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• 240 West Prospect
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Mapping Personal and Community Meanings Attached to Western Montana Landscapes

Following the fires of 2000, researchers at the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute in Missoula, MT, with funding from the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) and the Bitterroot Ecosystem Management Research Project (BEMRP), began working with National Forest managers to understand people's response to fire and fuels management. Results indicated potential for improved collaboration based on a deeper understanding of and appreciation for the connections residents have to the area's public lands. Thus, again working through the BEMRP and with support from the National Fire Plan and the JFSP, fire and social scientists at the Institute initiated a pilot project to develop methods for identifying and understanding attachment to places then integrating this to existing GIS-based planning tools.

Scientists interviewed area residents to understand the various biophysical and social aspects of their special places. They captured physical features, emotional, economic and recreational activity attachments - individual and/or site, family/friends and/or stand, community and/or landscape. They also described respondents' opinions about various types of management activities (such as mechanical thinning) and ecosystem processes (such as wildfire). This process yields insights into the meanings people build and associate with places, how these meanings contribute to personal and community identity, and how changes in these areas may impact individuals, small social groups and the community at large. By compiling individual responses, it is possible to tell a collective story which provides a rich and powerful basis for conversations about change and management- what is acceptable, what's not, and why.

Results are presented in two formats: maps and narratives. Three different kinds of maps were created: (1) an interactive map that allow users to query an individual's quotations associated with their special places, (2) a 'hotspot' map displaying the location and overlap of each person's places of importance (Figure 1) and (3) a map database containing information for the 10 areas of collective interest that can be linked to ecological planning models. Verbatim interview excerpts for areas of collective interest (presented in a separate document) provide additional context and richness.

Results benefit both management and research. The project built a rich dataset illuminating various aspects of attachment to place in the southern Bitterroot Valley, linked these social values directly into a fuels treatment planning model, gained greater insight into how potential future management actions may affect social values, and enhanced the Forest's and Region's primary planning model. These results are currently being used to help analyze a hazardous fuels reduction project in the Bitterroot Valley. Although the data is specific to the Bitterroot National Forest, the conceptual model and methods are applicable to other social-ecological integration efforts. This work demonstrates one way to link social values to ecological planning models and illustrate social values in geographic information systems. Region 1 is using the results to help develop a landscape-scale program to monitor social and ecological sustainability. Institute researchers have been also asked to work with the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana to understand the personal and community meanings attached to lands bordering the Mission Mountain Tribal Wilderness, for which there is nearly a 50/50 split in public opinion on whether to engage in commercial fuel reduction activities to protect non-wilderness values from wildland fire use restoration activities in the Wilderness.

Additional information on this research may be found at: http://leopold.wilderness.net/.