Lessons learned: Merging process elements to address wilderness character and user capacity (original) (raw)
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“Changing Relationships with Wilderness: A New Focus for Research and Stewardship
Wilderness managers strive to provide quality recreation experiences. Because of this commitment, a need exists to further incorporate experiential aspects into current planning and management frameworks. This article suggests a focus on relationships with wilderness, moving beyond the examination of single transactions with a setting toward a consideration of the dynamic engagements visitors accumulate with wilderness over time. Understanding these relationships relative to social and cultural change may allow managers to incorporate diverse meanings into management planning and provide better protection of wilderness character.
2001
Recent increases in demand have revitalized interest and controversy surrounding use limits and the effect of visitor density on wilderness experiences. A workshop held in Missoula, Montana, in June of 2000 addressed the potential for social science to contribute to understanding and managing increasingly populated wilderness conditions. Scientists identified progress in our understanding of use density impacts on the wilderness visitor. Management frameworks such as Limits of Acceptable Change have proven beneficial in assisting managers. Science has also advanced the ability to assess and interpret visitor opinion about use density. However, several limitations to our understanding and research needs emerged from this workshop. Contemporary visitor assessments have largely been constrained to current visitors of individual management units. Visitor opinion tends to focus on indicators rather than the actual experience of individuals. We need an improved understanding of the multidimensionality of the wilderness experience and how solitude is defined as one dimension of experience. Poor understanding of the impacts of use limits on visitor experiences and population dynamics is also a problem. The absence of information about visitors, at regional scales, poses problems to understanding how visitor populations are affected by use limits or why objections to limits are prevalent in some places and not others. To address these issues, the science community will need to be inclusive of additional research methods based on a broader suite of conceptual frameworks that can be integrated at multiple scales.
Keeping it wild: Mapping wilderness character in the United States
Journal of Environmental Management, 2013
A GIS-based approach is developed to identify the state of wilderness character in US wilderness areas using Death Valley National Park (DEVA) as a case study. A set of indicators and measures are identified by DEVA staff and used as the basis for developing a flexible and broadly applicable framework to map wilderness character using data inputs selected by park staff. Spatial data and GIS methods are used to map the condition of four qualities of wilderness character: natural, untrammelled, undeveloped, and solitude or primitive and unconfined recreation. These four qualities are derived from the US 1964 Wilderness Act and later developed by in "Keeping it Wild: An Interagency Strategy to Monitor Trends in Wilderness Character Across the National Wilderness Preservation System." Data inputs are weighted to reflect their importance in relation to other data inputs and the model is used to generate maps of each of the four qualities of wilderness character. The combined map delineates the range of quality of wilderness character in the DEVA wilderness revealing the majority of wilderness character to be optimal quality with the best areas in the northern section of the park. This map will serve as a baseline for monitoring change in wilderness character and for evaluating the spatial impacts of planning alternatives for wilderness and backcountry stewardship plans. The approach developed could be applied to any wilderness area, either in the USA or elsewhere in the world.
Wilderness Recreation Use: The Current Situation
The total amount of recreational use of the National Wilderness Preservation System is currently at about 14.5 million visitor days per annum. Trends indicate a stable or declining overall use; use on a per acre basis is declining. The common stereotype of the wilderness user as young, wealthy, urban, leisured, and a nonresident of the State or region is largely incorrect. The one characteristic that does sharply distinguish wilderness users is their very high education level. Use patterns in wilderness also differ from commonly he/d perceptions. Size of individual user groups is small, and getting smaller. Most visits are day-use only. Distribution of use is highly skewed toward weekends and summers, but the trend is toward increased dispersal of use across time and space. Higher impact and consumptive activities like hunting and horse use are declining as a percentage of total use.
Keeping Wilderness Wild: Increasing Effectiveness With Limited Resources
Wilderness managers are forced to make increasingly difficult decisions about where to focus limited resources. Tradition- ally, areas of high visitor use and high impact are prioritized over areas of light use and light impact. However, areas that contain little to no human impact and contain the qualities that lead to the area's designation as wilderness are most precious and have the greatest potential to be responsive to management. We mapped attributes of the Gros Ventre Wilderness in Wyoming to demon- strate how the most precious, vulnerable and responsive areas can be identified and prioritized. This information shows how on-the- ground management attention can be shifted to more effectively retain the area's wilderness character. Numerous studies of recreational impact in wildland settings have revealed that, with increasing use, impacts to the resource and to visitor experience accelerate quickly, then tend to level off. However, recovery is very slow after use is...
Integrating Cultural Resources and Wilderness Character
ness and wilderness character. Not all those involved in the preservation and appreciation of wilderness agree with this statement. Varying perspectives derive from a basic diff erence in belief about the relationship between humans and the nonhuman worldwhether or not humans are a part of nature. For some, wilderness means pristine nature and the absence of human modifi cation, where the presence of ancient dwellings, historic sites, or other signs of prior human use degrades wilderness. For others, wilderness is a cultural landscape that has been valued, used, and in some areas modifi ed by humans for thousands of years (fi g. 1). Reconciling these perspectives can be diffi cult.
Wilderness management dilemmas: Fertile ground for wilderness management research
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-15, 2000
Increasingly, wilderness managers must choose between the objective of wildness ("untrammeled" wilderness) and the objectives of naturalness and solitude. This dilemma has surfaced with awareness of the pervasiveness of human influence in wilderness and that regulation is often the only way to maintain outstanding opportunities for solitude. Should we trammel wilderness to compensate for unnatural effects of human activity or, to avoid trammeling wilderness, should we allow conditions to become increasingly unnatural? Should we restrict access and behavior to preserve opportunities for solitude, knowing this will exacerbate supply/demand problems and deny visitors a sense of freedom and spontaneity? This paper discusses this dilemma and opportunities for research in support of different objectives.