Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Wilderness areas
Languages : en
Pages : 8
Book Description
An Enduring Resource of Wilderness
Author: An Enduring Resource of Wilderness
Author: The Enduring Wilderness
Author: Doug ScottPublisher: Fulcrum Publishing
ISBN: 9781555915278
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
A look at how America has preserved more than 100 million acres of diverse wilderness areas in 44 states, now protected in our National Wilderness Preservation System. Discussion of current visions valuing wilderness and its place in our culture.
Establishing a National Wilderness Preservation System
Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Interior and Insular AffairsPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Wilderness areas
Languages : en
Pages : 52
Book Description
Wilderness Visitors and Recreation Impacts: Baseline Data Available for Twentieth Century Conditions
Author: David ColePublisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781480163836
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 56
Book Description
The Wilderness Act of 1964 established a National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS) "to secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness." The Act states that wilderness areas shall be administered "for the use and enjoyment of the American people in such manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness." Moreover, it is the responsibility of each agency that administers wilderness to preserve each area's "wilderness character." Since 1964, more than 100 pieces of legislation have created an NWPS of over 100 million acres, in well over 600 individual wildernesses, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and National Park Service (NPS); and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service (FS). To provide for the use and enjoyment of these areas, while preserving their wilderness character, it is important for management agencies to monitor wilderness recreation visitors and the impacts they cause. Some people state that the Wilderness Act mandates that recreation impacts not be allowed to increase following wilderness designation (Worf 2001). Ideally, baseline conditions should be inventoried at the time each area is designated as wilderness and added to the NWPS, and then periodically monitored in the future to assess trends in conditions and the efficacy of existing recreation management programs. Such data will become increasingly valuable to future attempts to evaluate trends in the wilderness character of each area in the NWPS. Although baseline recreation conditions have been inventoried in many wildernesses, such data are lacking in many others. Moreover, the distribution of wildernesses with baseline recreation data is not equitable across the nation or the four agencies that manage wilderness. This report is an assessment of Wilderness Visitors and Recreation Impacts: Baseline Data Available for Twentieth Century Conditions David N. Cole Vita Wright the status of baseline recreation monitoring data for all wildernesses in the NWPS at the end of the twentieth century. It documents the proportion of the NWPS that has baseline data on recreation visitors and impacts, which wildernesses have this data, and where they are located. It identifies the types of data that have been collected, the types of sampling designs that have been employed, and how and where data have been stored. This compilation should help researchers identify wildernesses where trends can be assessed and help wilderness managers identify other managers who might be contacted about how to initiate and implement new studies. The data listed in this report are all we will ever have to gain perspective on the condition of designated wilderness in the twentieth century regarding recreation visitors and impacts. Because managers and the interested public, in future decades and centuries, will want to know what these places were like, these data will become increasingly valuable. Although some of the data are published in reports or have been carefully archived, most are stored on paper files in ranger offices, where they are vulnerable to loss. We strongly encourage agency personnel to recognize the future value of this data and invest in archiving it in such a manner that its perpetuation is ensured. These data could be the basis for valuable assessments of recreation and impact trends across the NWPS. This report begins with an overview of the status of recreation-related monitoring across the NWPS. Three types of studies are surveyed: those that provide (1) campsite impact data, (2) trail impact data, and (3) information about visitor characteristics.
An Enduring Resource of Wilderness
Author: Linking Wilderness Research and Management: Volume 2 - Defining, Managing, and Monitoring Wilderness Visitor Experiences: an Annotated Reading List
Author: Brian GlaspellPublisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781480172401
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 38
Book Description
The 1964 Wilderness Act calls for "...an enduring resource of wilderness...for the use and enjoyment of the American people" and lists among the attributes of wilderness "outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation." These statements confirm experiential opportunities as one of the primary purposes of wilderness. Furthermore, by signing the act into law, Congress declared that wilderness experiences are so important they are worthy of protection by national legislation. Wilderness experiences have been credited with everything from personal psychological benefits to formation of the national character. Heavy or growing use levels at many wilderness areas are proof that the public increasingly values the opportunity to experience wilderness firsthand. In response to the fear that increasing use would threaten the experiential qualities of wilderness and wildlands, researchers with training in sociology, psychology, and anthropology began a focused program of outdoor recreation research in the 1960s. Although the initial focus was on determining objective visitor "carrying capacities" for protected areas, scientists soon found that the relationship between use numbers and wilderness visitor experiences is extremely complex. This research expanded to address the values that people hold for wilderness (including nonrecreation values), the types and dimensions of wilderness experiences, and factors that influence those experiences. Simultaneously, managers and scientists worked together to develop techniques and long-term planning frameworks to ensure that quality wilderness experiences continue to be available. Whereas early wilderness stewards had few resources other than instinct and personal experience to guide them, managers today have access to a significant body of literature related to defining, managing, and monitoring wilderness experiences. In fact, the volume of available information can be confusing or even overwhelming. This reading list gathers together and organizes a representative sample of this information in a way that we hope will be useful to both managers and researchers.
Return of the Wild
Author: Ted KerasotePublisher: Island Press
ISBN: 9781597263191
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 186
Book Description
As individuals and as a nation we believe that if we recycle and buy fuel-efficient cars we have done our part to protect the environment. Yet an important element is missing. If we don't conserve the still-undeveloped places of the earth, human life will be disconnected from its fellow animals and torn from its roots. Humans will still exist, but as Ted Kerasote explains in his insightful introduction, "we'll be like potted trees in the foyers of great skyscrapers -- alone and not part of a wider forest."Our efforts to recycle and conserve energy must be augmented with advocacy for the protection of wild spaces, and Return of the Wild is an important underpinning for that endeavor: a guide through the issues of the day, a history, a forum for debate, a source of information. Sponsored by the Pew Wilderness Center, the book brings together leading thinkers and writers to examine why nature in its most untrammeled state is vitally important to all of us; what currently threatens wild country; and what can be done not merely to conserve more of it, but also to return it to our lives and consciousness.Contributors including Vine Deloria, Jr., Chris Madson, Mike Matz, Richard Nelson, Thomas M. Power, Michael Soule, Jack Turner, and Florence Williams consider a wide range of topics relating to wildlands, and explore the varied economic, spiritual, and ecological justifications for preserving wilderness areas. The book also features a completely new four-color mapping of the remaining roadless areas on federal lands, as well as the National Wilderness Preservation System, now measuring 106 million acres, in which much of this roadless land could one day be included.This first annual edition is both an inspiring and thoughtful introduction to wilderness subjects for the general public and an invaluable reference for legislators, the media, and conservation organizations. It is an essential new contribution to wilderness preservation efforts.
Wilderness Management
Author: John C. HendeePublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Nature conservation
Languages : en
Pages : 410
Book Description
Comprehensive synthesis of information organized under six main areas: the setting, legal basis for wilderness, management concepts and direction, important elements for management, wilderness use and its management, and problems and opportunities, all as they relate to the North American, principally U.S., scene.
Wilderness Forever
Author: Mark W. T. HarveyPublisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295989823
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 345
Book Description
Winner of the Forest History Society's 2006 Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Book Award As a central figure in the American wilderness preservation movement in the mid-twentieth century, Howard Zahniser (1906-1964) was the person most responsible for the landmark Wilderness Act of 1964. While the rugged outdoorsmen of the earlyenvironmental movement, such as John Muir and Bob Marshall, gave the cause a charismatic face, Zahniser strove to bring conservation's concerns into the public eye and the preservationists' plans to fruition. In many fights to save besieged wild lands, he pulled together fractious coalitions, built grassroots support networks, wooed skittish and truculent politicians, and generated streams of eloquent prose celebrating wilderness. Zahniser worked for the Bureau of Biological Survey (a precursor to the Fish and Wildlife Service) and the Department of the Interior, wrote for Nature magazine, and eventually managed the Wilderness Society and edited its magazine, Living Wilderness. The culmination of his wilderness writing and political lobbying was the Wilderness Act of 1964. All of its drafts included his eloquent definition of wilderness, which still serves as a central tenet for the Wilderness Society: "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." The bill was finally signed into law shortly after his death. Pervading his tireless work was a deeply held belief in the healing powers of nature for a humanity ground down by the mechanized hustle-bustle of modern, urban life. Zahniser grew up in a family of Methodist ministers, and although he moved away from any specific denomination, a spiritual outlook informed his thinking about wilderness. His love of nature was not so much a result of scientific curiosity as a sense of wonder at its beauty and majesty, and a wish to exist in harmony with all other living things. In this deeply researched and affectionate portrait, Mark Harvey brings to life this great leader of environmental activism.