ecosystem ben-efits of wilderness as important in otherquestions, such benefits were not re-ferred in relation to the bequestquestion. The reason given by most

participants to preserve wilderness forfuture generations was regarding rec-reational opportunities and theopportunity for spiritual inspiration.

ConclusionThe interview data indicated that theinitial responses to the NSRE questionsdiffered little from the intended mean-ing. Overall, the results of this projectsuggest that the wilderness value ques-tions used on the NSRE are understoodby the public and are valid indicatorsof the underlying constructs they wereintended to represent. However, minormodifications may improve validity ofthe NSRE instrument. Future use of thecultural value question or similar ques-tions should include modified wordingto direct the respondent to considerpersonal values. Existence value wasoften interpreted as having a compo-nent of option value. In addition, theexistence value statement was most of-ten interpreted as relating to spiritualor meditative values, which were onlyone component of its multidimensionaldefinition. Finally, recreation and otherdirect-use values were the most fre-quently cited reasons for preservingwilderness for future generations.

Respondents expressed that wilder-ness had intrinsic worth and directlylinked the value of wilderness to societyas a source of inspiration, means ofunderstanding human relations to nature,and a cultural symbol. Respondentsnoted a concern that contemporary soci-ety has lost touch with wilderness. Thisdisconnect resulted in the loss of animportant cultural symbol and a dimin-ishing knowledge of human biophysicalroots. Respondents perceived the impor-tance of preserving wilderness for futuregenerations and that future generationshad an ongoing, bequeathed responsibil-ity to preserve it. This sentiment was bestexpressed by Jennifer: “My kids andgrandkids should have the opportunity

to see these things and not lose them for-ever.” In general, the salience ofwilderness value and respondents’ per-ception of the current state of wildernesswas best expressed through a quotationfrom Mike “We have to work hard to keepexisting wilderness areas and to add newwilderness areas. It’s not enough to knowthat they’re there.” IJW

REFERENCESBlomquist, G. C., and J. C. Whitehead. 1995.

Existence value, contingent valuation, andnatural resource damage assessment.Growth and Change 26: 573–89.

Cordell, H. K., C. J. Betz, and G. T. Green. 2002.Recreation and the environment as culturaldimensions in contemporary American so-ciety. Leisure Sciences 24: 13–41.

Cordell, H. K., M. A. Tarrant, and G. T. Green.2003a. Is the public viewpoint of wildernessshifting? International Journal of Wilderness9(2): 27–32.

Cordell, H. K., M. A. Tarrant, and G. T. Green.2003b. PVF: A scale to measure public valuesof forests. Journal of Forestry 101(6):24–30.

Hammond, J. L. 1985. Wilderness and heritagevalues. Environmental Ethics, 7(summer):165–70.

Mountford, H., and J. H. Kepler. 1999. Financ-ing incentives for the protection of diversity.The Science of the Total Environment 240:133–44.

Rolston, H. 1985. Valuing wildlands. Environ-mental Ethics 7(spring), 23–48.

Rubin, H. J., I. Rubin. 1995. Qualitative Inter-viewing: The Art of Having Data. ThousandOaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Taylor, S. J., and R. Bogdan. 1998. Introduc-tion to Qualitative Research Methods: AGuidebook and Resource, vol. 3. New York:John Wiley & Sons.

RUDY M. SCHUSTER, Faculty of Forest andNatural Resource Management, StateUniversity of New York, College of Environ-mental Science and Forestry, 211 MarshallHall, One Forestry Drive, Syracuse, NY13210, USA. E-mail: [email protected].

H. KEN CORDELL, Project Leader andSenior Scientist Outdoor Recreation,Wilderness and Trends Research ForestrySciences Laboratory, Office 238, 320Green Street, Athens, Georgia, USA 30602.

BRAD PHILLIPS, former graduate student, StateUniversity of New York, College of Environ-mental Science and Forestry, Syracuse.


The 8th World Wilderness Congress (WWC) met foralmost two weeks in 2005 from late September toearly October in Anchorage, Alaska, including

several pre-Congress training sessions and seven days ofplenary and concurrent sessions. The atmosphere wastangibly spirited and synergistic, and replete with enthusi-astic, collaborative, and positive action. The Congressachieved its conservation objectives and generated addi-tional results: new protected areas (private sector, native,and national); new wilderness legislation; increased gov-ernmental and organizational cooperation for new initiativesand networks; scores of professionals specifically trainedin wilderness management, information and communica-tions; new funding for targeted projects; and strongintegration of conservation writers and photographers withscientists, managers, educators and policymakers.

The 8th WWC involved 1,200 delegates from 60 nationsand emphasized the role of native peoples in protectingwilderness and wildlands. It tackled contentious issues suchas the proposed oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wild-

life Refuge and global warming. The following is a summaryof the 8th WWC’s major practical accomplishments, with moredetails available at www.8wwc.org or through [email protected].

New Wilderness and Protected Areas• Cemex, one of the world’s largest producers of cement,

announced the designation of the El Carmen WildernessArea, including critical biodiversity habitat owned by thecorporation in northern Mexico. In cooperation with theirpartners, Sierra Madre, Conservation International, Birdlife,The WILD Foundation, and others, Cemex is creating awilderness management plan for the Maderas del Carmen“Sky Island” and its stunning escarpment as part of a sig-nificant new protected area initiative called the ElCarmen-Big Bend Conservation Corridor Initiative. Thisproject will involve up to 10 million acres (4 million ha)(including private ranches, corporate land, and govern-ment land on both sides of the Mexico-U.S. border). Cemexhas purchased more than 175,000 acres (70,280 ha) of newconservation land, creating key corridors, and has enteredinto agreements with adjoining private landowners for anadditional 60,000 acres (24,095 ha) of new land underconservation management, including wilderness.

• The Bonobo Peace Forest Initiative in the Democratic Re-public of Congo—a joint project of Vie Sauvage and theBonobo Conservation Initiative (Washington, D.C.),includes conservation agreements with local communi-ties and concessionaires covering more than 5 million acres(20,000 square kilometers) of habitat in one of the largestblocks of contiguous rain forest left on Earth, and home to

8th World Wilderness CongressGenerates Conservation Results

BY VANCE G. MARTIN

Figure 1—A traditional opening to the 8th WWC, by Alaska natives. Photo by Carl Johnson.

STEWARDSHIP


National Oceanic and AtmosphericAdministration (NOAA), and others un-veiled new and improved inventoriesand definitions to address the protec-tion as “wilderness” of marine andfreshwater systems around the world.

Native Lands andWilderness CouncilAlso part of The WILD Planet Project,indigenous people from 25 nationsaround the world formed the NativeLands and Wilderness Council and setinitial goals for the group. This process—funded by the Christensen Fund, FordFoundation, WILD, and others—passeda resolution to continue meeting and willproduce a handbook to encourage andinforming tribal communities aroundthe world on managing their lands aswilderness. “The purpose of the NativeLands and Wilderness Council is to forman indigenous group to guide the useand management of tribal wildlands,and to demonstrate unequivocally thatwe are an important part of conservingwildlands globally,” said Terry Tanner,work project coordinator with the Con-federated Salish and Kootenai Tribe inMontana. Tanner cochaired the initialCouncil with Grand Chief Herb Norwe-gian of the Deh Cho First Nations

Figure 2—Ian Player from South Africa delivers a passionatespeech about wilderness. Photo by Carl Johnson.

the bonobo, the smallest of theendangered great apes. It includescore wilderness areas as well as com-munity-managed forest reserves andsustainable development zones.

The Wild Planet FundNew funding for a proactive globalwildlands initiative was announced,with Cemex partnering with TheWILD Foundation to launch theWild Planet Fund, the fundingmechanism for The Wild PlanetProject. “We will explain and quan-tify the economic, biological, andsocial benefits of intact wilderness,and communicate this informationto the public and to decision mak-ers more effectively,” said CyrilKormos, vice president for policy forThe WILD Foundation and head ofThe Wild Planet Project.

The project includes: compilation ofthe latest information on mapping wil-derness in terrestrial, marine, andfreshwater systems; reviewing manage-ment techniques for wildernessprotected areas; and conducting a com-prehensive assessment of howwilderness areas are designated via

government protected areas, privatesector designations, or indigenous con-servation initiatives. The GlobalEnvironment Facility, associated withthe World Bank, has also endorsed theinitiative as important to the protectionof biodiversity, especially in tropicalcountries and key desert habitats.

(Note: look for a special edition of IJWin August 2006, dedicated to The WildPlanet Project).

New Wilderness LegislationErnesto Enkerlin, (president ofCONANP, National Commission forProtected Areas in Mexico) announcedthat wilderness will be a new official cat-egory of Mexico’s protected areaframework, with the capability of beingapplied on all types of land, includingcorporate, federal, communal, and otherprivate lands. This is the first such legaluse of the term wilderness as a protectedarea category in all of Latin America.

Freshwater andMarine WildernessUnder The WILD Planet Project, a con-sortium of organizations, includingConservation International, The

Figure 3—Attendees shared stories of their local wilderness areas. Photo by Carl Johnson.


(Canada) and Larry Merculieff, deputydirector of the Alaska Native ScienceCommission in Anchorage.

International Leagueof ConservationPhotographersA new working group was initiated by40 of the world’s finest conservation pho-tographers. The International League ofConservation Photographers (ILCP) willfurther environmental and culturalconservation through photography andwill work on global campaigns to high-light critical issues. As part of this process,more than 150 nature photographersgathered in Anchorage at the 8th WWCto determine how photographers canbest contribute to the conservation com-munity’s efforts in protecting wilderness,endangered species, and threatened cul-tures around the world. This initiative,coordinated by Cristina Mittermeier, willbe a project of The WILD Foundation.

AIDS in AfricaThe Wilderness Foundation (SouthAfrica), working with HOPE Worldwideand other partners, announced a newinitiative to assist young people or-phaned by the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Umzi Wethu—“our home”—will give or-phaned young people housing, training,and jobs in the ecotourism, hospitality,and other industries. “We recognize thatwilderness is a force for social change,and that this project can offer a safe andsupportive environment to invest inyoung people in a way that is crucial tofamilies and governments in Africa,” saidAndrew Muir, executive director of theWilderness Foundation. Umzi Wethutraining centers will combine mentoringwith the transformational power of wildareas. Young people will be trained in a

combination of life skills, hospitality, andconservation skills for a minimum of oneyear on a residential campus adjacentto Parks and Reserves for eventualemployment with conservation-relatedcompanies and agencies.

CollaborativeProfessional Networks

• The Wilderness Policy Council (aU.S. federal interagency group) con-vened the first Global WildernessSeminar for Government Agencies,involving 150 participants, the resultof which was a new network of gov-ernment agency professionals andwilderness managers to share infor-mation and techniques in safeguardingwilderness on public lands.

• A delegation of more than 25 Rus-sians, principally from the RussianFar East, met in numerous settingsduring several days of the Congressfor specific negotiations with theircounterparts in Alaskan and U.S.federal land management agenciesoperating in Alaska. Their intent,nurtured through several pre-Con-gress meetings organized by TheWILD Foundation with the supportof the Trust for Mutual Understanding,

Figure 5—Larry Merculieff (Bering Sea Council of Elders) and Julie Cajune (Confederated Salish and Kootenai) atthe Native Lands and Wilderness Council. Photo by Vance G. Martin.

Figure 4—Professionals networked and built relationships across cultures. Photo by Carl Johnson.


was to enhance protected area man-agement in Kamchatka and theRussian Far East through better pro-fessional links with Alaska. Thecollaborative network was estab-lished, and a follow-up meeting willoccur in Kamchatka in 2006.

• The Africa Wilderness Network wasestablished by the Zambezi Society(Zimbabwe) and the WildernessAction Group (South Africa) in co-operation with the Wilderness TaskForce of the IUCN.

• The World Wilderness Youth Net-work was established by the youthand young professionals in specificprograms at the 8th WWC. Ananonymous donor agreed to fundtheir first web portal and Internetoutreach efforts.

• The Conservation Writer’s Rendez-vous (organized by Fulcrum, Inc)drew 40 outstanding writers fromnumerous countries and native com-munities. It reviewed the history andaccomplishments of conservationwriting, mentored aspiring writers,and outlined an agenda for increasedeffectiveness of this important voicefor wilderness.

Public Outreach in AlaskaThe 8th WWC Executive Committeeworked closely with development,conservation, and education organiza-tions in Alaska for two years prior tothe 8th WWC. Aware that wildernessis often a highly polarizing word inAlaska, the Executive Committeedeveloped numerous ways to out-reach to the local community to helpinform and educate Alaskans on thevalues of wilderness and wildlands:

• Partial and full scholarships toAlaskans, who wished to attendthe Congress and had financial

constraints, awarded through na-tive groups and local conservationorganizations.

• Provided free of charge to theAlaska public: an international filmfestival in downtown Anchorage;the WILD Expo during the Con-gress; and an extensive scheduleof audiovisual presentations andlectures from many countries.

• A juried art competition was initiatedand funded by The WILD Founda-tion, the result of which is a publicsculpture by Rachelle Dowdy, Alas-kan artist. This sculpture, consistingof four larger-than-life figures withanimal heads and human torsos, wasdisplayed at the 8th WWC and willbe installed in central Anchorage, asa gift from 8th WWC to the peopleof Anchorage, to highlight both theimportant and inescapable linkbetween wildlife and people.

Technical Informationand Training

• Numerous training programs oc-curred before and during the 8thWWC. Thirty professionals from 21countries completed an accreditedWilderness Management course. Fif-teen youth from six countriesparticipated in numerous communi-cations and information trainings,worked as communications internsduring the 8th WWC, and then es-tablished the World Wilderness YouthNetwork mentioned earlier. More than200 scientists and managers partici-pated in three days of almost 70concurrent technical sessions. Twobooks were launched during the Con-gress—Transboundary Conservationand The Alaska Reader (Fulcrum,Inc.)—and numerous other publica-tions will be produced: an illustratedtrade book aimed at the mass market,

a multi-volume technical proceedingspublished by the Aldo Leopold Wil-derness Research Institute (a significant8th WWC partner), a wilderness lawand policy handbook, a manual on na-tive management of wildlands forindigenous communities around theworld, and more.

• Resolutions—Delegates workedhard on, debated, and eventually ap-proved a targeted list of 49 resolutionsthat addressed broad conservationconcerns as well as specific areas andissues needing international and lo-cal attention and action. IJW

VANCE MARTIN is president of The WILDFoundation, a member of the IJW EditorialBoard, and was chairman of the 8th WWCExecutive Committee.

Figure 6—Transboundary Conservation book launch with CristinaMittermeier, initiator of the International League of ConservationPhotographers. Photo by Carl Johnson.


P E R S P E C T I V E S F R O M T H EA L D O L E O P O L D W I L D E R N E S S R E S E A R C H I N S T I T U T E

SCIENCE and RESEARCH

One of the priority research areas at the AldoLeopold Wilderness Research Institute addressesthe “need for improved information to guide the

stewardship of fire as a natural process in wilderness whileprotecting social and ecological values inside and outsidewilderness.” This research topic area was developed withthe knowledge that wildland fire, as a natural disturbanceprocess, can preserve ecological conditions inside and out-side wilderness ecosystems and, at the same time, influencesocietal values across the interface between wilderness andnonwilderness lands.

Scientists at the Leopold Institute are studying howsocial and institutional factors influence the way fire man-agers and the public evaluate trade-offs in the stewardshipof fire as a natural process. Scientists map human values-at-risk to assist decision making for fire and fuelsmanagement, assess public trust in management agenciesand their ability to manage fire and fuels, and investigatepublic perceptions and management decisions regardingoptions for the use of fire and fuels treatment. Funding hasbeen primarily through the National Fire Plan (U.S. De-partments of Agriculture and Interior), the Joint FireScience Program (a partnership of six federal wildland man-agement and research organizations), and the BitterrootEcosystem Management Research project (interdisciplinaryteam of U.S. Forest Service scientists, Bitterroot NationalForest and Northern Region managers, and the Universityof Montana).

The Northern Rocky Mountains is a unique and valu-able laboratory for investigating social issues related to fire

Social and InstitutionalInfluences on Wilderness

Fire StewardshipBY KATIE KNOTEK

management across landscapes that include federally pro-tected wilderness. Recently, the planning phase of alandscape-level fuels treatment project on the Bitterroot Na-tional Forest provided the opportunity for Leopold Institutescientists to conduct a baseline assessment of personal andcommunity values attached to the Bitterroot landscape,which extends from the valley floor to the crest of theSelway-Bitterroot Wilderness. Using GIS technology,Leopold Institute scientists mapped the spatial distributionof these values across the landscape, providing valuablesocial data for modeling efforts designed to evaluate socialand resource trade-offs among alternative fuels treatments.In addition, a baseline measure of trust across communi-ties adjacent to the Bitterroot National Forest helpedscientists and managers to understand the factors that in-fluence the relationship between the public and local landmanagers regarding fire and fuels management. Based upon

Continued on page 12


IntroductionWilderness designation is a political compromise, withboundaries and locations determined by Congress in accordwith the National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS)(P.L. 88-577, 1964). Such compromises have continuedthroughout the history of the NWPS, beginning with thedeflation of Howard Zahniser’s drafts for wilderness desig-nation in the years preceding 1964, through to contemporary

arguments over USDA Forest Service roadless areas. A de-cade after the Wilderness Act was passed, Public Law 93-622,commonly known as the Eastern Wilderness Act (EWA,1975), was enacted to provide population centers in the Eastwith better access to the values and benefits that wildernessprovides (Hendee and Dawson 2002). EWA relaxed manyof the standards (including size and remoteness) requiredfor designation that had previously kept most wilderness

SCIENCE and RESEARCH

PEER REVIEWED

WildernessIn Whose Backyard?

BY GARY T. GREEN, MICHAEL A. TARRANT, UTTIYO RAYCHAUDHURI,

and YANGJIAN ZHANG

Abstract: This study examined potential inequities in the distribution of National Wilderness PreservationSystem (NWPS) lands with respect to socioeconomic characteristics of residents in the contiguous UnitedStates. Using U.S. Bureau of Census data, we compared counties adjacent to wilderness areas with countiesoutside of wilderness on four socioeconomic variables (per capita income, occupation, education, and race)for 1980, 1990, 2000, and for changes from 1980 to 2000. Results show that counties adjacent to wilder-ness in 1980, 1990, and 2000 were composed of substantially fewer blue-collar workers, more whites, andhigher-educated people. Such findings may imply that some social groups are receiving a disproportionateshare of nonuse wilderness benefits than others. However, results of the trend analysis suggest this differenceis beginning to narrow over time, as counties adjacent to wilderness gained white-collar occupations andnonwhite populations at a faster rate than counties not adjacent to wilderness. Implications for land useplanning and decision models that incorporate human and ecological health concerns and involve main-stream environmentalists and social justice groups are discussed.

Co-authors, l to r: Gary Green on the Big Island in Hawaii, photo by Kim Mayer; Michael Tarrant in the southern Alps on the South Island of New Zealand, photo by LauraSessions; Uttiyo Raychaudhuri; and Yangjian Zhang.


Table 1. Descriptive Statistics ofSocioeconomic Characteristics for U.S. Counties

Socioeconomic variable Mean Std. Dev.

Per capita income 1980 $6050.00 1242.60Per capita income 1990 (adjusted) $7004.00 1698.04Per capita income 2000 (adjusted) $8386.00 1904.78Blue-collar occupation 1980 35.86% 9.83Blue-collar occupation 1990 32.44% 8.95Blue-collar occupation 2000 30.45% 7.93Attended college 1980 24.52% 9.22Attended college 1990 35.27% 11.06Attended college 2000 42.63% 11.21White population 1980 88.54% 15.07White population 1990 87.46% 15.38White population 2000 84.75% 16.04

areas in the West. Similarly, recommen-dations by the Southern AppalachianMan and the Biosphere Cooperative in1996 for additional wilderness in the Eastreceived widespread public support, butsuch efforts have been thwarted by legalarguments and political interests. FormerPresident Bill Clinton’s Roadless Plan,under reconsideration (i.e., shelved) bythe current Bush administration, repre-sents another example of how politicalthe wilderness process is. Furthermore,as grassroots/ community voices continueto play a prominent role in decisionsabout land uses (Dennis 2001) and es-pecially wilderness designation (O’Neill2002), the nature of local communities,and their influence on land use decisions,must be addressed. Such concerns arelikely to be exacerbated with increasingnumbers of people moving to undevel-oped areas of the country, a processknown as exurbanization (Champion1989). Thus, an initial step in the pro-cess is to understand how thesecommunities are changing.

Using a framework of environmen-tal justice, this study examinedpotential inequities in the spatial dis-tribution of NWPS lands with respectto socioeconomic characteristics of

residents of counties adjacent (versusnot adjacent) to wilderness in the con-tiguous United States. Studies such asthis one are important in recognizingwho may be receiving a greater shareof the use and nonuse values of wil-derness. Using U.S. Census Bureaudata, counties adjacent to wildernessareas were compared with countiesoutside of wilderness on four socio-economic variables (per capitaincome, occupation, education, andrace) for 1980, 1990, 2000, and forchanges from 1980 to 2000.

Framework for the StudyFollowing Executive Order (12898,Federal Register, 1994) all federal agen-cies with environmental responsibilitieswere mandated to address the environ-mental justice implications of theirpolicies and practices. Environmentaljustice refers to the concept that the gov-ernment has a responsibility to ensurethat individuals and groups are treatedfairly in the administration and practiceof environmental statutes and regula-tions without discrimination based onrace, ethnicity, and/or socioeconomicstatus (Floyd and Johnson 2002). Thestudy of environmental justice has tra-

ditionally focused on inequities arisingfrom the location of locally undesirableland uses (LULUs) such as landfills, fac-tories, and Superfund sites. Suchresearch has suggested minorities andlow-income populations receive a dis-proportionate level of pollution andassociated negative health consequencesas compared to more affluent whitepopulations (see for example, Boernerand Lambert 1995; Bullard 1994; Com-mission for Racial Justice, UnitedChurch of Christ 1987; Mohai andBryant 1992). Our study focuses on theopposite end of the spectrum by exam-ining how environmental justice (as astudy of equitability) applies to positiveor locally desirable land uses (LDLUs).

Recent studies have recognized thatenvironmental justice applies both to theplaces where we play (e.g., rivers andmountains) as well as areas in which welive and work (Di Chiro 1998; Salazar1998; Porter and Tarrant 2001; Tarrant andCordell 1999). Indeed, precedence forenvironmental justice, Title VI of the CivilRights Act of 1964, recognizes that injus-tice applies to the distribution of both costsand benefits associated with governmentenvironmental actions. Title VI providesthat “no person in the United States shall,on the ground of race, color, or nationalorigin, be excluded from participation in,be denied the benefits of, or be subjectedto discrimination under any program oractivity receiving federal financial assis-tance” (in Foreman 1996, p. 23). As suchthere are increasing calls for environmen-tal justice research to examine theenvironmental “goods” as well as “bads”in order to ensure that all populations re-ceive an equal share of government benefitsand costs (Salazar 1996; 1998). The studyof environmental goods in the context ofthis study refers to federally protectedwilderness areas, and how these areas areperceived as LDLUs.

Wilderness is a locally desirable landuse. People value natural areas for the


ecological services they provide as wellas the social benefits that individualsderive from them (Landres et al. 1988).For a large majority of the Americanpublic, lands protected under theNWPS provide both use and nonusevalues/benefits (Cordell, Tarrant,McDonald, and Bergstrom 1998). Usevalues of wilderness comprise direct,indirect, and option values, whereasnonuse values are derived from preserv-ing lands in their pristine condition,and include existence, bequest, andintrinsic values (Mountford and Kepler1999). Direct use values are wildernessattributes and services that can betraded, consumed, or used as an inputto commercial activities (e.g., expensesassociated with wilderness recreationequipment and travel). Indirect usesconcern those wilderness attributes andservices that provide value to the well-being of humans through themaintenance of natural systems (e.g.,provision of clean air and water). Op-tion values are preferences people maketo retain the option of having or usingwilderness attributes and services in thefuture. Existence values are the valuesthat humans place on wilderness for itsvery existence, independent of anypresent or future on-site use of the area(e.g., spiritual and symbolic aspects ofwilderness). Bequest values representthe value that people derive from main-taining wilderness attributes andservices for use or nonuse by futuregenerations. Intrinsic values are thequalities that wilderness possesses in-herently, regardless of human existence.

Whereas some of these values existindependent of one’s geographic prox-imity to wilderness (i.e. they are widelydistributed across all segments of Ameri-can society), many of the values accruegreater benefits to residents living on thefringe of wilderness than to distant resi-dents. For example, clean air and water,scenic vistas, recreation opportunities,

and option values (such as federal pro-tection of lands from futuredevelopment) are more accessible forpeople who live nearby wilderness thanfor urban residents. Furthermore, al-though several values may have someassociated costs (e.g., noise and pollu-tion from recreation/tourism traffic andperipheral housing development, etc.),federally designated wilderness areasarguably provide some of the highestlevel of environmental goods and there-fore warrant being addressed underExecutive Order 12898. Indeed, a ma-jor impetus for wilderness preservationin this country was the protection of theAdirondack Preserve in New York toprovide a vital watershed to nearbypopulations (Nash 1967), and 88 USDAForest Service wilderness areas havebeen designated the highest standard(Class 1) for air quality (Stokes 1999).As such, wilderness areas may be con-sidered one example of a locallydesirable land use; in other words, un-like hazardous waste sites, industrialdevelopment, and/or residential sprawl,the environmental benefits of living nearwilderness probably outweigh the costs.

Objectives of the StudyThis study seeks to establish wilder-ness as a land use that people desirein their backyards (Wilderness in MyBackyard, WIMBY). We compare thesocial and economic characteristics ofresidents of counties adjacent to wil-derness (i.e., living with wilderness intheir backyard) versus those in coun-ties that are not adjacent to wilderness.

Census data from 1980, 1990, and2000 were used to examine trends inpopulation migration (i.e., changes insocioeconomic characteristics acrosstime) to/from wilderness counties inthe contiguous United States. The ob-jectives were (1) to compare thesocioeconomic characteristics of resi-dents of counties adjacent towilderness and those not adjacent towilderness in 1980, 1990, and 2000;and (2) to examine the change in so-cioeconomic characteristics ofresidents of counties adjacent to wil-derness and those not adjacent towilderness from 1980 to 2000.

MethodsWilderness-area shape files weredownloaded from the National Atlasof the United States website (2002)and county data (shape files and at-tribute information) was retrievedfrom the Census CD Version 2.0(GeoLytics 1998). Geographically dis-tinct units of all wilderness areas (n =993) and all counties (n = 3,111)within the contiguous states were in-cluded in the analysis. (Somewilderness areas contain more thanone physical/geographic land unit.)Shape files are digital vector-basedpolygons/representations of geo-graphic entities with attached tablescontaining attribute information. Inthe case of wilderness-area shape files,only limited attribute information wasavailable (e.g., name and geographiccoordinates). For county shape files,attribute information included per

Table 2. Descriptive Statistics of Change (from 1980 to 2000)in Socioeconomic Characteristics for U.S. Counties

Socioeconomic variable Mean Std. Dev.

Percent change in per capita income (adj.) 1980 to 2000 39.71% 20.19Percent change in blue-collar 1980 to 2000 -13.60% 16.49Percent change in attended college 1980 to 2000 81.97% 32.08Percent change in white population 1980 to 2000 -4.04% 16.51


capita income, race, education, andoccupation. Attributes for feature type,feature name, agency ownership, uni-form resource locator, state, and stateFederal Information Processing Stan-dard codes were retained. Theminimum map resolution included inthe data is an area of 640 acres, (257ha) or one square mile. Using ESRI’sArc/INFO GIS software, the data setwas checked for label errors, danglingnodes, and intersections. Using theBUILD command thereafter, the poly-gon topology was built for the data set.Counties that included wilderness ar-eas, shared a boundary with awilderness area, or were within 1,500meters (approximately 1 mile) of awilderness boundary were considered“adjacent counties.” A 1,500-metercutoff was used to be consistent withprevious studies of environmental jus-tice (see for example, Glickman 1994;Hamilton 1995; Kriesel, Centner, andKeeler 1996; U.S. General Account-ing Office 1995) in which a definitionof proximity/adjacency was required.

Per capita income was measured as acontinuous level variable in dollars. Theconsumer price index was used to ad-just the 1990 and 2000 values forinflation (www.bls.gov). The 1990 ad-justed value was reduced by a factor of0.63 from the actual 1990 value, andthe 2000 adjusted value was reduced bya factor of 0.48 from the actual 2000value. Occupation was categorized aspercent of the total workforce classifiedin blue-collar occupations (farming, con-struction, production, transportation,and installation) versus white-collar andservice occupations. It was calculated asnumber of blue-collar employees di-vided by total employees. Education wasclassified according to percent of thepopulation who had attended college forat least one year and was computed asthe total population who had attendedat least some college (from freshmen to

doctoral graduates) divided by the totalpopulation older than 25 years. Race wascategorized as percent of the total popu-lation white (including white Hispanics)versus nonwhite (composed of AfricanAmerican, Native American Indian,Asian, and other). It was calculated aswhite population divided by the totalpopulation.

Percent change in each of the socio-economic variables (from 1980 to 2000)was computed as follows: (2000 valueminus 1980 value)/1980 value. Thebuffer distance was equal to 1,500 meters(approximately one mile) and measuredas the distance from the boundary of acensus unit (county) to the boundary ofthe wilderness shape file.

Data were spatially represented inArcView GIS software, version 3.2 (En-vironmental Systems Research Institute1999) using the Albers Equal Area pro-jection in metric units. The buffer analysisin GIS enabled the creation of a 1,500-meter buffer around the polygon of eachwilderness area and subsequent countieswithin (and outside) the buffer identified.The problem of representing the wholecensus unit with just one average censusdata was addressed. To solve this problem,the county boundary was delineated usingthe interpolation method of GIS. The so-cioeconomic variables of the new createdcounty were calculated from the censusblock groups within the new createdboundary. Data from the spatial analysiswas then exported to SPSS (StatisticalPackage for the Social Sciences 2001)version 11.0 for further statistical analysis.

The two objectives were tested us-ing an independent sample T-test. Theindependent variable was dichoto-mous (i.e., 0 representing countiesadjacent to wilderness, and 1 repre-senting counties not adjacent towilderness). The dependent variableswere per capita income, percent blue-collar occupation, percent attendedsome college, and percent white for

1980, 1990, 2000, and change from1980 to 2000. Since population (andnot sample) data were used, signifi-cance tests were not applicable; rather,the T-statistic and effect sizes (rangingfrom 0 to 1.0) for both objectives wereinterpreted. (For comparative pur-poses, a T-statistic greater than 1.65implies a significant difference at thep = .05 level for sample data.)

ResultsThe means and standard deviations of thefour socioeconomic characteristics for allcounties in the 48 states across 1980,1990, and 2000 are shown in Table 1.From 1980 to 2000, per capita incomeincreased by almost 39.7%, blue-collaroccupation decreased by 13.6%, collegeattendance increased by almost 82.0%,and the percent of white population de-creased by 4.0% (see Table 2).

Objective 1: Figure 1 shows the dis-tribution of wilderness areas in thecontiguous United States, whereas Figure2 displays counties by per capita incomefor the change from 1980 to 2000. To-gether with Table 3, the results show thatcounties adjacent (versus not adjacent) towilderness differed considerably on at leastthree of the four socioeconomic variables(occupation, education, and race) in1980, 1990, and 2000. For all three timeperiods, counties adjacent to wildernessareas were more likely to be white, tohave attended college, and have slightlyhigher per capita incomes, and were lesslikely to be in blue-collar occupationsthan counties not adjacent to wilderness.With the exception of per capita income,the effect sizes (a) were not only moder-ate to large (greater than .10), suggestingthe differences are substantial, but also(b) exhibited a consistent pattern intrends (from 1980 to 2000), suggestingthat the differences are narrowing overtime (see also objective 2).

Objective 2: Table 3 also displays thepercent change in each of the four socio-


economic variables from 1980 to 2000by proximity to wilderness. Countiesadjacent to wilderness exhibited greaterdecreases in white populations and blue-collar occupations (d = .11 and .20,respectively) and a lower increase in col-lege attendance (d = .35) than countiesnot adjacent to wilderness. There wasvery little difference in per capita income(d = -.06). Whether these results show(1) a trend in population migration pat-terns and/or (2) that people currentlyliving in counties adjacent to wildernessare less likely to seek blue-collar employ-ment and/or to receive higher educationlevels than people living in counties notadjacent to wilderness is unknown.

DiscussionBefore discussing findings of the study,some limitations must be addressed.First, we chose to examine only wil-derness in the contiguous (as opposedto the entire) United States in part be-cause of the lack of comparable datasets (notably changing county bound-

aries), but also because the social andgeographic characteristics of the statesof Alaska and Hawaii are so differentfrom the rest of the country (muchmore so than between the eastern andwestern contiguous United States). Forexample, including Alaska, which con-tains more than one-half of the NWPSlands and a tiny fraction of the U.S.population, would have biased thesample considerably. In sum, a validargument could probably be made foreither including or excluding bothstates. We chose to exclude them andlimit our findings to the 48 contiguousstates. Such exclusion is not unique inrecent studies of demographic trendsand natural lands in the United States;for example, Cordell and Overdevest(2001) also limited their analyses ofchanging demographics and land pat-terns to the contiguous 48 states.

Second, we argue that residents ofadjacent counties benefit more from wil-derness than nonadjacent counties andthat environmental justice is an appro-

priate framework for such analyses. Thisargument is based on the viewpoint thatmany use and nonuse values of wilder-ness are realized by residents from allacross the country (such as bequest val-ues and existence values). Theopportunities for receiving some of them(especially aesthetic values and indirectvalues such as clean air and water) arearguably greater the closer one lives tothe protected area. Furthermore, whereaswe acknowledge that the designation ofwilderness (or similarly protected) areasis not made on the basis of environmen-tal justice, the environmental justicemandate requires governmental agencies(that include the US Forest Service, Na-tional Park Service, Bureau of LandManagement, and Fish and Wildlife Ser-vice) to determine the costs and benefits ofsuch land allocation decisions for peoplesof color and low income.

ConclusionsIt has been argued that the key factorsthat influence the spatial distribution

Table 3. T-test of Differences in Counties Adjacent to andOutside of Wilderness Areas in the United States

Outside of Adjacent towilderness wilderness

Socioeconomic variable Mean Std. dev. Mean Std. dev. T-test Effect

Per capita income 1980 $6042.00 1230.72 $6096.00 1313.81 -0.83 -0.04Per capita income (adj.) 1990 $6993.00 1673.21 $7072.00 1843.69 -0.90 -0.05Per capita income (adj.) 2000 $8366.00 1851.55 $8509.00 2201.79 -1.46 -0.07Percent change in per capita income 1980 to 2000 39.53% 19.77 40.83% 22.59 -1.24 -0.06Blue-collar occupation 1980 36.09% 9.84 34.45% 9.65 3.23 0.17Blue-collar occupation 1990 32.69% 8.94 30.91% 8.85 3.85 0.20Blue-collar occupation 2000 30.78% 7.91 28.39% 7.75 5.86 0.31Percent change in blue-collar 1980 to 2000 -13.15% 16.56 -16.43% 15.79 3.84 0.20Attended college 1980 23.78% 8.55 29.03% 11.61 -11.22 -0.52Attended college 1990 34.56% 10.58 39.61% 12.84 -8.94 -0.43Attended college 2000 41.93% 10.83 46.95% 12.48 -8.77 -0.43Percent change in attended college 1980 to 2000 83.54% 31.79 72.28% 32.21 6.81 0.35White population 1980 88.12% 15.58 91.13% 11.12 -3.86 -0.22White population 1990 87.01% 15.92 90.21% 11.17 -4.04 -0.23White population 2000 84.46% 16.54 86.54% 12.41 -2.52 -0.14Percent change in white population 1980 to 1990 -3.82% 17.41 -5.36% 9.16 1.81 0.11


of locally desirable and undesirableland uses are political and economic(Bryant and Mohai 1992). If wilder-ness lands are considered a desirableland use and their designation andboundaries are politically determined,the environmental justice mandate(Executive Order 12898) has implica-tions for understanding the potentialinequities associated with where wil-derness is located. A first step in thisprocess is identifying who is likely toreceive a greater share of the benefits

derived from wilderness. Although liv-ing near wilderness does not ensurethat local residents receive all the en-vironmental goods of wilderness, itdoes provide local populations withamenities such as clean air and water,easier geographic access to recreationand solitude, and an undisturbed pris-tine environment in their backyard.Furthermore, these amenities are pre-served using public tax dollars and,unlike private or some other publiclands, wilderness is unlikely to be tar-

geted (at least in the near future) forindustrial, commercial, or residentialdevelopment. One question this raisesis whether people who benefit fromtheir proximity to wilderness shouldbear a higher tax burden than thosewho receive fewer wilderness benefits.Although our results imply such apolicy warrants reasonable consider-ation, clearly, one study alone isinsufficient to substantiate these claims.

Our article is based on the assumptionsthat (1) the environmental justice man-date applies to desirable as well asundesirable land uses, (2) wilderness is alocally desirable land use, and (3) the ben-efits of wilderness are typically greater atthe local (versus nonlocal) level (althoughsome benefits occur independent of geo-graphic distance, such as bequest values).Results show that unlike traditional envi-ronmental justice studies, income was notfound to be a substantial explanatory fac-tor in the location of wilderness areas.However, counties adjacent to wildernessin 1980, 1990, and 2000 were composedof significantly fewer blue-collar workers,more whites, and higher-educated people.Such findings may imply that some groupsare receiving a greater share of nonuse wil-derness benefits than others. Furthermore,results of the trend analysis (from 1980 to2000) suggest the gap between wilder-ness and nonwilderness counties isnarrowing in terms of (1) percent of whitepopulation (i.e., wilderness counties arebecoming more nonwhite at a faster ratethan nonwilderness counties), (2) percentblue-collar (i.e., wilderness counties arebecoming more white-collar at a fasterrate than nonwilderness counties), and(3) percent attended college (i.e., wilder-ness counties are becoming moreeducated at a slower rate thannonwilderness counties). The questionremains as to whether these findings rep-resent an environmental injustice.

Environmental justice is under-stood as an act that will prevent people

Figure 1—Distribution of wilderness areas in the contiguous United States

Figure 2—Percent change in per capita income for counties in the contiguous United States, 1980 to 2000


from experiencing environmental jus-tice. To the extent that wildernessdesignation favored local countiescomposed of more white- (versusblue-) collar, more whites (than non-whites), and higher- (versus lower-)educated people, there may be somecause for concern. (Although this hasclearly been tempered by the narrow-ing in trends from 1980 to 2000.)

Certainly, the decision to designatean area as part of the NWPS is a highlycontentious and political issue that re-quires local community input (forexample, as part of the National Envi-ronmental Policy Act, 1969 andNational Forest Management Act,1976). Although minority communi-ties (represented by low income andpeople of color) have traditionally beenless influential than white affluentcommunities in land use decisions(in part because of mistrust, lack of rep-resentation, and/or unsuccessfulcollaboration with government organi-zations) (see for example, Dennis 2001;Wondolleck and Yaffee 2000), muchless is known about the effect of occu-pation and education on the land usedecision-making process. Given thestrong correlations among income, oc-cupation, and education, powerfulcommunity groups (i.e., those with thegreatest ability to influence and exhibitstrong interest) in environmental issuesare likely to include people with highereducation and white-collar employ-ment. It is unlikely, however, that therehas been any evidence of overt discrimi-nation (i.e., intentional targeting ofcertain communities) in the distribu-tion of wilderness areas. Our resultsshow only correlational support forwhite-collar, white population, andhigher-educated counties and does notaddress deliberate actions on the partof any federal agency to discriminatein favor of one particular social group.Based on the emerging trends, the need

for a sustainable development modelis highly desirable.

Social justice concerns in land useplanning have only recently receivedscientific attention. Social equity in theplanning process was articulated inCampbell’s (1996) triangle model, inwhich the three basic and conflictinggoals of planning (economic develop-ment, environmental protection, andsocial equity) are represented. The actof balancing the three goals in a publicprocess has been a source of conflictand tension and quite often has resultedin lopsided/biased preferences in thebalancing act. This is particularly pro-found and true in circumstances wherecertain parties/agencies as part of thepublic process have more resources (fi-nancial and political power) than otherparties, resulting in situations where thedistribution of environmental goods andthe social goals have to be bargained andoften results in the weaker populationbeing marginalized. Such considerationsare at the heart of models of sustainabledevelopment and are clearly applicableto studies of environmental justice. Thepresent study provides findings that sup-port the need for a more sustainablemodel of land use planning and desig-nation (with specific implications forwilderness areas).

Interestingly, issues of environmen-tal injustice were not included in theworks of many classical writers of theenvironmental movement (e.g., Abbey,Carson, Leopold, etc.). Yet, today en-vironmentalists share much incommon with social/environmentaljustice advocates, and over the pastdecade there have been increasing callsfor the two groups to unite ( 1995;Bullard and Wright 1992; Costner andThornton 1990; Dunlap and Mertig1992). Although mainstream environ-mental groups (such as Greenpeace,the Sierra Club, The Wilderness Soci-ety) have traditionally been composed

of affluent educated white membersconcerned with the health of thephysical community, and environmen-tal justice groups have included mostlypoor, working-class, and minoritygroups focused on the health of thesocial community, clearly the twogroups have at their core a similargoal—redressing the effect of humanactivities on ecosystem conditions. Itwould be desirable to foster a moreunified front among people to advancethe implications of social and environ-mental justice and pave the waytoward a better future.

This study has been a macro-levelanalysis based on GIS and simple de-scriptive statistics. Future research foran improved and in-depth understand-ing would presumably include moremicro-level analysis such as face-to-faceinterviews, including participatorymapping and participant observation.A detailed qualitative study would teaseout the existing intangible, socially con-structed definitions of place andattachment, which are historically andculturally constructed, and which haveultimately resulted in space and placemarginalization by minority groups(Johnson et al. 2001).

One of the greatest challenges facingland managers and the NWPS is contin-ued development at the wildernessboundaries, as these are areas associatedwith population explosion and migration.Views on how these areas should be usedand managed should include an ap-proach to integrating environmental andsocial equity concerns by targeting effortsaimed at sustainable development. In thecase of undesirable land uses, poor com-munities are often forced to make theno-win choice between economic sur-vival and environmental quality(Campbell 1996). In the case of desirableland uses, those without the political willor influence may be receiving a lowershare of the benefits of environmental


decisions. Regardless of either case, eco-nomic segregation inevitably leads toenvironmental segregation, and unlessunderrepresented communities engage inthe policy debate about environmentalsustainability they will continue to receivea greater share of the costs and less of thebenefits of more affluent communities.Ultimately, by demonstrating the costsand benefits of land use decisions for bothhuman and ecological communities(whereby indicator species may includeboth human as well as physical features),the two groups may find they are fight-ing for similar outcomes. The challengeis for land use planners to include suchoutcomes in models of sustainability andto determine how we might make landuse choices that are in our collective (so-cial and environmental) best interest(Yaffee 1994). IJW

REFERENCESBoerner, C., and T. Lambert. 1995. Environmen-

tal injustice. Public Interest 118: 61–82.Bryant, B. 1995. Introduction. In Environmental

Justice: Issues, Policies, and Solutions, ed. B.Bryant, pp. 1–7. Washington, DC: Island Press.

Bryant, B. P. and P. Mohai. 1992. Race and theIncidence of Environmental Hazards: A Timefor Discourse. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Bullard, R. D. 1994. Dumping in Dixie: Race,Class, and Environmental Quality. Boulder,CO: Westview Press.

Bullard, R. D. and B. H. Wright. 1992. The questfor environmental equity: Mobilizing the Af-rican-American community for socialchange. In American Environmentalism: TheU.S. Environmental Movement, 1970—1990, ed. R. E. Dunlap and A. G Mertig,pp. 39–49. Philadelphia: Taylor and Francis.

Campbell, S. 1996. Green cities, growing cities, justcities? Urban planning and the contradictions ofsustainable development. Journal of the Ameri-can Planning Association 62(3): 296–312.

Champion, A. 1989. Counterurbanization: TheChanging Pace and Nature of PopulationDeconcentration. London: Edward Arnold.

Commission for Racial Justice, United Church ofChrist. 1987. Toxic Wastes and Race in theUnited States: A National Report on the Ra-cial and Socio-economic Characteristics ofCommunities with Hazardous Waste Sites.New York: United Church of Christ.

Cordell, H. K. and C. Overdevest. 2001. Foot-prints on the Land: An Assessment of Demo-

graphic Trends and the Future of NaturalLands in the United States. Champaign, IL:Sagamore Publishing.

Cordell, H. K., M. A. Tarrant, B. L. McDonald,and J. C. Bergstrom. 1998. How the publicviews wilderness. International Journal ofWilderness 4(3): 28–31.

Costner, P., and J. Thornton. 1990. Playing withFire. Washington, DC: Greenpeace.

Dennis, S. 2001. Natural Resources and the In-formed Citizen. Champaign, IL: SagamorePublishing.

Di Chiro, G. 1998. Environmental justice fromthe grassroots. In The struggle for ecologi-cal democracy, ed. D. Faber, pp. 104–36.New York: The Guilford Press.

Dunlap, R. E. and A. G. Mertig. 1992. AmericanEnvironmentalism: The U.S. EnvironmentalMovement, 1970–1990. Philadelphia: Taylorand Francis.

Environmental Systems Research Institute. 1999.ArcView GIS: Using ArcView GIS. Redlands,CA: Environmental Systems Research Institute.

Federal Register, February 11. 1994. Executiveorder 12898—Federal actions to addressenvironmental justice in minority populationsand low-income populations. Washington,DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Floyd, M. F., and C. Y. Johnson. 2002. Coming toterms with environmental justice in outdoor rec-reation: A conceptual discussion with researchimplications. Leisure Sciences 25, 59–77.

Foreman, C. H. 1996. A winning hand? Theuncertain future of environmental justice.Brookings Review 14(2): 22–25.

GeoLytics, Inc. 1998. Census CD+ maps. EastBrunswick, NJ: GeoLytics, Inc.

Glickman, T. S. 1994. Measuring environmen-tal equity with geographic information sys-tems. Resources 116: 2–6.

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Johnson, C., J. M. Bowker, and H. K. Cordell.2001. Outdoor recreation constraints: Anexamination of race, gender, and rural dwell-ing. Southern Rural Sociology 17, 111–33.

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Landres, P., S. Marsh, L. Merigliani, D. Ritter, andA. Norman. 1988. Boundary effects on wil-derness and other natural areas. In Steward-ship across Boundaries, ed. R. Knight and P.Landres, pp. 117–39. Covelo, CA: Island Press.

Mohai, P., and B. Bryant. 1992. Environmental rac-ism: Reviewing the evidence. In Race and the

Incidence of Environmental Hazards: A Timefor Discourse. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Mountford, H., and J. H. Kepler. 1999. Financingincentives for the protection of diversity. TheScience of the Total Environment 240, 133–44.

Nash, R. 1967. Wilderness and the AmericanMind. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

National Atlas of the United States website.2002. URL: http://nationalatlas.gov/atlasftp.html.

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Porter, R. P. and M. A. Tarrant. 2001. A case studyof environmental justice and federal tourismsites in southern Appalachia: A GIS applica-tion. Journal of Travel Research 40: 27–40.

Salazar, D. 1996. Environmental justice and a people’sforestry. Journal of Forestry 94(11): 32–38.

Salazar, D. 1998. Environmental justice and natu-ral resource management in the Pacific North-west. Northwest Science Forum 72(1): 52–57.

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SPSS, Inc. 2001. SPSS Advanced Statistics 11.0.SPSS: Chicago: SPSS, Inc.

Stokes, J. 1999. Wilderness management priori-ties in a changing political environment. Inter-national Journal of Wilderness 5(1): 4–8.

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U.S. General Accounting Office. 1995. Haz-ardous and non-hazardous waste: Demo-graphics of people living near wastefacilities. GAO/RCED-95-84. Washington,DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

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GARY T. GREEN, Research ProjectManager in Recreation, Wilderness, UrbanForestry, and Demographic TrendsResearch Unit, USDA Forest Service, 320Green Street, Athens, GA 30602-2044,USA. E-mail: [email protected].

MICHAEL A. TARRANT, 1-309 Daniel B.Warnell School of Forest Resources, TheUniversity of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-2152, USA. E-mail: [email protected].

UTTIYO RAYCHAUDHURI is at theUniversity of Georgia and YANGJIANZHANG is at Rutgers University.


Over the past decade, the forces of nature have in-delibly altered some wilderness landscapes and,as a consequence, permanently changed how visi-

tors use these areas. Several critical questions confrontmanagers: “Should management actions be implementedto protect what nature has reconfigured, or should manag-ers restore campsites and trails to previous conditions?” Isit appropriate for visitors who have visited a particular siteover many visits, and find it either dramatically altered ornonexistent, to manipulate the site to accommodate theirexpectations? A close review of two recent changes to wil-derness landscapes through the forces of nature in a nationalpark and a national forest wilderness offers insight into thismanagement dilemma.

On the morning of September 8, 2004, Hurricane Francisblew into North Carolina. Linville Gorge Wilderness, locatedin western North Carolina was a pristine and serene land-scape. After sixteen inches (41 centimeters) of rain fell in thespan of 48 hours, the Linville River unleashed a twenty-foot(6-meter) wall of water through the gorge, which devastatedeverything in its path. In the spring of 1997, Yosemite Na-tional Park experienced a similar scenario as the Merced Riverswelled to flood stage, leaving behind a path of devastatedcabins, roads, campgrounds, and trails.

There is no clear understanding of how catastrophic eventssuch as hurricanes, tornadoes, drought, fire, and mass floodingalter wilderness landscapes and influence or change visitor ex-periences in wilderness. Questions remain regarding ensuingmanagement dilemmas: How, if at all, should managers play arole in controlling natural changes and restoring trails and camp-sites to preexisting conditions? If we take direction from Section2(c) of the Wilderness Act of 1964 (Public Law 88-577), wil-derness “generally appears to have been affected primarily bythe forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substan-tially unnoticeable.” Does this suggest to managers that a

hands-off approach should be followed, or does this suggestrestoration of what has been changed by the forces of nature?The Wilderness Act of 1964 sets the tone for management ac-tions that result in preserving or restoring natural conditions.McCool and Lime (1988) argued that management actions,whether designed to preserve resources, enhance opportuni-ties, or reduce conflict, can negatively impact visitors. Researchershave been divided between the hands-off versus the restorationapproach to fostering a quality visitor experience. The manage-ment community is divided between those who invite theopportunity to create or enhance visitor satisfaction and expec-tations and those who do not. These concerns foster either asense of pessimism or a desire for a better understanding ofhow management actions (or no action) influence the quality ofthe visitor’s experience (Flood 2003b).

Research findings suggest new generations of wildernessvisitors may have different expectations about whatmanagement actions are appropriate (Cole et al. 1997; Vaskeet al. 1980; Watson and Cronn 1994). Visitors who have grownaccustomed to a particular wilderness campsite, or wildernesslandscape, often experience upset or stress upon returning toa drastically altered condition. It has been suggested that whenvisitors first visit an area, a form of benchmarking occurs (Flood2003a). This benchmarking influences how visitors evaluatesite conditions during future visits. These factors may influenceboth visitor motivation and expectations as they plan to revisittheir favorite wilderness locations.

Understanding Visitor BehaviorSocial psychologists have documented that people use stan-dards to evaluate a setting and what influences theirexpectations for an experience. Different individuals may havedifferent expectations for the same activity or setting. When asituation is substandard to what a person defines as appropri-ate or expected, the experience is more likely to be evaluated

EDUCATION and COMMUNICATION

Changes in the Aftermath ofNatural Disasters

When Is Too Much Change Unacceptable to Visitors?

BY JOSEPH FLOOD and CRAIG COLISTRA


negatively (Vaske et al. 1980; Watsonand Cronn 1994). Vaske and others sug-gest that visitors with no priorexpectations of a wilderness setting aresusceptible to accepting what they seeduring their first visit as being appro-priate (i.e., benchmarking). Expectancytheory suggests that the determinants ofhuman behavior are the beliefs, expec-tations, and anticipation individualshave concerning future events (Steersand Porter 1987). Expectancy theory il-lustrates how on-site conditionsinfluence visitors’ experiences before andduring a wilderness visit. Wildernessvisitor behavior is goal directed andbased on conscious decisions, andLawler (1973) suggests that people en-gage in behaviors that provide positiveoutcomes. Similarly, expectancy-valencetheory (Ajzen and Fishbein 1980) hasbeen used in wilderness settings to helpunderstand how the role of expectationand on-site conditions influence the wil-derness experience (Hall and Shelby1993). The wilderness resource condi-tions selected by the visitor areremembered with the expectation thatit will once again lead to their desiredwilderness experience during the nexttrip. Therefore, the conditions existingduring a visitor’s initial exposure to aspecific campsite or trail establish abenchmark influencing subsequent vis-its (Flood 2003a). These theories suggestthen that a drastic change in on-site con-

ditions at a recreation site could createan expectation dilemma for some visi-tors (i.e., the current situation does notmatch their previous benchmark).

Two Examples of LandscapeChanges from FloodingFor decades, Yosemite National Parkmanagers have been challenged by the1916 legislative mandate that definesthe park’s mission as “conserving thescenery” while “providing for the en-joyment” of the American public. As17,000 visitors view El Capitan, spec-tacular waterfalls, and giant granite rockformations each day, their very presencecreates significant impacts and de-mands on park resources. The sheernumbers of visitors have forced man-agers to address tough, controversialchallenges such as providing housingfor park rangers and concessionaires,and whether or not to eliminate poorlylocated campsites and trails built withinthe flood plain. In the spring of 1997,after a winter that created an exception-ally heavy snowpack high in the SierraNevada Mountains, a tropical stormstruck. It melted the snowpack and cre-ated torrential rains that swelled theMerced River to flood stage. After sev-eral days, the storm subsided, leavinghundreds of cabins, roads, camp-grounds, wilderness campsites, andsections of trails totally destroyed.Whereas some local concessionairesindicated that the park was devastated,others suggested that this “act of na-ture” was needed to reset priorities forthe park. Rather than evaluating theeffects of the storm as an all-encompass-ing negative, managers chose to forgoreplacing or rebuilding many structuresand campsites, while reestablishingmore ecologically sound trail systemsin alternative routes and locations.

On September 8, 2004, HurricaneFrancis left a path of debris, dislocation,and destruction across much of west-

ern North Carolina. The 12,000-acre(4,858-hectare) Linville Gorge Wilder-ness, located on the Pisgah NationalForest, received 16 inches (41 centime-ters) of rain over a period of several days.The runoff caused the Linville River toswell from a 7,000 to 35,000 cubic feet(198 to 992 cubic meters) per secondflow (http://steepness.bogsspot.com/2004), and a 20-foot (6-meter) wall ofwater moved, altered, or eliminatednearly everything in its path along theriverbank. One frequently visited areaof the wilderness, Bynum Bluff camparea, was totally obliterated. While lo-cal U.S. Forest Service managers closedmuch of the area for safety reasons andbegan rebuilding heavily damaged roadsand trails, visitors were working inde-pendently and without authority torebuild some lost campsites that wereimportant to them.

Campsite Conditions in theLinville Gorge WildernessA campsite inventory database for theBynum Bluff area had been conductedon February 24–26, 2004, prior to theflood, and there were approximately150 trees and 16 campsites. After theflood, only three undisturbed camp-sites remained intact. During apostflood reinventory process, re-searchers found only 42 trees, fourvisitor re-created campsites, and thethree original sites that together cov-ered an area of 3,000 square feet (278square meters) (see Figure 1). Duringa second reinventory trip on April 1–3, 2005, researchers observed that fournew visitor-created sites had been es-tablished by moving debris (trees,rocks, and large boulders) and usingsurrounding sand and gravel for lev-eling out the sites (see Figure 2).Researchers estimated that the total of10 sites covered an overall area of3,406 square feet (316 square meters),an increase of 406 square feet (38

Figure 1—The Bynum Bluff area in the Linville Gorge after theflood and during the postflood reinventory of campsites and trees.Photo by Joseph Flood.


square meters) in campsite area sincethe first postflood reinventory.

Management DilemmaIf there were originally 16 campsitesand now there are 10, should manag-ers allow this activity or discourage it?Does the act of moving debris andboulders, and leveling out sand andgravel constitute appropriate visitorbehavior or not? When do acts of na-ture rule, and when should visitors betold that acts of nature will dominate?Although this management dilemmademonstrates what can happen underunusual catastrophic conditions, thisauthor argues that visitors have oftenaltered wilderness campsites to bestmeet their needs and expectations. Inmany instances what managers havedone, or failed to do, may reflect someof an agency’s philosophy about wil-derness management. Although therehas been a concerted effort by theArthur Carhart National WildernessTraining Center during the past decadeto “foster interagency excellence inwilderness stewardship” for all wilder-ness managers working for the fourmanagement agencies, individualagencies continue to address similarproblems differently. The two case ex-amples here highlight that in theseinstances the National Park Servicemay take a different approach from theU.S. Forest Service when it comes toissues of natural forces transformingthe landscape and of visitor alterationof wilderness. However, little attentionhas been given to determining how tobest address the issues of how to reactto natural transformations of the land-scape and whether visitors should beallowed to alter a site to re-create pre-existing or new on-site conditions.

The intent of this article is toencourage a dialogue between re-searchers and managers on how to besthandle significantly altered landscapes

after the occurrence of anatural disaster from botha visitor and a managementperspective. For example,catastrophic floodingevents may be increasing incoming years as meteorolo-gists and climatologistspredict that global warmingwill result in unusual anddramatic changes inweather patterns world-wide. Rivers and streamsmay swell and flood, orevaporate, under unusualweather conditions affect-ing many popular campsites currentlylocated along riverbanks and corridorsor mountain valleys. Perhaps one ap-proach is visitor education aboutnatural processes and conditions inwilderness and how the forces of na-ture may drastically alter thelandscape. Perhaps another approachis to conduct in-depth studies, askingmanagers about accepting catastrophiclandscape change, conducting man-agement-initiated restoration toformer conditions, or allowing visitor-initiated restoration alterations toimprove recreation opportunities.Managers should be proactive in theirplanning and anticipate visitor reac-tions and agency managementresponses to significantly altered land-scapes after the occurrence of a naturaldisaster in a wilderness area. IJW

REFERENCESAjzen, I., and M. Fishbein. 1980. Understand-

ing Attitudes and Predicting Social Behavior.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Cole, D. N., A. E. Watson, T. E. Hall, and D. R.Spildie. 1997. High-use destinations in wil-derness: Social and biophysical impacts, visi-tor responses, and management options. Gen.Tech. Rep. INT- RP-496. Ogden, UT: USDAForest Service, Intermountain Research Station.

Flood, J. P. 2003a. Wilderness benchmarking:Is visitor acceptability creep a concern ornot? International Journal of Wilderness9(3): 35-38, 27.

Flood, J. P. 2003b. Influence of benchmarking onwilderness visitor and manager perceptions ofcampsite conditions. Northeastern RecreationResearch Symposium 2002 Proceedings, BoltonLanding, NY, April 13–16. Gen. Tech. Rep. NE-302. Newton Square, PA: USDA Forest Service,Northeast Research Station; pp. 165-172.

Hall, T., and B. Shelby. 1993. Wilderness moni-toring. Mount Jefferson, Mount Washington,and Three Sisters Wildernesses. UnpublishedTech. Rep. on file. Eugene, OR: USDA ForestService, Willamette National Forest.

Lawler, E. E. 1973. Motivation in Work Orga-nizations. Monterey, CA: Brooks.

McCool, S. F., and D. W. Lime. 1988. Attitudesof visitors toward outdoor recreation man-agement policy. Proceedings—National Wil-derness Research Conference: Issues,State-of-knowledge, Future Directions, pp.401–11. Ogden UT: USDA Forest Service,Intermountain Research Station.

Steers, R. M., and L. W. Porter. 1987. Motivationand Work Behavior. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Vaske, J. J., M. P. Donnelly, and T. A. Heberlein.1980. Perceptions of crowding and resourcequality by early and more recent visitors.Leisure Sciences 3: 367–81.

Watson, A. E., and R. Cronn. 1994. How previ-ous experience relates to visitors’ perceptionsof wilderness conditions. Backcountry Recre-ation Management Trends 31(3): 43–46.

JOSEPH FLOOD is an assistant professor inthe Department of Recreation and LeisureStudies at East Carolina University,Greenville, NC. E-mail: [email protected].

CRAIG COLISTRA is a graduate student inthe Department of Recreation and LeisureStudies at East Carolina University,Greenville, NC.

Figure 2—Campsites constructed by campers in the Bynum Bluff area of LinvilleGorge after the flood. Photo by Joseph Flood.


Endemic RichnessThe island of Madagascar is one of the world’s highestbiodiversity conservation priorities. It is considered one ofthe most important of the world’s 18 megadiversity coun-tries (Mittermeier et al. 1997) and one of the very highestpriority biodiversity hotspots as well (Mittermeier et al.1999; 2004). Madagascar’s privileged position in terms ofbiodiversity is based on its geological history and geographicplacement. The world’s largest oceanic island—and thefourth largest island overall—has been separated from theAfrican mainland for more than 160 million years, so mostof its plant and animal life evolved in isolation. This re-sulted in very high levels of endemism at the species level.Madagascar is situated largely in the tropics (between 11o

57’ S and 25o 37’ S) and also has very high species richness,especially given its relatively small size (587,041 km2)(226,600 mi2). For example, although Madagascar occu-pies only about 1.9% of the land area of the African region,it has more orchids than all of mainland Africa, and indeedis home to perhaps as much as a third of all African plantspecies. Overall, about 83% of Madagascar’s plant speciesare endemic (Goodman and Benstead 2003), and for ani-mals the proportion is usually even higher, the best examplebeing the primates, which are 100% endemic.

While Madagascar’s species richness and endemism isimpressive, it excels in endemism at higher taxonomic lev-els. As a country, Madagascar’s numbers of endemic plantand animal families and genera are rivaled only by Australia,which is 13 times larger. As a hotspot, Madagascar is simplyunmatched in these categories. Indeed, the Madagascar andIndian Ocean Islands hotspot has unsurpassed endemism atthe family and genus level, with a staggering 24 endemicfamilies and 478 genera of vascular plants and vertebrates.The next highest on the list at the family level are the NewCaledonia, New Zealand, and the Chilean Winter Rainfall/

Valdivian Forests hotspots, each with seven, and for generathe Caribbean, with just 269 (Mittermeier et al. 2004). Thismeans that Madagascar is critically important not just forconservation of species, but for conserving a whole array ofdeep evolutionary lineages representing a significant portionof our planet’s evolutionary history.

This evolutionary history is demonstrated by lemurs thatare the nonhuman primate radiation in Madagascar, arguablythe single highest primate conservation priority on Earth. The69 lemur species and subspecies found there are divided intofive families and 15 genera, all of which are endemic, a level ofendemism simply unmatched on our planet. Brazil, the world’ssingle richest country for primates, with 104 species, also hasfive families and a total of 18 genera; however, none of thefamilies and only three of the genera are endemic in a landarea many times larger than Madagascar. Furthermore, if onetakes into consideration the lemurs that existed on Madagas-car until very recently, the numbers are even more striking.When our species first arrived on Madagascar just 2,000 to2,500 years ago, there were eight other genera and at least 16other species of lemurs present in addition to the extant forms.These extant forms were all larger in size than the living le-murs, some of them giants, with one species growing to be

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

Wilderness Conservation in aBiodiversity Hotspot

BY RUSSELL A. MITTERMEIER, FRANK HAWKINS, SERGE RAJAOBELINA,

and OLIVIER LANGRAND

Co-authors Russell A. Mittermeier (left) and Frank Hawkins.


larger than an adult male gorilla. Someof these survived until perhaps as re-cently as 300 to 400 years ago, but allare now extinct.

The statistics for other animal andplant groups are comparably impres-sive. Plant endemism is extremely highat seven to eight endemic families;there are five endemic bird families;reptiles are represented by 340 spe-cies, of which 314 are endemic; andamphibians are at about 217 species,of which 215 are endemic. Inverte-brate diversity and endemism areextremely high, but we are only nowstarting to fully understand it.

Environmental ImpactsSadly, Madagascar is also one of theworld’s leaders in environmental loss.The threats to Madagascar are welldocumented, with forest destructionthrough slash-and-burn agriculture,mining, and logging being the primarycauses of habitat loss. It is estimatedthat around 90,000 km2 (34,740 mi2)of closed-canopy primary forest andwoodland remained as of 2000, withan average annual rate of loss duringthe 1990s of 0.9% per year (M.Steininger 2005). Burney (2003) esti-mates that historically most of theisland would have been covered inforested or densely vegetated habitats,so nowadays only around 15 to 20 %of original primary vegetation remains.However, after spending a lot of timeflying over many different parts ofMadagascar, we doubt that more than10% of the forest remains sufficientlyintact to be the subject of concertedconservation efforts, much of it beingso fragmented that little can be doneto save it at this time. At best, we be-lieve that perhaps 50,000 to 60,000km2 (19,300 to 23,160 mi2) remainsin a state that is still worth protecting.If this is so, then the sobering factemerges that all the amazing biologi-

cal wealth of Madagascar is packedinto a tiny land area.

Erosion in some parts of Madagas-car, especially in extensive areas of thecentral plateau, is simply staggering, andas severe as anywhere on Earth. Indeed,when flying over parts of the country,one is almost brought to tears by enor-mous erosion gullies, locally known aslavaka, and by the fragmentation andcontinuing burning of small patches ofvegetation to achieve only a couple ofyears of low-level agricultural produc-tivity—a tragic loss of biodiversity anda loss of future potential for the humanpopulation as well. Wetlands, includinglakes, rivers and marshes, are underthreat from transformation to rice fields,siltation from soil erosion, and intro-duced nonnative species.

Lemurs and other mammals such ascarnivores, tenrecs, fruit bats, somebirds, and some reptiles (e.g., tortoises)are very susceptible to hunting. Theimportance of hunting is now emergingas a much more serious environmentalproblem than previously believed. Theinternational pet trade has had a seriousimpact on endemic plants and animalsof Madagascar, especially amphibians,reptiles, and succulent plants. In addi-tion, the proliferation of exotic plantspecies is recognized as a major threataffecting the biodiversity of Madagas-car, and freshwater ecosystems, inparticular, have been seriously im-pacted by alien plants such asEichhornia crassipes (Langrand andGoodman 1995). This combination ofvery high biodiversity, amazing levelsof endemism, and severe threat havecombined to make Madagascar one ofthe world’s highest biodiversity con-servation priorities. Indeed, in theopinion of many, it should be consid-ered the single highest prioritybiodiversity hotspot, and the interna-tional community needs to makeserious investments now. New invest-

ments need to be far in excess of whathas been invested in the past. Newviable long-term plans developed byworking closely with the governmentof Madagascar and private initiatives

Figure 1—Highway of the Baobabs, near Morondava insouthwest Madagascar. Photo by Russell A. Mittermeier,Conservation International.

Figure 2—Devastating erosion in Madagascar. Photo by RussellA. Mittermeier, Conservation International.


could support conservation and envi-ronmentally sound development.

Protected AreasClearly much needs to be done, and,fortunately, good things are beginningto happen. Protected areas are critical.At present, the protected area networkof Madagascar (IUCN Categories I–VI)covers some 1.7 million hectares, (4.2million acres) or about 3% of the coun-try. Recent gap analyses conducted byConservation International and partnerorganizations (including the MissouriBotanical Garden, the Wildlife Conser-vation Society, the World WildlifeFund, the Durrell Wildlife Trust, andthe Malagasy NGO Fanamby), indi-cated that the coverage of Madagascar’sunique biodiversity by this networkwas far from adequate and that a sig-nificant increase in protected areacoverage was necessary. President MarcRavalomanana, who took power in2002, recognized the value of protect-ing the country’s natural heritage, and,to demonstrate his commitment, madean historic declaration to triple hiscountry’s protected area coverage at theWorld Parks Congress in Durban,South Africa, in September 2003. Atthe same time, he requested the sup-

port of the international com-munity to the tune of a $50million trust fund to helpmake this all a reality. This wasmet with much internationalapproval and has resulted ina great deal of conservationactivity within Madagascar.The international communityhas already committed $40million toward this fund inless than two years, while thegovernment has created aDurban Vision Group to iden-tify new areas to be protected.By the end of 2005, it is ex-pected that some 1.5 million

hectares (3.7 million acres) of new ar-eas will have been designated and onthe path to the ultimate total of 6 mil-lion hectares (14.9 million acres).

In addition, Madagascar hasreceived a totally unexpected and quiteamazing windfall from Hollywood, inthe form of a new full-length animatedfilm entitled Madagascar, produced byDreamWorks, one of the Hollywood’sleading companies. This film, whichpremiered at the end of May, portraysMadagascar in a very positive light andis in the process of making it ahousehold word in North America,Europe, and around the world.Preliminary indications are that it willbe seen by 100 million in theaters andby another 200 to 300 million in theirhomes using DVD versions. This movieis likely to stimulate a great increase intourism to Madagascar. Both theinternational conservation communityand the government of Madagascar aremoving quickly to take advantage ofthis unique and historic opportunity.The president has created a Task Forceon Ecotourism reporting directly to hisoffice, and Conservation Internationalhas placed a highly experiencedecotourism specialist in the president’soffice. Other national and international

organizations are moving quickly tostimulate investments in tourism. Themost recent unofficial reports indicatethat there has already been a substantialincrease in tourist interest for 2006.

All of this bodes well for the future,but what is the role of the wildernessconcept in a country like Madagascar,where so much has already been lostand where most of the protected areasare significantly smaller than 100,000hectares (247,000 acres)? We believethat the wilderness concept does in facthave great value in Madagascar and thatit fits in very well with the conservationcorridor concept that organizationssuch as Conservation International,World Wildlife Fund, the WildlifeConservation Society, the Institute forthe Conservation of TropicalEnvironments, and the Malagasy NGOFanamby are trying to promote. Thisis especially relevant in the eastern rainforest region of the country, wheremuch of Madagascar’s biodiversity isconcentrated. There the vision is tocreate corridors in excess of severalmillion hectares, although the singlelargest existing protected area isMasoala National Park covering only230,000 hectares (572,700 acres).Perhaps the best example of a forestecosystem corridor is the Zahamena-Mantadia Corridor, which connects twoof the country’s most importantparks—the 63,800-hectare (158,860acres) Zahamena National Park and the10,000 hectare (24,900 acres)Mantadia National Park—and wouldcover some 450,000 hectares (1.1million acres) when completed. Fartherto the south, the Ranomafana-Andringitra Corridor will eventuallycover some 180,000 hectares (448,200acres). Eventually the idea would be tohave what Alison Jolly, one of theleading advocates for conservation inMadagascar, has called “a string ofpearls”—a series of corridors around

Figure 3—Local Antanjaka people waiting for us at our vehicles, MahaboForest Reserve, June 19, 2005. Photo by Russell A. Mittermeier, ConservationInternational.


the periphery of the island where muchof the remaining natural vegetation isto be found. This approach wouldensure the long-term survival of thiscountry’s wonderful biological heritage.Some of the new protected areas beingproposed are mini-wilderness areas intheir own right, perhaps the bestexample being the magnificent MakiraForest in northeastern Madagascar,which covers some 350,000 hectares(871,500 acres) and is contiguous withthe 230,000-hectare (572,700 acres)Masoala National Park on the peninsulaof the same name. Within thesecorridors, there exists the possibility ofdeclaring “wilderness core areas,”which would be off-limits to tourismand restricted to only the mostimportant forms of scientific research.

The fact that Madagascar has seenhuman presence for such a short time—it was colonized at about the same timeas many of the islands of the central Pa-cific—means that people have not hadenough time to even explore the entiretyof the forests of the island, particularly inthe east. Indeed, for the first few hun-dred years of occupation of Madagascarthere is no evidence that humans lived inhighland or forested areas at all. Althoughnot large by neotropical or central Afri-can standards, it is still possible to exploreforested valleys, particularly those withdense vegetation high on the slopes ofmountains such as Marojejy andAndringitra, that have in all likelihoodnever been visited by humans. RuralMalagasy people do visit forests to huntand collect forest products, but thesehighland valleys do not hold much in theway of interesting prey or forest products,and the vegetation is so dense that onehas to crawl on one’s belly in many areas.Although such areas are probably quitesmall, in the tens or low hundreds of hect-ares, the idea that such genuinewilderness areas still exist is very inspir-ing, and is a phenomenon unlikely to be

duplicated in much of the rest of the trop-ics, which have seen human habitationfor much longer. As befits the nature ofthese sites, their fauna and flora are verypoorly known, and they have yielded astartling range of new species of insecti-vore and rodent, with several new generaand around 20 new species over the last15 years, and even new primates, a totalof 19 since 1994 and with several moreawaiting formal description. Doubtlessthere is much more to be learned aboutthese mysterious valleys.

The fact that one can think aboutactual and potential wilderness in whatis often considered to be the classic highlyimpacted biodiversity hotspot, once againgives us hope for the future. IJW

REFERENCESBurney D. A. 2003. Prehistoric ecosystems. In

The Natural History of Madagascar, ed. S. M.Goodman and J. P. Benstead, pp. 47–51.Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Goodman, S. M., and J. P. Benstead, eds. 2003.The Natural History of Madagascar. Chi-cago: The University of Chicago Press.

Langrand, O., and S. M. Goodman. 1995. Moni-toring Madagascar’s ecosystems: A look atthe past, present and future of its wetlands. InEcosystem Monitoring and Protected areas,ed. T. B. Herman, S. Bondrup-Nielsen, J. H.M. Willison, and N. W. P. Munro. Wolfville,

Figure 4—Ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) basking inthe early morning sun, Berenty Private Reserve,Madagascar. Photo by Russell A. Mittermeier,Conservation International.

Figure 5—Sisal fields along the Mandrare River, Madagascar. Photo by Russell A. Mittermeier, ConservationInternational.

Canada: Science and Management of Pro-tected Areas Association,.

Mittermeier, R. A, and C. G. Mittermeier. 1997.Megadiversity: Earth’s Biologically WealthiestNations. Garza Garcia N.L. Mexico: CEMEX.

Mittermeier R. A., N. Meyers, Gil P. Robles, andC. G. Mittermeier. 1999. Hotspots. GarzaGarcia N.L. Mexico: CEMEX.

Mittermeier, R. A., Gil P. Robles, M. Hoffmann, J.Pilgrim, T. Brooks, C. G. Mittermeier,J. Lamoreux,and G. A. B. da Fonseca. 2004. HotspotsRevisited. Garza Garcia N.L. Mexico: CEMEX.

Steininger, M. 2005. Personal communication.

Continued on page 6


Announcementsand Wilderness Calendar

COMPILED BY STEVE HOLLENHORST

Submit announcements and short news articles to STEVE HOLLENHORST, IJW Wilderness Digest editor. E-mail: [email protected].

WILDERNESS DIGEST

Eight New World HeritageSites DesignatedFossils of whales with legs, the world’sbiggest meteorite impact site, thedeepest fjords, vast tropical forests,and outstanding marine sites. Theseare among the eight new natural WorldHeritage sites designated by the UnitedNations Educational, Scientific andCultural Organization (UNESCO)World Heritage Committee, whichmet in Durban, South Africa, in July.They include Wadi Al-Hitan/WhaleValley (Egypt), the Valley of FlowersNational Park (India), Shiretoko(Japan), the Islands and ProtectedAreas of the Gulf of California(Mexico), West Norwegian Fjords(Norway), Coiba National Park(Panama), Vredefort Dome (SouthAfrica), and Dong Phayayen-Khao YaiForest Complex (Thailand). Theinternational committee of 21countries unanimously approvedIUCN’s recommendations forinscribing these sites on the prestigiousWorld Heritage List. “These newWorld Heritage sites illustrate theglobal importance of preservingmarine biodiversity for our futurewell-being, especially commercial fishstocks and endangered species,” saidDavid Sheppard, head of the IUCNProgramme on Protected Areas and theIUCN delegation in Durban. For more

information on the designations, visithttp://iucn.org/en/news/archive/2005/07/new_wh_sites_designated.pdf.

Warnings about GrazingImpacts Altered byPoliticiansThe Bush administration altered criticalportions of a scientific analysis of theenvironmental impact of cattle grazingon public lands before announcingrelaxed grazing limits on those lands,according to scientists involved in thestudy. A government biologist and ahydrologist, who both retired this yearfrom the Bureau of Land Management(BLM), said their conclusions that theproposed rules might adversely affectwater quality and wildlife, includingendangered species, were excised andreplaced with language justifying lessstringent regulations favored by cattleranchers. A BLM official acknowledgedchanges were made in the analysis butsaid they were part of a standard editingand review process and were based on“good science.” Critics often complainthat the Bush administration has madea practice of distorting scientific studiesto weaken regulations to serve itspolitical objectives. Grazing regulations,which affect 160 million acres (64.3million hectares) of public land in 11western states, set the conditions underwhich ranchers may use that land, and

guide government managers indetermining how many cattle may graze,where, and for how long withoutharming resources. Source: Los AngelesTimes; more at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002340217_graze18.html.

Goodbye Gaylord:Founder of Earth Day DiesFormer Wisconsin Senator GaylordNelson’s best known achievement isthe founding ofEarth Day in1970. Descri-bed by AmericanHeritage Magazineas “one of themost remarkablehappenings inthe history ofd e m o c r a c y, ”Earth Day madeenvironmental protection a majornational issue. A distinguished andinfluential public servant, Nelsonserved 10 years in the WisconsinSenate, was twice elected governor ofWisconsin, and, in 1962, began an 18-year career in the U.S. Senate. SenatorNelson’s many achievements includelegislation to: preserve the 2,000-mile(3,225 km) Appalachian Trail;mandate fuel efficiency standards inautomobiles; control strip mining; ban


the use of the pesticide DDT; ban theuse of 245T (agent orange); andcreation of the St. Croix Wild andScenic Riverway and the ApostleIslands National Lakeshore. SenatorNelson also cosponsored the NationalEnvironmental Education Act andwrote legislation to create the UpperGreat Lakes Regional Commission andOperation Mainstream/Green Thumb,which employed the elderly inconservation projects. He is therecipient of numerous awards,including two from the United NationsEnvironment Programme. GaylordNelson became counselor of TheWilderness Society in January 1981.In his 14 years at The WildernessSociety, Nelson focused his efforts onprotecting America’s national forests,national parks, and other public lands.Source: www.Earthday.net.

Four Wilderness BillsPassed by U.S. SenateThe U.S. Senate unanimously passedwilderness legislation that willpermanently protect thousands of acresof roadless wildlands in California,Washington, Puerto Rico, and NewMexico. “Today’s unanimous vote in theSenate is yet another sign of the growingnational support for protecting ourcountry’s remaining wild places,” saidWilliam H. Meadows, president of TheWilderness Society. “Our Senators havedone a great job moving these importantmeasures through the process. We hopethat the House of Representatives willfollow the Senate’s lead and act quicklyto protect these special places.” “Inaddition to these four efforts there areactive wilderness campaigns across thecountry that continue to gainmomentum,” said Meadows. “We hopeto see lawmakers setting aside otherspecial places before the end of thisCongress.” The four bills that werepassed by the Senate include federal

lands in the coastal area of northernCalifornia; the Ojito area of New Mexico;the Wild Sky area outside of Seattle,Washington; and the El Toro region ofPuerto Rico. Source: The WildernessSociety (http://www. wilderness.org/).

Publication Provides Toolfor Monitoring WildernessCharacterWhat is wilderness character? Whymonitor wilderness character? How willthis monitoring benefit a specificwilderness? What does this monitoringconsist of and how will it be used? Howwill this monitoring affect staff time andbudget? How will this monitoring beimplemented? These are the importantquestions addressed in a new USDAForest Service publication entitledMonitoring Selected Conditions Relatedto Wilderness Character: A NationalFramework by Peter Landres, SteveBoutcher, Linda Merigliano, Chris Barns,Denis Davis, Troy Hall, Steve Henry, BradHunter, Patrice Janiga, Mark Laker, AlMcPherson, Douglas Powell, MikeRowan, and Susan Sater. The purposeof the publication is to improvewilderness stewardship by providing atool managers can use to evaluate howselected actions and conditions relatedto wilderness character are changingover time. Many wilderness field andprogram managers perceive a steadyerosion of wilderness character, yet thereis no consistent means for describing thisloss or positive stewardship outcomes.A national set of core indicators allowscompilation of information at local,regional, and national levels.Improvement in wilderness stewardshipmust occur at the local level, but theability to compile information at regionaland national levels provides a powerfulcommunication tool essential to makethe case for wilderness stewardshipneeds. This monitoring framework alsoimproves wilderness stewardship by

more clearly articulating what wildernesscharacter means, which may helpmanagers evaluate proposed actions andimprove agency performance measure-ment and policy review. The publicationis available at http://leopold.wilderness.net/pubs/544.pdf.

Mapping Last of the WildWhere is the last of the truly wild? TheWildlife Conservation Society, with theCenter for International Earth ScienceInformation Network at ColumbiaUniversity, partnered with NationalAeronautic and Space Administrationscientists in the Last of the Wild Projectto assemble satellite and land use datato plot the extent of the global HumanFootprint. The Human Footprint is aquantitative analysis of human influenceacross the globe. In this map, humanimpact is rated on a scale of 0(minimum) to 100 (maximum) for eachterrestrial biome. A score of 1 indicatesthe least human influence in the givenbiome. However, because each biomehas its own independent scale, a scoreof 1 in a tropical rain forest might reflecta different level of human activity thanin a broadleaf forest. The collaboratorschose four types of data to measurehuman influence: population density,land transformation, human access, andpower infrastructure. The result iscolorful maps where the zones closestto pristine pop out as patches of leafygreen. Worldwide, the project found thatonly 17% of land is still virtuallyuntouched—mostly because it isinhospitable to humans. In areas capableof growing basic crops, and thereforemost able to support people, untouchedlands have diminished to just 2% of thetotal. Alaska holds the vast majority ofleast altered lands in the United States.In the more settlement-friendly lower 48states, the wildest areas have becomeislands ringed by interstates, farms,towns, and cities, making up only 0.9%


Book Review

of land. In the lower 48 states of theUnited States, four of the wildest areasstand out:• Jarbidge Wilderness (Idaho, Nevada).

Heavy grazing in the 20th centurydamaged soils; mining was alsoprevalent early in the century. Grazingis now limited and recreational use islight, owing to its remoteness, so thewilderness is recovering well. It hassome of the best air in the UnitedStates; also good water quality.

• Central Idaho Wilderness (Idaho). Acrown jewel of American naturalareas. National forest lands surroundprotected wilderness zones in a rich,self-sustaining ecosystem. A recent

Forest Service study found this areato be the healthiest part of theColumbia River basin. There is littlepressure from sprawl or recreationaldevelopment, given the rugged andremote terrain. But logging androad building on national forestlands are possible.

• Endless Mountains and Grand Canyonof Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania). Arugged area in north-centralPennsylvania that includes the TiogaState Forest; home to elk, baldeagles, and other wildlife. Deeroverpopulation; mine waste in thewatershed. A once busy railwaythrough the canyon is now a trail.

The canyon area is protectedwilderness. State officials areworking with nearby communitieson sustainable development.

• Texas Grasslands (Texas). A coastalprairie along the Gulf of Mexico,about 1% of the wild grasslandremains, in patches as small as 10square miles (3.8 square kilometers).These areas are being rapidlydegraded. Three percent of Texasland is under public control;conservation efforts rely mostly onprivate landowners.

For more information and additionalmaps, visit http://www.ciesin.org/wild_areas/.

How Should America’sWilderness Be Managed?edited by Stuart A. Kallen. 2005.Greenhaven Press, Farmington Hills, MI.125 pp., $19.95 (paperback).

The extensive At Issue series publishedby Greenhaven Press addresses a widerange of contemporary social issues inAmerica, from Do Animals Have Rights?to Gay Marriage to Is Racism a SeriousProblem?. This series is designed to fo-cus a wide range of viewpoints onto asingle controversial issue and provide in-depth discussions by leading advocates.In each small book, previously pub-lished material is used to highlightvarious components of each issue.

How Should America’s Wilderness BeManaged? begins with a reprint of a pa-per published in the International Journalof Wilderness in 2001. Hendee andDawson’s paper documenting 17 threatsto wilderness provides an excellent in-troduction to the challenges facingwilderness managers, The followingchapter challenges their view that wil-derness management should be inpublic hands, suggesting that free mar-

ket forces in the private sector are bestsuited to effectively manage wilderness.

These first two chapters serve as a tem-plate for the remaining seven specificissues addressed in the next 14 chapters.That is, one chapter extolling one opin-ion on one issue is followed by anotherchapter providing an alternate or oppos-ing view on the same issue. The questionof whether public or private managementof wilderness is more effective is followedby chapters on (1) road development inwilderness, (2) the impact of GeorgeBush’s new forest policies, (3) oil drillingin the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, (4)logging in the Tongass National Forest,(5) the impacts of coal bed methane drill-ing, (6) ORVs in wilderness areas, and(7) the ethics of “monkeywrenching” inprotecting the natural environment.

Although some fascinating and im-portant topics are covered in this book,a focus on wilderness is not alwaysevident; that is, whereas some chap-ters deal specifically with designatedwilderness, other relate to protectedareas or the natural environment moregenerally. Like all series of this type,

this book is also weakened by the in-ability of each opposing chapter todirectly address the points made in theprevious chapter. Also, in order tokeep the price of books in this serieslow, the chapters have been edited forlength, and longer articles that couldprovide more in-depth analysis of thevarious issues are not included.

Despite the serious shortcomings ofthis type of book, How Should America’sWilderness be Managed? succeeds at in-troducing the complexity of issuesinvolved in wilderness management,addresses some key wilderness issues,and forces the reader to consider bothsides of each issue raised. The impor-tance of political ideology and personaland societal values in deciding howwilderness should be managed is illus-trated well—although not directlymentioned—in this book. It would bea useful reference source for high schooland perhaps entry-level undergraduatestudents, and would serve well as alightning rod for further discussions onthe important issues raised.

Review by JOHN SHULTIS

Documents

International Journal of Wilderness, Vol 11 No 3, December 2005