• Rocky Mountain Research Station
• 240 West Prospect
• Fort Collins, CO 80526
• (970) 498-1100

The Importance of Monitoring Wilderness Character

Scientists at the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Institute are leading the effort to define wilderness character, and develop new and practical methods to monitor how wilderness character is changing over time. In collaboration with wilderness managers and monitoring program leaders from across the nation, this project has developed a working definition for wilderness character, identified a set of indicators and measures to be monitored, developed a cost-effective approach for gathering and reporting the data, and secured funding for this development and pilot testing. The full range of managers, from wilderness field staff to program leaders to line officers, strongly supports development of this monitoring because they believe it is of fundamental importance to the preservation of wilderness. In addition, in the course of developing this monitoring, whole new lines of wilderness social science research are being explored.

This monitoring will allow, for the first time, the means for tracking trends in wilderness character. The benefits of this information are many, including 1) improving accountability by linking performance measures and outcomes of wilderness stewardship directly to the mandates of wilderness legislation and agency policy; 2) improving decisionmaking by knowing how specific attributes of wilderness character have changed in the past and how short-term projects are likely to affect these attributes; 3) improving the setting of priorities by knowing how different proposed actions are likely to affect wilderness character; 4) establishing legacy information on wilderness character that captures the institutional memory of wilderness managers so long-term and cumulative changes to wilderness character can be assessed; and 5) improving public trust and confidence in agency stewardship of wilderness.

References

"Monitoring selected conditions related to wilderness character: a national framework" RMRS GTR-151, downloadable at [http://treesearch.fs.fed.us/pubs/9459] and

"Developing indicators to monitor the 'outstanding opportunities' quality of wilderness character" in the International Journal of Wilderness, Volume 10, No. 3.

Four additional articles in this same issue of the International Journal of Wilderness explore new social science research fields related to wilderness character and its stewardship. Additional information on this monitoring can also be found at [http://www.wilderness.net/index.cfm?fuse=WC].