International Journal of Wilderness, Vol 2 no 2, August 1996

For Wilderness Worldwide

August 1996 Volume 2, Number 2

2 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WILDERNESS / Volume 2, Number 2, August 1996

International Journal of WildernessThe International Journal of Wilderness links wilderness professionals, scientists, educators, environmentalists, and interested citizens

worldwide with a forum for reporting and discussing wilderness ideas and events; inspirational ideas; planning, management,and allocation strategies; education; and research and policy aspects of wilderness stewardship.

EXECUTIVE EDITORSAlan W. Ewert, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George B.C., Canada

Vance G. Martin, WILD Foundation/ICEC, Ojai, Calif., USADavid Porter, Bureau of Land Management, Lakewood, Colo., USA

Alan E.Watson, Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, Missoula, Mont., USAJames R. Fazio, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho, USA

MANAGING EDITORJohn C. Hendee, Director, University of Idaho Wilderness Research Center, Moscow, Idaho

PRODUCTION EDITORMichelle S. Mazzola, Conservation District Manager, State of Washington

ASSOCIATE EDITORSHugh Barr, Federated Mountain Clubs of New Zealand, Wellington, NZ, Liz Close, U.S. Forest Service, Missoula, Mont., Dave Cockrell, University of SouthernColorado, Pueblo, Colo., Dave Cole, Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, Missoula, Mont., Don Duff, U.S. Forest Service, Salt Lake City, Utah,WilliamForgey, Medical Doctor, Crown Point, Ind., Nancy Green, U.S. Forest Service, Washington, D.C., Glen Haas, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colo., DaveHarmon, Bureau of Land Management, Portland, Oreg., Steve Hollenhorst, West Virginia University, Morgantown, W. Va., Jon Jarvis, Wrangell-St. Elias NationalPark, Glennallen, Ark., Kris Kennett, British Columbia Parks, Williams Lake, B. C., Canada, Jamie Kirkpatrick, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia,Ruthann Knudson, National Park Service, Washington, D.C, Ed Krumpe, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho, David Lime, University of Minnesota, St. Paul,Minn., Bob Manning, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vt., ]oe Mazzoni, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Albuquerque, N.M., Michael McCloskey, Sierra Club,Washington, D.C., Jonathan Miller, Australian Heritage Commission, Australia, Chris Monz, National Outdoor Leadership School, Lander, Wy, Bob Muth,University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Mass., Connie Myers, Arthur Carhart Wilderness Training Center, Huson, Mont., Roderick Nash, University of California,Santa Barbara, Calif., Max Oelschlaeger, University of North Texas, Corrales, N.M., Margaret Petersen, U.S. Forest Service, Portland, Oreg., Ian Player, SouthAfrica National Parks Board and The Wilderness Foundation, Howick, Natal RSA, Marilyn Riley, Wilderness Transitions and the Wilderness Guides Council, Ross,Calif., Joe Roggenbuck, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, Va., Holmes Rolston III, Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, Colo., Mitch Sakofs, OutwardBound, Garrison, N. Y., Susan Sater, U.S. Forest Service, Portland, Oreg, Tod Schimelpfenig, National Outdoor Leadership School, Lander, Wy, Alan Schmierer,National Park Service, San Francisco, Calif., Won Sop Shin, Chungbuk National University, Chungbuk, Korea, Jerry Stokes, U. S. Forest Service, Washington, D.C.,Ralph Swain, U S. Forest Service, Fort Collins, Colo. Jay Watson, The Wilderness Society, San Francisco, Calif, Tom Zimmerman, National Park Service, Boise,Idaho, Franco Zunino, Wilderness Associazione Italiana, Villavallelonga, Italy

International Journal of Wilderness (IJW) will publish three issues in 1996(May, August, and December) and full-production of quarterly issues in1997 and thereafter (March, June, September, and December). IJW is a not-for-profit publication.

Manuscripts to: University of Idaho, Wilderness Research Center, Moscow,ID 83844-1144, USA; (208) 885-2267. Fax: (208) 885-2268. e-mail:[email protected].

Business Management and Subscriptions: WILD Foundation, InternationalCenter for Earth Concerns, 2162 Baldwin Road, Ojai, CA 93023, USA.Fax: (805) 649-1757. e-Mail:[email protected]

Subscription rates (per volume calendar year): Subscription costs are inU.S. dollars only—$30 for individuals and $50 for organizations/libraries.Subscriptions from Canada and Mexico add $10; outside North Americaadd $20. Back issues are available for $15.

All materials printed in the International Journal of Wilderness copyright ©1996 by the International Wilderness Leadership (WILD) Foundation.Individuals, and nonprofit libraries acting for them, are permitted to makefair use of material from the journal. ISSN #1086-5519.

Submissions: Contributions pertinent to wilderness worldwide aresolicited, including articles on wilderness planning, management, andallocation strategies; wilderness education, including descriptions of keyprograms using wilderness for personal growth, therapy and environ-mental education; wilderness related science and research from alldisciplines addressing physical, biological, and social aspects of wilder-ness; and international perspectives describing wilderness worldwide.Articles, commentaries, letters to the editor, photos, book reviews,announcements and information for the wilderness calendar areencouraged. A complete list of manuscript submission guideline is avail-able from the managing editor.

Artwork: Submission of artwork and photographs with captions areencouraged. Photo credits will appear in a byline; artwork may be signedby the author.

Reprints: Manuscript reprints are available from the managing editor fora nominal charge.

Printed on recycled paper.

SPONSORING ORGANIZATIONS• Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute • America Outdoors (National Outfitters and Guides Association) • Interna-tional Center for Earth Concerns (ICEC) • International Wilderness Leadership (WILD) Foundation • National OutdoorLeadership School (NOLS) • Outdoor Recreation Coalition of America (ORCA) • Outward Bound • Society of AmericanForesters—Wilderness Work Group • The Wilderness Society • University of Idaho Wilderness Research Center • Universityof Northern British Columbia (Faculty of Natural Resources and Environmental Studies) • U.S.D.A. Forest Service •U.S.D.I. Bureau of Land Management • U.S.D.I. Fish and Wildlife Service • U.S.D.I. National Park Service • WildernessEducation Association • Wilderness Inquiry • Wilderness Leadership School (South Africa) • Wilderness Watch

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WILDERNESS / Volume 2, Number 2, August 1996 3

Cover photograph of South Africa proposed wildernessarea in KwaZulu/Natal by Dr. Ian Player.Inset photograph by Margot Morrison.

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

JOURNAL OF WILDERNESSAugust 1996 Volume 2, Number 2

FEATURES

4 WANTED: LOCAL WILDERNESS

ADVOCACY

by John C. Hendee, Managing Editor

5 SOUL OF THE WILDERNESS

Biodiversity, Ecological Integrity, andWildernessby Reed E Noss

9 WILDERNESS IN THE NEW

SOUTH AFRICA

by Wayne Elliot

PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT

14 THE CALIFORNIA DESERT

PROTECTION ACT—A Time for Desert Parks and Wildernessby Jay Watson and Paul Brink

18 THE FEDERAL ADVISORY

COMMITTEE ACT—Implications for U.S. Wilderness Managementby Linda Merigliano and Edwin E. Krumpe

EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATION

22 WILDERNESS MANAGEMENT BY MAIL—Correspondence Education toMeet the Needs of Tomorrow’s Managersby David Porter and Ralph Swain

25 WILDERNESS @ INTERNET

Finding the Information

SCIENCE AND RESEARCH

27 ENVIRONMENTAL VALUES,ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS, AND

WILDERNESS MANAGEMENT—An Empirical Studyby Robert E. Manning and William A. Valliere

33 WILDERNESS AS A RESOURCE FOR

HEALING IN SOUTH AFRICA

by Mamphela Ramphele

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

39 REVERSING MARGINALIZATION—Private Community-Based Conservationin Namibiaby Brian T. B. Jones and Elisabeth Braun

WILDERNESS DIGEST

43 ANNOUNCEMENTS AND

WILDERNESS CALENDAR

45 BOOK REVIEWS

by James R. Fazio, Book Review Editor

48 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR


The International Journal of Wilderness will have feature articles on a special country or region in each issue. Submissionsare welcome to the managing editor for all related feature articles on international wilderness, or manuscripts for peerreviews on education, management, research, policy, and other topics. Future featured countries include:

Issue Need Submissions by CountryVolume Two, Issue Three (7/96) United States

December 1996

Volume Three, Issue One (10/96) AsiaMarch 1997

Volume Three, Issue Two (1/97) New ZealandJune 1997

Volume Three, Issue Three (4/97) AntarcticaSeptember 1997

Volume Three, Issue Four (7/97) South AmericaDecember 1997

FEATURES

Wanted: Local Wilderness AdvocacyBY JOHN C. HENDEE, MANAGING EDITOR

IN “SOUL OF THE WILDERNESS” in IJW, Volume 2,Number 1, economist Tom Powers extolled the value of

wilderness for the new economics of the West, in which thequality of the environment is the key to attracting and sus-taining new jobs (Powers 1996). His view is echoed elsewhere,such as in “Working Toward a New Governance in the West”by Don Snow (1995), an article that describes the dynamicsof the current shift away from centralized management of fed-eral natural resources and toward community-level involvementand influences in land management decisions. According toSnow, the era of subsidies and supports for public land andwater that created a kind of nationalized economy in the Westis coming to an end. The heavily subsidized “old economy”that rested on minerals, logging, and agriculture, is giving wayto a largely free market “new economy” of information andservices.

Not that state legislatures in the West look any different,where “wise users” and environmentalists still confront oneanother, but, according to Snow (and those of us with ring-side seats), new coalitions are forming to work things out. Theold ways of deciding coupled with reduced federal subsidiesoften promise only gridlock or less. These new coalitions mayrest on homespun collaboration and relationships built amongformer adversaries. Such collaboration can build trust and com-munity. When they do, common goals and democracy in thetrue Jeffersonian sense can result. This process can—and insome places is already—build a new process of governanceresting on consensus and agreement ... of local affected par-ties. Such coalitions can have compelling political power. Theycan be influential, even decisive, in natural resource decisions.

So where is wilderness in this process? The same local influ-ences operating in big government are operating in bigconservation. Local chapters, if not independent, local environ-mental groups, are more credible and effective at the communitylevel than big national organizations. The article on the FederalAdvisory Committee Act in this issue of IJW suggests barriersto local citizen involvement in wilderness, but those issues willbe resolved as a result of the larger political forces favoring lo-calism. The same pressures are emerging internationally as statedin the articles on community-based conservation in Namibiaand wilderness in the new South Africa.

So, we need more community-level advocacy for wilder-ness allocation and stewardship. Think globally, but join locally,and urge your friends to do to the same. IJW

REFERENCESSnow, Don. 1995. Working toward a new governance in the west. Changing

Northwest: Newsletter of the Northwest Policy Center, 7(3): 4-5.


A FEW YEARS AGO I SPOKE AT AWILDERNESS MANAGEMENT

SYMPOSIUM about the relationship betweenwilderness protection and the conservation ofbiodiversity. The major theme of the meetingwas the nonrecreational values of wilderness, butI was the only one who talked much about bio-logical values and how wilderness provides vitalhabitat for species that are sensitive to humanactivities. I also introduced the relatively arcaneidea that true wilderness provides for “higher-level” aspects of biodiversity, namely thelandscape-scale processes and shifting-habitatmosaics that can be expressed only in wild areasmany thousands or millions of acres in size—areas where natural disturbance regimes overrulethe actions of humans. I acknowledged that mostdesignated wilderness areas, like other conven-tional parks and reserves, are too small toencompass these patterns and processes. But Iargued that small wilderness areas (approxi-mately 10,000 acres/ 25,000 ha) aren’t realwilderness. You can’t even get lost in them.

If asked to speak on the same topic today, I would presenta similar message. But I’m less confident now that the wilder-ness preservation and biodiversity conservation movementsare converging. Over the last few years I have been forced torethink some of my assumptions; for example, that large, wildareas are essential components of a conservation strategy, andthat wildness and biodiversity are compatible objectives. I hadtaken it for granted that these things are true, but increasinglyI have encountered skeptics who argue that the battle forbiodiversity will be won or lost in the human-dominated land-scape—the “matrix”—and that wilderness areas are merelycultural artifacts, trivial remnants of a romanticized past towhich we can never hope to return. I am amazed at how fewdefenders of wilderness there are among the modern conser-vation crowd. Scientists in particular are uncomfortable withthe wilderness idea because it seems so subjective, soft, andnonquantifiable. Biodiversity they sincerely embrace, but thesesame scientists would just as soon leave wilderness to the back-packers, poets, and tree-huggers. So I have rethought myposition. My conclusion, for the time being at least, is thatlarge, wild areas—whether or not we call them wilderness—

remain among the mostimportant componentsof a conservation net-work. I believe morestrongly than ever thatwilderness, and naturalareas in general, shouldbe evaluated primarily interms of their contribution to the broad goals of protectingand restoring native biodiversity and ecological integrity toour planet. However, I am less optimistic than I once was onwhether scientists, activists, recreationists, managers, and thebroader public can ever agree on how biodiversity and wil-derness concerns should be reconciled. And I am more adamantabout the need for active management, at least of a restorativenature, for wilderness areas too small to manage themselves.

We Need to Save Large AreasIn some ways biodiversity and wilderness (or more generally,wildness) are perfectly compatible. First, both biodiversity andwilderness values are best fulfilled in large areas. From thewilderness point of view, large areas are, all else being equal,

FEATURES

Soul of the WildernessBiodiversity, Ecological Integrity, and Wilderness

BY REED F. NOSS

Verdant forested sand dunes of Lake St.Lucia, South Africa (above). Article authorReed F. Noss (right).


simply wilder. They are more awe in-spiring. But “bigger is better” is also themost fundamental, best documentedprinciple of conservation biology. Al-though biologists have long argued overwhether one large reserve is superior toseveral smaller reserves of equivalenttotal area (and have generally agreed thatthe question is a red herring), few doubt

for a moment that individual reservesand the total area in reserve networksshould be as large as possible. Large ar-eas hold more species, contain larger andmore viable populations of species thatare area-sensitive, are easier to manage(per unit area, anyway), and are less af-fected by nasty human influences (ATVs,poachers, feral cats, nonnative weeds,etc.) coming across their boundaries. Theanimals most closely associated withwilderness—large, mammalian preda-tors—are among the species of greatestconcern to conservation biologists, be-cause they are extremely sensitive tohuman harassment, occur in low densi-ties, and have shown dramatic declinesin most regions. By establishing large,interconnected wilderness areas, or more

generally by keeping road density lowacross large landscapes, we contribute tothe conservation of these species. Acrossthe world, areas where human activitiesare excluded or highly restricted haveproven to be valuable havens for wildlife.For example, the Korean DemilitarizedZone is the major stronghold for winter-ing and migrant white-naped and

red-crowned cranes, among other imper-iled species. Just look at any map showingthe pre-European settlement and presentdistributions of grizzly bears, wolves, pu-mas, and other large carnivores in NorthAmerica; the only places these species re-main are the wildest and least accessible.

A second way in which wildness andbiodiversity are compatible has to do withbenchmarks. As Aldo Leopold pointedout in 1941, wilderness provides a “base-datum of normality” for a “science of landhealth.” Despite the arrogant claims ofmany proponents of ecosystem manage-ment, we know little more today than inLeopold’s time about how to manage theland in a fully sustainable way. However,thanks to ecologists we have learned abit more about how ecosystems function

under natural conditions and how hu-man activities affect these processes. Weare doing a lot more conscious experi-mentation in land management todaythan in Leopold’s time. This is all welland good, but because our ecosystemmanagement experiments span entirelandscapes, there is a greater need thanever for control areas that also span en-tire landscapes. These control areas, orbenchmarks of normality, must be bigwilderness. Paradoxically, most of these

control areas will them-selves require “somekinds of management—restoration, maintenance,and protection—to en-

sure that they effectively represent naturalsystems. For example, prescribed burn-ing often will be necessary to maintainfire-dependent vegetation in areas wherefires have been suppressed and that aretoo small to receive frequent lightningstrikes.

There are other ways in whichbiodiversity and wildness are compat-ible and mutually reinforcing, but wemust also acknowledge ways in whichthey are not. Particularly in the temper-ate zone, the landscapes richest inbiodiversity (in terms of species rich-ness, for example) already have beeneither converted to agriculture or otherintensive human uses, or have beendegraded due to alteration of natural dis-turbance or hydrological regimes,

Rare, lowland coastal rainforest. NorthQueensland, Australia (left). (Photo byVance Martin.) Rainforest harvest,Queensland, Australia (above). (Photo byVance Martin.) High mountains containthe least biodiversity (far right). (Photoby Tom MacDonald.)

... wilderness, and natural areas in general, should be evaluatedprimarily in terms of their contribution to the broad goals of protectingand restoring native biodiversity and ecological integrity ...


road-building, invasion of exotic species,and other insults. We might be able toestablish restoration projects orbiodiversity management areas in suchlandscapes, but these areas will hardlymeet the conventional criteria of wil-derness. In the Pacific Northwest regionof the United States, designated wilder-ness areas contain fewer northernspotted owls than managed forests for asimple reason: Most wilderness areas areat high elevations beyond the distribu-tion of the owl. Larry Harris’s landmarkbook, The Fragmented Forest, contains agraph showing a dramatic decline in thenumber of species of amphibians, rep-tiles, and mammals as elevation increasesin western Oregon; wilderness areasgenerally contain the fewest species, pri-vate lands the most, and multiple-uselands lie in-between. Moreover, manyof our most imperiled species—endemicplants, invertebrates, and small verte-brates—do not require wilderness butcould persist quite well in relativelysmall, isolated reserves if these areas wereproperly buffered and well managed.

TraditionalConservation VersusConservation BiologyMany traditional conservationists are un-comfortable with the increasing influenceof conservation biology in the environ-mental movement and, occasionally, in landprotection decisions. Speaking at the 1995North American regional meeting of theWorld Conservation Union Commissionon National Parks and Protected Areas,Michael McCloskey, chairman of the Si-erra Club, expressed concern that “thepreservation of biodiversity is put forth asthe raison d’etre for protected areas” andthat “every other reason for having themis treated as secondary, if not trivial andold-fashioned.” McCloskey noted that thediversity of reasons for having protectedareas has expanded the constituency forthem. He then chastised me and otherconservation biologists for heaping disdainon protected areas, because they are notin the right places or are too small, too farapart, or not managed or buffered well.

McCloskey s central point isthat criticizing our protected-areas system iscounterproductive because “itwill be all too easy for thepublic to conclude that suchsystems should be dismem-bered if this is the message theyget from leaders in the envi-ronmental community.”Within The Wildlands Project,a coalition of scientists andactivists interested in restoringnative biodiversity and wild-ness to every region of NorthAmerica, it has proved diffi-cult to reconcile the wild andthe diverse. When its budgethit an all-time low, The Wild-lands Project opted tomaintain the portion of itsprogram focused on wildnessand activism and to gut thescience program, just as manyof the mainstream conserva-tion groups (e.g., the NationalAudubon Society) have doneand as the federal land-man-aging agencies routinely do(slash science budgets, that is).I found myself and the program I initi-ated without funding and resigned inJanuary 1996 as The Wildlands Project’sscience director.

Wildness is just as meaningful to meas biodiversity. When it comes right downto it, the emotional and aesthetic reasonsfor protecting wild areas are more im-portant to me than the scientific reasons.But are we not somewhat selfish in ourlove for wilderness, our craving to bealone in places that humble and exciteus, that are beautiful, or that challenge usrecreationally or spiritually? Does anyother species feel this way about wilder-ness? Does any organism besides a fewfanatic Homo sapiens need wilderness?Let’s face it: Wildness is a more anthropo-centric conservation criterion thanbiodiversity. I can think of no conserva-tion goal less biased, more biocentric,more all-encompassing than protectingand restoring native biodiversity and eco-

logical integrity. Wilderness areas, desig-nated and otherwise, contribute to thisgoal and are essential for some species, atleast given the human attitudes and be-haviors that currently makenonwilderness unsafe or unlivable forthem. But wilderness is not the wholepicture. Wildness, however exalted itmakes us feel, is incomplete as a conser-vation objective. Unless wildernesscontributes to the higher goals ofbiodiversity and ecological integrity, inthese times of mass extinction and deg-radation of ecosystems on a global scaleit is perhaps frivolous to spend much timetrying to protect it. In many cases ourefforts would be more fruitfully employedin ecological restoration, in trying to helpheal the landscapes we have already dam-aged. A greater number of species wouldprobably benefit.

So how can we make wilderness des-ignation and management more


responsive to the most pressing needsof the 21st century? First, we need tore-evaluate the criteria used to selectconservation areas, including but notlimited to wilderness, to make sure theyare fully consistent with what modernecology and conservation biology haveto teach us. Wilderness areas and otherreserves should be selected primarily torepresent all kinds of ecosystems andspecies assemblages (the goal of the U.S.National Biological Service’s GapAnalysis project),maintain viable popu-lations of all native species in naturalpatterns of abundance and distribution,sustain ecological and evolutionary pro-cesses within normal ranges of variation,and be adaptable to a changing envi-ronment. These biocentric objectivesmust be primary if we are truly seriousabout averting the biodiversity crisis. Butthen, nearly as important, must come theobjective of encouraging human activi-ties that are compatible with the

maintenance of ecological integrity anddiscouraging those that are not. Withinwilderness and other protected areas,some of the most compatible and nec-essary activities are scientific research,monitoring, and active restoration andmanagement of native biodiversity Theseactivities have been nonexistent in manywilderness areas, which seem to beviewed more as public playgrounds.Hence, we have wilderness areas whereovergrazing by livestock is severe, for-ests are unnaturally dense and unhealthydue to lack of fire, lakes are stocked withfish not native to them, and trails areeroding. Acknowledging thatbiodiversity and ecological integrityshould be foremost objectives forwilderness designation and manage-ment—and that active managementusually will be necessary in these areas—does not mean we destroy the wild. Itdoes not mean we forget about all othervalues of wilderness and lose the con-

stituencies we have gained. It certainlydoes not mean we stop defending trulywild areas. It is only a matter of recog-nizing priorities. Spending time inwilderness continues to be my greatestinspiration, my motivation to keep up thegood fight. But I suggest that what wefight for be extended from our own grati-fication to encompass, as far as we candetermine, the needs of all other species.It is the least we can do for them. IJW

REED NOSS is the editor of ConservationBiology and author of the award-winning bookSaving Nature’s Legacy: Protecting and RestoringBiodiversity. He has an M.S. in ecology from theUniversity of Tennessee and a Ph.D. in wildlifeecology from the University of Florida. He hasworked with the Ohio Department of NaturalResources, the Florida Natural Areas Inventory,and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.He lives with his wife, three children, two dogs,and one cat in the foothills of the Oregon CoastRange outside Corvallis. Reed can be contactedat 7310 NW Acorn Ridge, Corvallis, OR 97330,USA. Telephone: (541) 752-7639; e-mail:[email protected].


Introduction

THE WILDERNESS MOVEMENT IN SOUTH AFRICAHAS ITS ROOTS in what is now the province of

KwaZulu/Natal. It was in these Zululand reserves that IanPlayer, as a young game ranger, first became aware of the fun-damental principles of the wilderness concept after readingliterature from The Wilderness Society in the United States,during their struggle to create the Wilderness Act.

The first wilderness trails (treks) were conducted inUmfolozi Game Reserve in 1957, guided by Player and hisfriend and mentor, Magubu Ntombela. During the follow-ing year, the southern half of Umfolozi Game Reserve wasset aside as a wilderness area, followed by the northeasternsector of Lake St. Lucia. Both areas, although still adminis-tered as wilderness areas, are not protected by law and aresubject to the management policies of the regional conser-vation authority.

It was only in 1973 that the first wilderness area was legallydesignated when, in terms of specific amendments to the For-estry Act, regions of the Natal Drakensberg and Cape Cedarbergwere proclaimed as wilderness areas. These areas were underthe control of the Department of Forestry (national level), headedat that time by the farsighted forester and wilderness advocate,Danie Ackerman. During the past two decades, the wilderness

concept has enjoyed increasing support, and there are nowdesignated wilderness areas within many protected areas, no-tably within the Kruger National Park and the Drakensberg,Zululand, and Cape reserves.

As Table 1 indicates, 11 areas, totaling nearly 680,000acres (275,000 ha), have been designated under the ForestAct as wilderness. An additional four areas are candidatesfor wilderness or for addition to existing wilderness, total-ing more than 378,000 acres (153,000 ha). The largest ofthe new areas, Baviaanskloof Wilderness Area, will provideprotection to approximately 165,000 acres (67,000 ha) inthe Cape Fynbos region, an area containing more than 6,000endemic species out of the 8,500 total species (Bainbridge1984). It is also important to note that, among the wilder-ness zones (administrative protection only) is the Lake St.Lucia Wilderness, a unique achievement in that it is com-pletely marine, demarcated by a fence barely protrudingabove the lake’s surface.

There is an urgent need to legally protect the remainingwildlands and create a wilderness act for South Africa. Cur-rently these areas, particularly those within existing protectedareas, are not protected by law and are managed according tothe respective policies of the various conservation organiza-tions. Historically, this has meant that the wilderness concept

FEATURES

Wilderness in the New South AfricaBY WAYNE ELLIOT

Abstract: South Africa is redefining itself in the post-apartheid era. Currently, 11 wilderness areas are protectedby law, with numerous others zoned within protectedareas. The principle challenges lie in developing uniformwilderness management standards, legislating a wildernessact, and enabling local communities such as those thatexist in KwaZulu/Natal to manage and receive direct benefitfrom their adjacent wildland areas.

White rhino cow and two-year-oldcalf, Umfolozi Game Reserve (left).(Photo by Wayne Elliot.) Baviaans-kloof (“Baboons Ridge”) WildernessArea in the Eastern Cape Province(below). (Photo by Vance Martin.)


within these organizations has been de-veloped solely by the few dedicated staffwho understand and are committed tothe wilderness philosophy. Changes inpolicy or staff often results in a dramaticchange in emphasis and limits the sup-port the wilderness concept maypreviously have enjoyed.

Many of the reserves are surroundedby large rural populations, and there isincreasing pressure to develop the re-serves and generate economic benefitsfor the neighboring communities. Be-cause wilderness areas are not utilizedby a wide spectrum of tourists and aretherefore limited in terms of economicviability, many people argue against theircontinued preservation. Although thewilderness concept is gaining supportamongst conservation staff, it is vital thatthese areas be legally protected.

Non-GovernmentOrganizations at WorkImportantly, there are a number of non-government organizations (NGOs) thatare actively working toward achievinglegal protection of the wilderness areas.The hope is that these NGOs willbecome influential in achieving thenecessary legal protection and alsorealize the important role of monitor-ing the management of these wildlandsby the conservation agencies and otherauthorities.

The recently formed Wildlands Trust,together with other NGOs will play acrucial role in ensuring the protectionof wildlands within South Africa andindeed throughout Africa. The reaccep-tance of South Afr ica by theinternational community means that theconservation expertise inherent in this

country can now be made available tothe rest of Africa. This has particular rel-evance in spreading the wildernessphilosophy into Africa, which is an ex-citing challenge.

Perhaps the most influential NGO interms of developing a wilderness ethicin this country has been the WildernessLeadership School. Founded by IanPlayer more than 30 years ago, the schoolhas taken many people on wildernesstrails (treks) throughout Southern Africa.Targeting youth and particularly poten-tial leaders, the school has beeninstrumental in generating wide supportfor the wilderness concept. An excitingand recent initiative has been the reas-signment of staff from the Departmentof Nature Conservation, (KwaZulu/Na-tal) to the school. These staff membersnot only gain a wider perspective and asound understanding of the wildernessphilosophy, but also assist the school intaking treks.The evolving relationshipbetween NGOs such as the WildlandsTrust, the Wilderness Leadership School,and the formal conservation authoritiesis an important development and is nec-essary to ensure that the wilderness ethicbecomes entrenched in the policies andmanagement styles of the conservationorganizations.

Education andTrainingAn increasingly important aspect of wil-derness management that needs to beaddressed, particularly from a formalconservation point of view, is the inclu-sion of wilderness courses in the tertiaryeducation programs. Currently the ter-tiary qualifications required to join aconservation agency lack any wildernesscontent, and it is up to an individual topursue his or her own wilderness edu-cation. This is usually achieved throughenrolling in a correspondence course.Fortunately, an increasing awareness ofthe need for formal wilderness coursesto be included in the curricula and re-cent initiatives, particularly in theWestern Cape, will perhaps allow thisimportant aspect to be realized.


Another element requiring urgentattention within the formal conserva-tion agencies is the establishment of adefinite career path for staff who wishto remain as wilderness trail guides. Anumber of the conservation bodies havededicated staff positions for trails offic-ers and, although making an importantcontribution to instilling a wildernessethic in the management of a reserve,these are often junior staff who do nothave influence in the general manage-ment of a reserve. After a period doingtrails, these officers usually become sec-tion officers. This does not allow forcontinuity, particularly in terms of cre-ating a core of officers that areexperienced and well versed in the phi-losophy of wilderness. The selection ofstaff to become wilderness guides andthe establishment of a suitable careerpath must be addressed. Also encourag-ing is the increasing desire on the partof some experienced field officers toremain as trail guides.

There is a definite need for wilder-ness training within the formalconservation agencies, and generally theNGOs have taken the lead in this regard.Although most of the literature comesfrom the United States, the challenge liesin making the wilderness concept rel-evant to the African situation. Thisrealization has generated considerabledebate because of some unique challengesfacing South Africa today.

Management ChallengesThe status and management of wilder-ness areas often differ considerably, giventhe policies of the respective provincialand national conservation agencies. It isessential that the natural character andintegrity of a wilderness area be pro-tected. Most wilderness zones withinparks and reserves are managed accord-ing to the policies inherent in aparticular conservation organization.The wilderness area in Umfolozi GameReserve, for example, is managed withinthe guidelines laid down in the man-agement plan, relevant to protecting thewild character of the area. This may

include using helicopters to remove cap-tured rhinoceroses (to avoid the use ofnumerous other vehicles), or trying tostop aircraft overflights below prescribedaltitudes. Conversely, the managementof the wilderness area in Tembe ElephantPark may allow for vehicle access, giventhe international border and associatedproblems. There are also wilderness ar-eas, particularly in the DrakensbergMountains, where local tribesmen canbe found harvesting natural resources.

Foundation and the Wildlands Trust. Bothare committed to monitoring the man-agement of wilderness areas and activelyworking toward ensuring their survivalin southern Africa.

With the country’s change in govern-ment over the past two years, conservationagencies have had to adapt to a rapidlyevolving socioeconomic climate. Histori-cally, game reserves and parks were viewedas elitist retreats, particularly for the whitesection of the population. Little attention

Wilderness trailists (trekkers) overlooking the Black Umfolozi river, Umfolozi Game ReserveWilderness Area. (Photo by Wayne Elliot.)

The manner in which the wild char-acter of an area is managed is thereforeopen to interpretation. This situationneeds to be resolved as soon as possiblein order to create a legally binding defi-nition of a wilderness area relevant tothe South African situation. Once thishas been achieved, the wilderness areascurrently protected would achieve a sta-tus that would apply throughout SouthAfrica, and management plans thencould be applied accordingly.

Given the differing interpretations andmanagement styles of wilderness areas, itis important that these aspects be moni-tored by an independent organization inorder to ensure that the wild characterof these areas is maintained. Within theprovince of KwaZulu/Na-tal, two suchNGOs exist, namely the Wilderness

was given to the neighboring communi-ties, and the relationships between theconservation authorities and neighborswere often characterized by an elementof alienation. The developing social dy-namic has meant that previously excludedneighboring communities now arebecoming actively involved in realizing theeconomic benefits that the parks offer.Furthermore, there is an evolutionary pro-cess of meaningful participation bycommunities in the management of theseparks and reserves, especially as it relatesto harvesting natural resources and pro-viding for ecotourism.

The KwaZulu/NatalCase StudyThe province of KwaZulu/Natal has along and proud conservation history, and


the wilderness ethic there is reasonablysupported by conservation authorities.The first game reserves in Africa—Umfolozi and St. Lucia—wereproclaimed in 1897. It was in these samereserves that the modern wildernessmovement in southernAfrica was founded,when Ian Player andMagubu Ntombela ledthe first wildernesstrails in 1957.

This province hasapproximately 25% ofthe South Afr icanpopulation, most ofwhom are rural peopleliving in areas that lackthe most basic techno-logical infrastructure.Often the catalyst toinitiating developmentis a game reserve thatneeds improvement.How this is accom-plished, and for whatobjectives, is criticallyimportant to the fu-ture of wildlands inthe region. The twinpressures of meetingthe increasing de-mands of foreign tourists, and the needfor economic development of ruralcommunities, are the framework inwhich the conservation agencies mustdefend and manage wilderness areas.

The wildlands ofKwaZulu/Natal aremanaged in three dis-tinct ways: by theformal conservationagencies that managethe proclaimed areas, byjoint management be-tween the authoritiesand local communities, and through moni-toring of natural areas that have no officialconservation status. Areas proclaimed asgame and nature reserves collectively com-prise just over 10% of the area within theprovince. (Nationally, South Africa cur-rently has only about 6% under formal

tural and historical aspects of the in-digenous people, mean that thecommunity conservation areas havehigh potential for economically sus-tainable ecotourism, which couldensure the conservation of wildlandsin these regions.

Community ParticipationGenerally, given their poverty andunsustainably high population growth,rural communities need direct economicbenefit from local protected areas. An op-erational and management style sensitive

to the needs and priori-ties of communities,without compromisingthe integrity of thenatural environment, isvital. This is an enor-mous challenge for theconservation authori-ties and often requiresa new, holistic manage-ment approach thatembraces local culturalvalues related to nature,and that fosters a senseof accountability by lo-cal communities to thenatural environment.Historically, commu-

nities were not involvedin the business arrange-ments of tour isminitiatives within pro-tected areas, withparticipation insteadlimited to simple em-ployment and the

selling of curios. This approach, however,does not satisfy the demand for commu-nities becoming “business” partners intourism ventures. Recent initiatives haveseen the active involvement of neighbor-

ing communities in theoperational manage-ment of tourism camps.In addition to membersof the communities be-ing employed as guidesor cooks, they are alsorepresented on theboards of directors that

manage these tourism facilities, therebyrealizing the adage “from the kitchen intothe boardroom.” Park revenues and otherfinancial benefits can now flow into thecommunities. This form of direct partici-pation should provide the degree ofaccountability and responsibility for

Hippo displaying, Ndumu Game Reserve. (Photo by Wayne Elliot.

... cultural values related to the environment ...must be encouraged and enhanced in order forthe wilderness concept to survive. ... but thereal challenge lies in rediscovering the spiritualrelationship to the land and creating an appro-priate land ethic.

conservation authorities are actively in-volved in the management of these areas,the communities own the land and arethe custodians of the natural resources.

The increase in foreign tourists,plus the growing interest in the cul-

conservation designation.) Communityconservation areas (those jointly managed)often have a wild character, particularly inthe more remote regions, and these areasdeserve better protection. Although the


communities necessary to support thefuture protection of the parks and theirwilderness areas.

The Department of Nature Conser-vation in KwaZulu/Natal province hasinitiated an exciting venture in this re-gard. Working closely with localcommunities, often in the most rural andimpoverished situations, the departmentformed a not-for-profit company calledIsivuno, which in Zulu means “to har-vest.” This company is responsible fordeveloping and managing ecotourismfacilities within the protected areas un-der the department’s control. Importantly,these ventures involve the local neigh-boring communities as meaningfulbusiness partners who receive direct fi-nancial benefits from the profits made bythe facilities. The structuring of the “busi-ness” arrangements are often complicated,given the lack of expertise in business andthe lack of available funds within thesecommunities. But after nearly two yearsthe Isivuno model of sustainable businesspartnerships has proven successful. It holdsgreat potential for including communi-ties in the management of wildlandsthrough appropriate ecotourism ventures,and for creating awareness within ruralareas of the need to protect parks andreserves, including wilderness areas.

AppropriateDevelopmentAnother challenge to wilderness conser-vation lies within the conservationagencies themselves. The wilderness ethicis not always understood by reserve man-agers and often has little support from theconservation staff. Wildlands are still some-

times viewed as areas awaiting develop-ment and, given the increasing tourismdemand on the reserves, training in newmodels of tourism must be encouraged.For example, tourist camps historicallywere developed within the boundaries ofthe reserves, often at the most scenic orprominent natural feature. These existingcamps dominate a large area in terms ofnoise and visual aesthetics, and additionalupgrading and development only makesmatters worse. Larger camps result in in-creased traffic, busloads of tourists and theneed to develop appropriate facilities suchas restaurants, shops, and more staff. All ofthis diminishes the areas’ wilderness values.

An obvious alternative is to developcamps on the periphery of the reserves.This option greatly reduces the generalimpact of visitors to the area and, bybeing on the boundary of the reserve,allows neighboring communities to be-come directly involved in the economicbenefits. Shops, curio sales, and othersupportive services ultimately can be alocal community’s responsibility and willincrease the active and meaningful par-ticipation of communities, greatlyassisting in improving the economicsituation in areas adjacent to the reserves.

In this post-colonial, post-apartheidera, the reconstruction of traditionalsociety is very important. Caring for theEarth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living(1991) identified two important chal-lenges in this regard: to change attitudesand practices, and to enable local man-agement of conservation areas. In SouthAfrica, and KwaZulu/Natal in particu-lar, meeting these challenges is vital ifprotected areas are to survive.

The abundance of natural resources inSouth Africa contributed greatly to thegrowth and continued survival of the com-munities. The indigenous people lived ina wilderness that provided food, materialsfor housing and clothes, and importantly,provided the spiritual power on whichthey built their faith. The last 100 yearshas witnessed an ever-increasing detach-ment from the land, both physically andspiritually. There are many reasons for this,ranging from the arrival of missionaries,to victory by the British armies over thetribes, to the apartheid policies that domi-nated this country for 50 years.

Local communities now rightly de-mand participation in the decision-makingprocess for the protected areas. These ar-eas are often viewed as ancestral land andimportant to cultural identity. Detachmentfrom the land, particularly from a spiritualpoint of view, holds inherent dangers forthe continued existence of wildlands. Thecultural values related to the environ-ment—social history, use of plants andanimals, ancestry—must be encouragedand enhanced in order for the wildernessconcept to survive.

This goal is achievable, but the realchallenge lies in rediscovering the spiri-tual relationship to the land and creatingan appropriate land ethic. This is why itis so important to preserve the wildlandsof South Africa and allow the wilder-ness to be the foundation upon whichour new nation builds a meaningful re-lationship with the natural world. IJW

WAYNE ELLIOT IS head of conservation,Department of Nature Conservation, KwaZulu/Natal, South Africa.

REFERENCESBainbridge,William. 1984. Management objectives

and goals for wilderness areas. In Martin, Vance,and Mary Inglis, eds. Wilderness: The Way Ahead.Middleton, Wisc: Lorian Press.

______1990. Private correspondence. Caring for theEarth. 1991. Gland, Switzerland: World Con-servation Union, UNEP, World Wildlife Fund.

Stankey, G. H., R. F. Nash, andV. G. Martin. 1990.International concepts of wilderness preserva-tion and management. In Hendeejohn, et al.Wilderness Management. Golden, Colo.: NorthAmerican Press.


THE CROWNINGACHIEVEMENT

OF THE 30th anniversaryyear of the United States’Wilderness Act of 1964was the spectacular tri-umph of seeing theCalifornia Desert Protec-tion Act (CDPA) signedinto law by PresidentClinton on October 31.(Public Law 103-433).

After a decade of in-tensive public debate, thislandmark measure had be-come the law of the land.Not since the 1964 actestablished and endowedthe National WildernessPreservation System (NWPS) with 9.1 million acres of wil-derness had a single bill added as much land to the system inthe lower 48 states. All told, the CDPA designated over 7.6million acres of wilderness. Its major features include:

• Sixty-nine new wilderness areas encompassing 3,667,020acres, of which 3,571,520 acres are Bureau of LandManagement (BLM) wilderness, and 95,500 acres areNational Forest wilderness.

• The addition of 1,300,000 acres to Death Valley NationalMonument and its redesignation as a national park. At 3,367,627acres, it is the largest park in the lower 48 states, with 3,162,000acres (95%) of the park being designated wilderness.

• An increase in Joshua Tree National Monument by 234,000acres and its redesignation as a national park. The 132,000acres within the addition have become wilderness.

• The establishment of a 1,419,800-acre Mojave NationalPreserve under the National Park Service. Within thepreserve, 695,000 acres are designated wilderness.

• The designation of 9,000 acres as wilderness at two nationalwildlife refuges under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The legislation almost fellprey to election-year poli-tics during the final weeksof the 103rd Congress. Itsfate was ultimately de-cided by the U.S. Senateduring the dramatic finalhours of that Congress.Earlier, with time runningout in the session, oppo-nents of the bill in theHouse of Representativesattempted to kill the billthrough endless proceduralmaneuvers, including anattempt to “run out theclock” by prolonging de-bate and offering morethan 40 weakening

amendments. One San Francisco Examiner editorial called theeffort to kill the bill “death by amendment.”

In the end, Representative George Miller (D-CA), chair-man of the House Natural Resources Committee, andRepresentative Bruce Vento (D-MN), chairman of the HouseSubcommittee on National Parks, Public Lands, and Forestswere successful in passing the bill out of the House. Once theCDPA emerged from the House it went to the Senate, whereopponents mounted a filibuster of the bill. But, in the finalmoments of the 103rd Congress, public pressure, the relent-less efforts of The Wilderness Society, Sierra Club, NationalParks and Conservation Association, and California Desert Pro-tection League, along with the commitment of Senator DianneFeinstein (D-CA), all combined to break the filibuster.

In an unfortunate postscript to the enactment of this land-mark law, its centerpiece—the Mojave NationalPreserve—came under almost immediate attack by the 104thCongress. Working through the appropriations process, Houseopponents of the preserve sought to close it, either by starv-ing it of operating funding, or by mandating that it be managedfor so-called historical uses. Again, in the end, those provi-sions were dropped, leaving a fully funded preserve in thehands of the Park Service.

The CDPA also marked the beginning of a new era for theBLM in California. Before the CDPA became law, the BLM

PLANNING AND MANAGMENT

The California Desert Protection Act—A Time for Desert Parks and Wilderness

BY JAY WATSON AND PAUL BRINK

Article authors Jay Watson (left) and Paul Brink (right).


managed only five wilderness areas total-ing 14,000 acres in the state. Because thesewere small and attached to larger wilder-ness areas managed by the Forest Serviceor Park Service, the BLM’s wilderness man-agement role was minimal. Followingenactment of the CDPA, the BLM becamethe manager of 69 new wilderness areastotaling nearly 3.6 million acres. Now, nearlya quarter of BLM lands in California areincluded in the NWPS. Of the 13.8 mil-lion acres of federally designated wildernessin California, 25% are now managed bythe BLM. From a national perspective, theCDPA more than doubled the number ofwilderness areas managed by the BLM andincreased the total BLM wilderness acresby nearly 70%. Only two other states havesignificant amounts of BLM wilderness:Arizona (1.4 million acres) and NewMexico (129,000 acres).

The Transitionto WildernessBoth prior to and following enactmentof the CDPA, the BLM movedproactively to prepare for implementa-tion of the sweeping legislation. Agencypersonnel began to examine closely theCDPA’s requirements and to discuss boththe immediate and long-term tasks nec-essary for the transition to wildernessmanagement in the California Desert.Eventually, this led to the developmentof a document titled A California Wilder-ness Transition Policy and GuidanceDocument, which outlined a five-year wil-derness transition strategy. This documentwas tailored to the CDPA and was per-haps the most comprehensive wildernesstransition document ever written by theBLM. The document focused on com-pleting fourteen objectives, bothshort-and long-term in nature, as follows:

1. Preparing Congressional WildernessMaps and Legal Descriptions—TheCDPA required the BLM to preparea final set of maps and legal descrip-tions for each wilderness area.Thistask has been less than simple to com-plete. The act created over 3,000 milesof wilderness boundary lines, and

public be aware of the new wilder-ness areas and the managementchanges associated with these areas. Itnot only helps reduce potential re-source/user conflicts but is also the firststep in promoting a wilderness ethic.Within one month of CDPA enact-ment, the BLM notified all inholders,mining claimants, governmental agen-cies, and the public at large of itsexistence. Specifically crafted letterswere developed for each group. In theprocess, numerous outreach forumswere held at the field level. Within thefirst six months of designation, over25,000 mailings had been sent out anda number of other informational ma-terials were made available.

4. Updating BLM Records—Afterwilderness designation, the BLMbegan updating its records to reflect howrights of way, grazing permits, miningclaims and mining plans of operation,recreation permits, cooperative agree-ments, and resource management planswere affected by the CDPA.

5. Developing Maps for Administrativeand Public Use—Since passage of theCDPA, there has been tremendous

many boundaries followed roads orrights of ways that no longer exist.Others were based on what turnedout to be incorrect survey lines. Inaddition, many boundaries did notfollow any identifiable feature. There-fore, the BLM has had to field checknearly every boundary prior to com-pleting official maps and legaldescriptions.

2. Locating and Signing WildernessBoundaries—In addition to theBLM, a broad range of users needto know where wilderness bound-aries are located: hunters, hikers,campers, adjacent land owners, andright-of-way holders. It is importantto sign boundaries because it helpsBLM rangers to legally protect wil-derness areas from unauthorized useand resource damage. The BLM’sshort-term goal is to mark all bound-aries at key access points.

3. Notifying the Public of WildernessDesignation—It is important that the

Death Valley Road with wilderness inbackground. Ninety-five percent ofDeath Valley is now wilderness (above).Watering tanks for Bighorn Sheep in Wil-derness Canyon of Death Valley NationalPark (left). (Photos by John Hendee.)


demand by the public and BLM forwilderness maps, the best educationaltool for preventing resource conflictsand building public understanding. Inaddition to creating official maps andlegal descriptions, the BLM will pro-vide a series of maps tailored fordifferent audiences. Eventually, allmaps will be digitized.

6. Notifying the Public about ProposedActions in Wilderness—Prior to aWilderness Study Survey (WSA) be-coming wilderness, the BLM notifiedall interested persons about proposedactions in WSAs.This process also fa-cilitated public involvement in theBLM s decision-making process. Asimilar process has been set up for ac-tions proposed to take place inwilderness areas. Mailing lists wereupdated and notifications are beingsent out on a regular basis.

7. Developing Policies for WildernessManagement—The BLM antici-pates taking five years to completewilderness management plans for all69 wilderness areas. These plansprovide the long-term managementdirection for each wilderness area.They are also a mechanism to re-solve issues in wilderness areas thatcannot be resolved by existing law,regulation, or policy. Until a plan iscompleted, management directionfor a specific area may be lacking.

Accordingly, the BLM identifieda need to develop written policiesaddressing the various special man-agement provisions set forth in theCDPA (e.g., wildlife management bythe California Department of Fishand Game, law enforcement activi-ties of the Border Patrol, and accessto private inholdings).These policieswere developed in cooperation withthe National Park Service to promoteinter-agency consistency in the Cali-fornia Desert Conservation Area.

8. Employee Training—The BLM wasinitially concerned that the CDPAmight create a climate of uncertainty

within the agency. Recognizing theimportance of clear employee under-standing of the CDPA’s intent, themanagement limitations set forth in TheWilderness Act, and the necessity of asound appreciation of the role of wil-derness in land management, the BLMorganized a series of training sessions.

A team of instructors providedwilderness management training toeach of the BLM and Park Serviceoffices affected by the CDPA. Thetraining focused on ensuring consis-tent interagency management usingThe Wilderness Act as the basis for thisconsistency. In addition, in May 1995the BLM, Park Service, Forest Service,and Fish and Wildlife Service held thefirst statewide Interagency WildernessManagement Training for Line Offic-ers in Death Valley National Park. TheWilderness Society was invited topresent the keynote address at thistraining session.

9. Responding to Emergencies in Wil-derness—The Wilderness Act providesmanagement exceptions for emergen-cies, usually in the event of fire ormedical emergencies. To facilitate aconsistent reaction among the BLMoffices, guidance was provided for deal-ing with these types of crises. Emphasisis now being placed on working co-operatively with other governmentagencies, such as sheriff ’s departments,Border Patrol, the California Depart-ment of Forestry, and county searchand rescue teams to ensure compli-ance with The Wilderness Act and theCDPA. The BLM is also developing aseries of memorandums of under-standing with these agencies.

10. Public Outreach—Providing infor-mation to the public is crucial inwilderness management. Outreach isimportant to instill public appreciationand support for wilderness. It also helpsprevent future impacts to wildernessresources and can reduce anxietyamong those affected. In addition tothe maps, brochures, and mailings al-ready mentioned above, the BLM is

working with other agencies to dis-perse information to the public.

11. Completing Wilderness Manage-ment Plans—The BLM’s policy isto complete activity-managementplans for all wilderness areas. Thefocus of these plans is to providelong-term guidelines for area man-agement. As mentioned above, theBLM expects it to take five to tenyears to complete all the plans forthe 69 new wilderness areas. Theseplans not only provide a manage-ment vision for each wildernessarea, but also use an ecosystem ap-proach by bringing together andconsolidating other resource plansaffecting the wilderness area. Thisensures resource management con-sistency and a focused long-termmanagement direction for both thewilderness area and the surround-ing lands or uses affecting it.

As a trial, the BLM is currentlyin the process of completing a planwhich “clusters” wilderness areasmanaged by the BLM and the For-est Service in the southern portionsof the Sierra Mountains. It wouldinclude six newly designated wil-derness areas. A draft of the plan isanticipated in 1996.

12. Ongoing Wilderness Monitoring,Reclamation, Surveillance, Compli-ance, etc. to Ensure Wilder ness ValuesAre Maintained or Enhanced—TheBLM has a legal responsibility tomanage its new wilderness areas tomaintain or enhance their wildernesscharacter. The BLM must treat theseareas as a resource and ensure appro-priate on-the-ground decisions.Effective on-the-ground manage-ment requires monitoring (recurringinventories to determine trends inwilderness resource conditions), sur-veillance (identifying and preventingdegrading actions to the wildernesscharacter), compliance examinations(ensuring actions are implementedconsistent with the terms and condi-tions of the use authorization), public


outreach, reclamation, and the main-tenance or construction ofdevelopments (e.g., trails).

13. Identifying Staffing and EquipmentNeeds for Implementation—Thetransition document provided anestimate of costs for implementationof the CDPA over a five-year pe-riod. The cost estimates proved tobe very important to the BLM. Theywere often used by the Departmentof the Interior and Congress whenassessing the BLM s long-term bud-get needs to implement the CDPA.These figures were also used exten-sively throughout the entire politicalprocess. In the end, California’s BLMwilderness budget increased by over$1 million even during the currentbudget reduction period.

14. Implementing the Special Provisionsin the CDPA—A number of uniquewilderness provisions were includedin the CDPA, and nearly all involvedprovisions for allowing vehicle use inwilderness. An example of one of theprovisions is the requirement that theBLM allow for vehicle access for lawenforcement agencies into wilderness.The act stated in Section 103(g):

“Nothing ... may be construed to pre-clude Federal, State, and local lawenforcement agencies from conduct-ing lav/ enforcement and borderoperations as permitted before the dateof enactment of this Act, including theuse of motorized vehicles and aircraft,on any lands designated by this Act.”

A second provision went beyondestablished precedents regardingwildlife management in wilderness.The act stated in Section 103 (f):

“Management activities to maintain orrestore fish and wildlife populations andthe habitats to support such popula-tions may be carried within wildernessareas designated by this title and shallinclude the use of motorized vehiclesby the appropriate State agencies.”

To avoid different interpretations ofthe implementation of these pro-

visions, the BLM developed a se-ries of policy documents to guidefield personnel.

ConclusionWilderness has a rich history and tradi-tion in California. When The WildernessAct was signed into law in 1964 by Presi-dent Lyndon Johnson, it designated 9.1million acres of wilderness nationwide.Of that, 1.25 million acres were in Cali-fornia—more than in any other state.Since then, Congress has moved to des-ignate wilderness in California a total of16 times—more times than in any otherstate. Today, there are almost 14 millionacres of wilderness in California—morethan in any other state outside Alaska.

Through its passage of the CDPA, theU.S. Congress continued that proud tra-dition of wilderness by protecting asignificant portion of California’s remain-ing wildlands. Perhaps the CDPA s greatestgift is that it offers the American peoplean opportunity to completely rethink howthey value arid landscapes. IJW

JAY WATSON is the California/Nevada RegionalDirector for The Wilderness Society. Jay has workedfor The Wilderness Society for more than 10 years,where he has lobbied Congress on park and wildernesslegislation and annual appropriations bills. For the lastseveral years, Jay has focused his efforts on programplanning, media and editorial outreach, and fundraisingin California. Contact Jay at The Wilderness Society,Presido Building 1016, P.O. Box 29241, San Francisco,CA 94129, USA. Telephone: (415) 561-6640; fax: (415)541-0346; e-mail: [email protected].


PLANNING EFFORTS TO DEVELOP WILDERNESSMANAGEMENT DIRECTION often have used citizen

task groups, which characteristically have met about 20 timesover a two- or three-year period to work toward mutual un-derstanding and consensus (McCoy et al. 1995). This form ofintensive public involvement in wilderness managementevolved for two primary reasons: (1) Recognition that wil-derness management occurs in a political environment wherecitizens hold veto power. In this arena, effective implementa-tion of plans will occur only if people affected by plans anddecisions feel a sense of ownership in their direction. (2) Wil-derness research on recreational impacts suggested a need formanagement focused on achieving desired conditions and thuslimiting change to what is acceptable, rather than definingcarrying capacity merely as how much use an area can physi-cally or socially withstand (Stankey et al. 1985). This shift inthinking in terms of desired conditions highlighted the value-based nature of decisions and the need for agreement amongdiverse interests about which conditions are desired and howmuch change in them is acceptable (Krumpe and Stokes 1993).

Task groups were first used to develop wilderness manage-ment direction in the early 1980s for the Bob MarshallWilderness in Montana (Ashor et al. 1986; Stokes 1988, 1990).Since that time, numerous other wilderness planning effortshave used citizen task groups (McCoy et al. 1995). As experi-ence with “wilderness planning increased, techniques forinvolving citizens were refined. However, in 1994 a lawsuitover President Clinton’s forest plan for the Pacific Northwestforests (Northwest Forest Resource Council vs. Espy, D.D.C.3/21/94) focused national attention on the FACA. The judgeruled that, because the Forest Ecosystem Management Assess-ment Team provided advice and recommendations to federalofficials, but included nonfederal employees in an advisorycapacity, the team’s activities were conducted in violation of

the FACA. This ruling caused federal agencies to closely scru-tinize the use of citizen task groups for wilderness managementplanning. It was determined that the way in which citizentask groups were being formed and used violated the FACA.As a result, all of these groups have been disbanded. However,managers continue to receive direction to build collaborativerelationships with the public and involve the public in moremeaningful ways (USDA 1993; Cortner and Shannon 1993;Magill 1991, Thomas 1995). And clearly, the need to developplans that can be implemented effectively has not diminished.The result has been confusion over how to effectively involvethe public without violating the FACA.

The FACA, The LawThe FACA (PL 92-463) is not a new law. Passed in 1972, itwas a well-intentioned piece of legislation designed to “levelthe playing field” so that decision makers were not undulyinfluenced by one group.The intent of the law is three-fold:

1. reduce the influence of special interest groups in the de-cision-making process;

2. provide the public equal access to the decision-makingprocess; and

3. prevent the establishment of unnecessary committees andcontrol the costs associated with such committees.

The term “advisory committee” is defined in section 3 of theact to be,”... any committee, board, commission, council, con-ference, panel, task force, or other similar group, or anysubcommittee or other subgroup thereof (hereafter in this para-graph referred to as ‘committee’), which is a) established bystatute or reorganization plan, or b) established or utilized bythe President, or c) established or utilized by one or more agen-cies, in the interest of obtaining advice or recommendations for

PLANNING AND MANAGMENT

(Peer Reviewed)

The Federal Advisory Committee Act—Implications for U.S. Wilderness Management

BY LINDA MERIGLIANO AND EDWIN E. KRUMPE

Abstract: Since the early 1980s, citizen task groups in the United States have worked collaboratively to reach consensusand develop recommendations for wilderness management direction. Recently all of these groups have been disbandedbecause the way in which they were being formed and used was determined to violate the Federal Advisory CommitteeAct (FACA) of 1972. The FACA applies anytime the federal government asks a group that includes nonfederal employeesto provide recommendations or advice of any kind. The FACA does not prevent the formation of advisory groups, but itdoes impose a process that is viewed as burdensome. This, in concert with an executive office moratorium on formingnew federal advisory committees, has effectively precluded public work group input on wilderness and other landmanagement issues. Increased reliance on a variety of other public involvement processes will be necessary to deviseand implement wilderness plans and management decisions reflecting public input.


the President or one or more agencies orofficers of the Federal Government, ex-cept that such term excludes ... (iii) anycommittee which is composed wholly offull-time officers or employees of the Fed-eral Government. ... (PL 92-463, Sec 3).”

The FACA applies anytime the fed-eral government asks a group that includesnonfederal employees to provide recom-mendations or advice of any kind. It isimportant to recognize that the FACAdoes not prevent the formation of advi-sory groups, but it does affect how groupsare formed and used (see General ServiceAdministration regulations, 41 CFR 101-6.1001-101-6.1035 [1990]). The languagein the FACA is broadly written, and thusis open to a wide range of interpretations.The act also contains considerable grayarea, and future legal challenges will nodoubt further refine how this law isinterpreted.Just considering a single fac-tor such as group membership, frequencyof meetings, or group composition maynot indicate a clear violation of the FACA.Rather, court decisions look at the total-ity of circumstances surrounding the groupto determine if the intent of the FACAhas been violated. In attachments to amemo to Forest Service employees, thechief of the U.S. Forest Service identifiedthe following “red-flag” questions thatmight signal a group’s violation of theFACA (USDA 1994):

1. Who created the group and why?If the group’s formation was notinitiated by the federal government,then it is less likely to be consid-ered an advisory committee subjectto the FACA. However, it couldbecome an advisory committee ifit is used as such by a federal agency.

2. Does anybody other than regular full-time federal employees participate inthe group? If a nonfederal employee“participates” in the group but is nota “member,” then the difference be-tween “participant” and “member”status may be scrutinized to ensurethat it is not a mere subterfuge.

3. Does the group give advice or rec-ommendations about specific

federal decisions? If the group isonly collecting data, then it is lesslikely to be considered an advisorycommittee under the FACA.

4. Does the group give the appearanceof exerting “undue influence” on aspecific federal decision? If so, it ismore likely to be considered an ad-visory committee under the FACA.

5. Do the group members work toreach consensus or do they workindependently? If the goal of thegroup is to present consensus rec-ommendations, it is more likely tobe considered an advisory commit-tee under the FACA.

The same memo further explains thatthe FACA does not apply to:

1. Meetings with preexisting groups.Any organization or group may re-quest to meet with a manager topresent its views about an issue.

2. Meetings with individuals.

3. Meetings with groups if the purposeis to obtain individual opinions.However, if the agency requestsgroup advice or recommendations,then it is covered by the FACA.

4. Public meetings that are open to allinterested parties for the purpose ofexchanging views and information.

Using AdvisoryCommittees underthe FACAIt is no simple task to form a federaladvisory committee. The regulationsfrom the U.S. Department of Agriculture

(USDA 1993a) take 23 pages to describethe procedures for the establishment,operation, duration, and accessibility tothe public of advisory committees. Anadvisory committee can be chartered ifit is determined that formation of sucha committee is in the public interest; orits functions are not already being per-formed and cannot be performed by theagency, another existing advisory com-mittee, or other means such as a publichearing. Chartering a committee re-quires publication of a notice in theFederal Register regarding thecommittee’s objectives and scope. Allmeetings must be open to the publicwith meeting notices and agendas pub-lished in the Federal Register 45 to 15days in advance, meeting notes must beavailable to the public, and a designatedfederal employee must approve agendasand attend each meeting. To furthercomplicate things, in late 1993 PresidentClinton issued Executive Order 12838,which requires agencies to reduce thenumber of advisory committees thatthey use and to limit the future use ofsuch committees unless urgent need isdemonstrated. This has effectively haltedattempts to charter any new federal ad-visory committees for wildernessplanning or management.

Article authors Edwin Krumpe(left) and Linda Merigliano(below).


Nevertheless, the FACA should notbe used as an excuse for not involvingthe public in a meaningful way; how-ever, managers must be aware of theconsequences of violating the FACA intheir public involvement programs. Themajor risk is that, if someone disagreeswith a decision, he or she may appealon the grounds that the proposal wasdeveloped in violation of the FACA.This could result in years of work beingthrown out with subsequent loss of pub-lic trust. Managers are encouraged toconsult with public involvement special-ists and legal counsels to review all thefactors in a particular situation so thatthe FACA is not violated.

The FACA, the Conflictin Land ManagementAt the core of American society is ourfundamental belief in a government “bythe people—for the people,” an idea thatis upheld by democratic principles suchas the right to openly express one’s views.Thomas Jefferson called for citizen par-ticipation through a free press, debate, andopen inquiry (Kemmis 1990). Shortlyafter his government appointment in1898, Gifford Pinchot advised forestersof their responsibilities, noting that, “It ismore trouble to consult the public thanto ignore them, but that is what you arehired for” (McCoy et al. 1994). In the1960s and 1970s, increasing concernabout environmental quality, an atmo-sphere of “questioning authority,” anddistrust of “the establishment” promptedrenewed demands that citizens be givenaccess to the decision-making process.This citizen uprising was reflected in leg-islation such as The Wilderness Act of1964, The National Environmental PolicyAct of 1969, The National Forest Man-agement Act of 1976, and The FederalLand Policy Management Act of 1976.The FACA, while not specifically di-rected at land management, was alsopassed during this period in 1972.

Public involvement in the land man-agement agencies has traditionally beenbased on a model in which managerssolicit comments from “the public” re-

garding a proposed action, act as the ar-bitrator weighing the pro and conarguments, and then make decisions thatsupposedly incorporate this informationto best represent “net public benefit” orthe common good (Kemmis 1990;Merigliano and Marsh 1994). Assump-tions underlying this model are thatprofessional managers know what is best,and land management decisions are pri-marily technical questions that can beaddressed through rational analysis tech-niques that are value-free (Magill1991).There is no burden on citizens tolisten to other viewpoints, respond to oneanother, or try to agree (Kemmis 1990).

An increasing number of appeals anddisenchantment with land managementplanning suggests that the traditional pub-lic involvement model is not working(Shands 1992; Blahna and Yonts-Shepard1990; Gericke and Sullivan 1994). Alterna-tive public involvement models view landmanagers as social change agents who shareauthority with citizens to chart future di-rection (Force and McLaughlin 1982). Onesuch model is transactive planning(Friedmann 1973). This model is based onthe idea that scientific information mustbe joined with personal knowledge andvalues to implement effectively decisionsregarding the public good (McCoy et al.1994). Many recent publications have af-firmed this notion (USDA 1993; Shands1992; Stokes 1990; Gericke and Sullivan1994; Sirmon et al. 1993).

Components common to these al-ternative planning models are (1) opendialogue, (2) mutual learning, and (3)collaboration to jointly develop solu-tions, usually through consensus (Ashoret al. 1986; McCoy et al. 1994; USDA1993). The FACA does not prevent opendialogue or mutual learning. However,it does pose a major barrier regardingjointly developed solutions due to theprovisions preventing federal agenciesfrom soliciting or adopting group rec-ommendations.

Conflict over land management is in-creasing due to resource scarcity and anincreasing human population with morediverse values. For this reason, the need

for citizens to explore issues in-depth,understand different viewpoints, andsuggest collaborative solutions has neverbeen greater. But, it is human nature forpeople to associate with others whoshare similar values. Thus, unless there issome assurance that decision makers willadopt, or at least seriously consider, thesolution that is reached, it is very hardfor people to really listen to others whoare espousing different views.

The Futureunder the FACAA major tenet of ecosystem managementis to work collaboratively with “partners”to address issues at larger scales. This ap-proach necessitates working acrosscurrent political and jurisdictionalboundaries. The FACA has begun to af-fect not only task groups working onwilderness management planning, butalso larger-scale ecosystem efforts(Durbin 1994). This has led to increasedefforts to “fix FACA.” In March of 1995,the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (PL104-4) passed with a provision to amendthe FACA. Section 204(b) provides anexemption from the FACA to allow fed-eral agencies to hold meetings withelected officers of state, local, and tribalgovernments to exchange views, infor-mation, and advice relating to federalprograms that explicitly or inherentlyshare intergovernmental responsibilitiesor administration. This clearly does notchange the FACA to the extent that fed-eral agencies would be able to use citizentask groups to develop consensus recom-mendations, but it opens the door foradvice from elected officials.

In conclusion, the FACA has becomea practical deterrent to public involve-ment through advisory groups, eventhough it actually outlines a process toestablish advisory committees when theyare deemed to be in the public interest.But, it imposes a process on the agenciesthat is viewed as burdensome. This, in con-cert with the moratorium on forming newfederal advisory committees, has effectivelyprecluded public-work-group input towilderness and other land management


issues. Efforts to narrow the scope of theFACA, thereby relaxing some of the re-strictions of public involvement, willlikely continue. Concerns about effectsof the FACA have been expressed bymembers of both political parties, but fornow, managers clearly must continue tofind meaningful ways other than publicwork groups to involve citizens in landmanagement decisions.

Even without forming an official fed-eral advisory committee, effective publicinvolvement under the FACA is possibleby creating an environment that fosterstwo-way dialogue, mutual learning, andcontinuous relationship-building withinterested and affected citizens.This willrequire using a variety of other methods,such as public meetings with facilitatedsmall group sessions, workshops, openhouses, field trips, kiosks at malls or

public events, issue briefings to the me-dia, newsletters with mail-back responseforms, coffeehouse chats, “spit andwhittle” sessions (USDA 1993), and ad-herence to the basic keys to successfulpublic involvement (Bleiker and Bleiker1990; Merigliano and Marsh 1994).However, it can be argued that these othermethods of public involvement are nosubstitute for the open dialogue, mutuallearning, understanding, collaborativedecisions, and consensus that results fromworking with a citizen task group over aprolonged period of time (Friedmann1973; Ashor et al. 1986). Nor do theseother methods of public involvementproduce the same level of shared owner-ship, partnership, and support forwilderness management and planningdirection. It is the authors’ opinion that solong as agencies are unable or reluctant to

apply the full process required by theFACA to create advisory committees forwilderness planning and management,citizen work groups will be precludedfrom participating in the wilderness plan-ning process and wilderness will be theloser. IJW

EDWIN E. KRUMPE IS professor of resourcerecreation and tourism in the College of Forestry,Wildlife and Range Sciences at the Universityof Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA 83844. Telephone:(208) 885-7911; e-mail: [email protected].

LINDA MERIGLIANO is a natural resourcespecialist/wilderness planner on the Bridger-Teton National Forest, P.O. Box 1689, Jackson,WY, USA 83001.

AcknowledgmentsThe authors wish to acknowledge theencouragement and assistance of Dr. GeraldStokes, director of wilderness in the WashingtonOffice of the USDA Forest Service.

REFERENCESAshor, J. L., S. F. McCool, and G. L. Stokes. 1986.

Improving wilderness planning efforts: appli-cation of the transactive planning approach. InProc. of the National Wilderness Research Confer-ence: Current Research. USDA For. Ser. Gen.Tech.Rep. INT-212: 421–431.

Blahna, D. J., and S. Yonts-Shepard. 1990. Preserva-tion or use? Confronting public issues in forestplanning and decision making. In J. D.Hutcheson, F. P. Noe, and R. E. Snow, eds.Outdoor Recreation Policy: Pleasure and Preserva-tion. Contributions in Political Science Num-ber 263. New York: Greenwood Press, 161–176.

Bleiker, H., and A. A. Bleiker. 1990. Citizen Partici-pation Handbook, sixth edition. Monterey, Calif:Institute for Participatory Management andPlanning.

Cortner, H. J., and M. A. Shannon. 1993. Embed-ding public participation in its political con-text. J. of For., 91(7): 14–16.

Durbin, K. 1994. The progress of freewheeling con-sensus jeopardized as feds pull back. High Coun-try News, October 17.

Force, J. E., and W J. McLaughlm. 1982. Alterna-tive processes for public input. In Proc. of theSociety of American Foresters National Convention.September 19–22. Cincinnati, Ohio.

Friedmann, J. 1973. Retracking America: A Theory ofTransactive Planning. Garden City, N.Y.: AnchorPress/Doubleday.

Gericke.K. L., and J. Sullivan. 1994. Public partici-pation and appeals of Forest Service plans—anempirical examination. Society and Natural Re-sources, 7: 125–135.

Kemmis, D. 1990. Community and the Politics of Place.Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Krumpe, E. E., and G. L. Stokes. 1993. Evolution ofthe limits of acceptable change planning processin United States Forest Service wilderness man-agement. In Proc, 5th World Wilderness CongressSymposium on International Wilderness Allocation,Management and Research. September.Tromso,Norway. International Wilderness LeadershipFoundation, Fort Collins, Colo.

Magill, A. W. 1991. Barriers to effective public in-teraction. J. of For., 89(10): 16–18.

McCoy, K. L., E. E. Krumpe, and S. Allen. 1995.Limits of acceptable change planning—Evalu-ating implementation by the U.S. Forest Ser-vice, IJW, 1(2): 18–22.

McCoy, K. L., E. E. Krumpe, and P. D. Cowles. 1994.The principles and processes of public involve-ment: A state-of-the-art synthesis for agenciesventuring into ecosystem management. Preparedfor East Side Ecosystem Management Team.Coop agreement PNW 94-0517. Unpublishedreport on file at University of Idaho, Depart-ment of Resource Recreation and Tourism.

Mengliano, L., and S. Marsh. 1994. Finding com-mon ground: The case for collaborative publicinvolvement. Inner Voice, 6(3).

Shands, W. E. 1992. Public involvement, forest plan-ning, and leadership in a community of interests.In Proc. of the Society of American Foresters NationalConvention. October 25–28. Richmond, Va.

Sirmon, J., W. E. Shands, and C. Liggett. 1993. Com-munities of interests and open decisionmaking.J. of For, 91(7): 17–21.

Stankey, G. H., D. N. Cole, R. C. Lucas, M. E.Peterson, and S. S. Frissell. 1985. The limits ofacceptable change (LAC) system for wilder-ness planning. General Technical Report INT-116.USDA Forest Service Intermountain Forest andRange Experiment Station. Ogden, Utah.

Stokes, G. L. 1988. Involving the public in wilder-ness management decision making: the BobMarshall Wilderness Complex—A case study. InEconomic and Social Development: A Role for Forestand Forestry Professionals. Bethesda, Md.: Societyof American Foresters, SAF 87.02. 157–161

______. 1990. The evolution of wilderness man-agement: The Bob Marshall Wilderness Com-plex. J. of For, 88(l): 15–20.

Thomas, J. W. 1995. Engaging people in commu-nities of interests. The Twelfth Annual C. E.Famsworth Memorial Lecture. Misc. Pub. 31. Syra-cuse, N.Y.: SUNY College of EnvironmentalScience and Forestry.

USDA. 1993. Strengthening public involvement:A national model for building long-term rela-tionships with the public. USDA Forest Ser-vice. Washington Office publication.

______. 1993a. US Department of AgricultureOffice of Personnel Departmental Regulation1041-1 on Advisory Committee Management.February 8.

______. 1994. Federal Advisory Committee Act(FACA).July 12th memo from WashingtonOffice of the USDA Forest Service.


DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN RECEIVE wildernessmanagement academic training without leaving the

comforts of your home or office? Correspondence study, a formof distance education, has become commonplace for universi-ties, corporations, and government agencies. Distance educationto train wilderness students and managers in the United Statesand abroad has evolved into a successful, cost-effective way tohelp people enhance their wilderness management knowledgeand ethics skills without leaving their homes or offices.

The Growing Appealfor Distance EducationA correspondence study program in wilderness management wascreated in 1989 in a collaborative effort by the four U.S. federalwilderness management agencies (Forest Service, Park Service, Bu-reau of Land Management, and the Fish and Wildlife Service). Sixindividual courses were developed.These courses were designed tomeet a broad range of knowledge needs in the fields of natural re-sources and wilderness planning and management (see Figure 1).

The major objectives of the series of wilderness managementcourses were to provide fundamental knowledge, in sequentialbuilding blocks, to help wilderness managers maintain professionalproficiency at a reasonable cost. Today six years after the courseswere developed, the program has evolved into a successful educa-tion and training tool. Enrollment data and feedback suggest thatthe courses meet needs of federal land managers in the UnitedStates; a much broader audience of federal, city, and state recreationplanners; and conservation organization members, educators, in-terested citizens, international wildland managers, and students.

Meeting Training NeedsThe Wilderness Management Correspondence EducationProgram (WMCEP) grew out of necessity. Rapidly changing

management programs, management techniques, pressures onwilderness and associated wildland resources, and shrinkingbudgets for training required that federal land managers de-velop a cost-effective, up-to-date training curriculum.

Additionally, the National Wilderness Preservation System(NWPS) has grown dramatically. When The Wilderness Act waspassed in 1964, it designated nine million acres in the NWPS. By1995, 31 years later, the NWPS had grown to over 100 millionacres, 4% of the US. land mass. The additional acres, accompaniedby increasingly complex management requirements and diversewilderness uses brought unanticipated new challenges to wilder-ness management. Education of wilderness managers laggedbehind this significant land expansion in the wilderness system.Distance education was one way of helping close this gap. Keep-ing abreast of changing social and political trends and requirementsfor wildland conservation has required that the courses keep pacewith the dynamic influences on management.

Developing a Wilderness EthicDevelopment of a wilderness ethic is one of the primary pur-poses of the WMCEP. A wilderness ethic helps to provide amoral and philosophical foundation for wilderness managers’attitudes and behavior regarding wilderness, and forhumankind’s relationship with wilderness. It helps wildernessmanagers understand and define wilderness, explaining whyand how it is different from other types of lands.

These courses, in addition to providing technical knowl-edge, show students that behind wilderness managementpractices are certain values. These values are what makes wil-derness unique. Without a thorough understanding of the uniquebenefits and values held in wilderness, managers may have adifficult time convincing themselves, fellow resource managers,or the public that actions being taken are the right ones.


Wilderness Management by Mail—Correspondence Education to Meet the Needs

of Tomorrow’s ManagersBY DAVID PORTER AND RALPH SWAIN

Abstract: The wilderness management correspondence study program, begun in 1989 as a U.S. Department of Interior(USDI)-Bureau of Land Management (BLM) led interagency cooperative effort with Colorado State University (CSU),proved successful in serving wilderness managers and others seeking to enhance their knowledge of wildernessstewardship. In 1993 the program was transferred to the U.S. Forest Service and by 1995 had attracted a total of 900students. In 1995 the program moved to the University of Montana’s (UM) Center for Continuing Education, in cooperationwith the UM School of Forestry, to be close to the interagency Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center. Theprogram has been renamed the Wilderness Management Distance Education (WMDE) Program and is being updatedin response to the rapidly changing environment of public land management.


Program HistoryIn 1989, with a look to the future, thefour U.S. federal land management agen-cies teamed up with CSU to designprofessional, fully accredited wildernesseducation courses to be offered cost-ef-fectively via correspondence. Between1989 and 1991, David Porter, USDI BLMwilderness specialist developed the sixwilderness management courses in part-nership with CSU’s Department ofNatural Resource Recreation and Tour-ism. Dave worked with a team of agencyexperts, researchers, and academic scien-tists to develop each course. Soon, theWMCEP became a highly successfultraining tool for managers who could notafford to travel to training locations andfor managers working in remote areas. Thecourses were also taken by some univer-sity students who did not have access towilderness courses at their institutions. By1993, the WMCEP was so successful thatit received the U.S. Forest Service’s Na-tional Wilderness Education Award forexcellence in wilderness education.

In July 1993 the administration of theWMCEP was transferred from BLM tothe U.S. Forest Service. The programcontinued at CSU, but the program di-rection was given to the interagencyArthur Carhart National WildernessTraining Center (ACNWTC) inMissoula, Montana. U.S. Forest Servicewilderness specialist Ralph Swain main-tained an office on the campus of CSUas a satellite office to the ACNWTC.

From 1993 to 1995 course enroll-ment grew from 600 to 900 students,and the program attracted interest andenrollment in the courses by non-agency students, including conservationorganization members; staff from Out-ward Bound, the National OutdoorLeadership School, and The WildernessSociety; teachers from the NationalGeographic Alliance; and wildland man-agers and students from South America,Africa, and Canada.The most importantproduct of the WMCEP is not the en-rollment, but the more enlightenedwilderness management style growingout of what these students learned.

In July 1995 the WMCEP was physi-cally moved to the ACNWTC, and a newpartnership was forged with UM’s Centerof Continuing Education, in cooperationwith the UM School of Forestry The newpartnership established the courses under anew name, the Wilderness ManagementDistance Education (WMDE) Program.This move allowed for a more compre-hensive training package to be physicallyhoused and managed from the CarhartCenter, reducing overhead and staff costsin response to federal budget cutbacks. Inaddition, the agency-university partnershipoffering the distance education programwas continued at the new location. Partici-pants completing courses now have theoption of seeking academic credit through

UM’s School of Forestry—just as they wereable to pursue credit through CSU at theprevious location.

Future DirectionsThe WMDE Program began acceptingenrollment in October 1995. Today,UM’s Center of Continuing Educationadministers the day-to-day operations ofthe WMDE Program. The School ofForestry, under the leadership of assis-tant professor Dr. Wayne Freimund,oversees course development and cur-riculum updating in cooperation withprogram manager Ralph Swain of theU.S. Forest Service.

Currently, several options are beingexplored to meet the changing needs

Protecting areas like the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge Wilderness in Alaska takesknowledge and skills, some of which can be provided by taking advantage of theWilderness Management Distance Education Program.


of WMDE students. First, the existingsix courses will be reviewed and updated.Revisions may include relationships toecosystem management; management ofnatural systems; implications of new leg-islation, such as the Federal AdvisoryCommittee Act and the Americans withDisabilities Act; and more on restora-tion and rehabilitation of wildernessimpacts, to name a few. Additionally, theprogram may use the latest in electronictechnology such as the internet andWorld Wide Web and explore new waysto deliver the courses to broader andmore diverse national and internationalaudiences. Other technologies, such assatellite down-links and videoconferencing will also be explored.

Maintaining the VisionLooking back to 1989, much has beenaccomplished by using correspondencestudy as a way to deliver wilderness man-agement education. Today the investmentin distance education is paying off andthe future for continued wilderness cor-respondence training looks bright.

How to EnrollTo learn more about the WMDE programor to enroll in a course, contact Clare Kellyat the UM Center of Continuing Educa-tion, telephone: (406) 243-4523, or fax:(406) 243-2047. If you have questionsabout course content, contact RalphSwain at the Carhart Center, telephone:(406) 626-5208, or fax: (406) 626-5395.

Six Course Offerings1. Wilderness Philosophy and Devel-

opment of a Wilderness Ethic—Thephilosophical origin of the wilder-ness concept and the themes andvalues wilderness provides are dis-cussed. Also, a look at the history ofwilderness and at the conservationmovement in the United States aswell as wilderness in the interna-tional context are provided. Inaddition, managing wilderness as adistinct resource and thenonrecreational benefits of wilder-ness are explored.

2. National Wilderness PreservationSystem and Related Areas—Providesa look at the early history and keycomponents of wilderness legislationsince 1964, related natural systems,and the similarities and differencesin agency mandates and policies.

3. Management of the Wilderness Re-source—Ecosystem characteristicsand basic principles of wildernessmanagement are explored. Separatechapters delve into management ofspecific wilderness resources such asfire, wildlife, and cultural resources;management of special provisionssuch as grazing, minerals, and motor-ized/mechanical uses; and the use ofGeographical Information Systems.

4. Management of Wilderness Recre-ation Resources—Managing forquality visitor experiences, includingexamples of common problems andsolutions, are topics that are exploredand discussed. Managing to minimizerecreational impacts is covered in de-tail in a separate chapter. Otherchapters include wilderness educationand information techniques, as well asa discussion on how to deal with emer-gencies and law enforcement actions.

5. Wilderness Management Plan-ning—The differences in planningapproaches among the four federalagencies are presented and dis-cussed. Basic concepts, a format forwriting a “good” plan, and direc-tion on how to implement a planare explored. A special discussion ofthe Limits of Acceptable Changeplanning system is presented.

6. Wilderness Management Skills andthe Future of Wilderness—The useof primitive means to achieve man-agement objectives and use of the“minimum tool,” and no-trace camp-ing methods are highlighted. How torecruit, supervise, train, and effectivelyuse volunteers to enhance wildernessprograms are presented. This course

will also help answer the questions:What does the future hold? How canI become a better wilderness man-agement professional?

Quotes from past students:“As a ranger I deal with fieldmanagement of wilderness on aregular basis and this course hasgiven me a better understand-ing of the decision-making pro-cess necessary when dealingwith the public and managers.”

—Stan Kerlin, BLMDesert District, California

“I think the course will makeme much more effective at ar-ticulating the concept of wil-derness to the public, andexplain that it is not a new con-cept but rather something thatdates back quite a while.”

—Lynn Watkms, BLM,El Centro, California

“The significance of such acourse [Wilderness Manage-ment Planning] should not beunderstated. It represents a sub-stantial opportunity to influ-ence the effective managementof our national wilderness re-sources in a direct and positiveway. [The course] is academi-cally rich, technically sound,and eminently practical.

—Angela Berger,Environmental Services,

Dames & Moore, Inc.,New Mexico.

IJW

DAVID PORTER is a wilderness specialistwith the USDI BLM, Colorado State Office,2850 Youngfield Street, Lakewood, CO 80215.Telephone: (303) 239-3949; e-mail:[email protected].

RALPH SWAIN is a staff member at the USDAForest Service,Arthur Carhart National WildernessTraining Center, 20325 Remount Road, Huson,MT 59846. Telephone: (404) 626-5208; e-mail:FSWA/s= r.swain/ [email protected].


ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL COMPUTERCOMMUNICATIONS ADVANCES is the develop-

ment of the internet, which is the most widely used network forscience information distribution and retrieval (recent estimatesindicate millions of users). A number of programs and servicesare available through the internet to enable protected area man-agers to manage their own information and to retrieve informationfrom others. The most commonly used features follow:

E-mailElectronic mail or e-mail greatly facilitates contact between indi-viduals, and also allows the user to send and receive computer files.E-mail can be used to enhance networking and ease the receiptand delivery of information such as contents pages of journals.

List ServersThis is an extension of e-mail, whereby users can choose tobe on mailing lists for particular topics. Individuals subscrib-ing to such lists receive all messages sent to the list by othersubscribers. This facilitates e-mail discussions on identifiedtopics of interest to the participants. For example, all protectedarea managers within a country could have their own list serveras a forum for discussing matters of mutual interest.

Anonymous File Transfer Protocol (FTP)This is a network tool that enables users from different sites toaccess computer files and browse them or bring them onto theirown computer, making it a powerful tool for data exchange. Thereare several tools that have been developed to assist FTP users infinding the desired data. For example, “ARCHIE” is a locator, atool for locating files at remote sites by filename search.

GopherGopher is used to locate and retrieve available files from otherlinked computer systems through the use of a graphic inter-face. Its use is straightforward, and information is locatedindependently of the site where it is residing.

World Wide WebThe WWW allows the user to retrieve information resources viainterfaces that use an “intelligent text,” technically called hypertext.

Using these interfaces, called up from known systems, displaysthe linked information (which may be on the same WWW server/interface or another on the other side of the world). WWWhandles data, images, text, and sound. There are various “searchengines” for finding information available on WWW servers, themost familiar being the Web Crawler and the Worldwide WebWorm. In addition, many of the best WWW servers already inexistence provide lists of other servers with related information.The best way to describe how these tools can revolutionize thelocation and retrieval of information is to give some examples ofWWW servers developed by a range of organizations.

Web SitesDialog {http://www.dialog.com/dialogl .html}Dialog is described as “the world’s most comprehensive onlineinformation source.” It comprises over 450 databases contain-ing over 330 million articles, abstracts, and citations coveringa wide range of topics with particular emphasis on news, busi-ness, science, and technology. The dialog services that are ofpotential relevance to park managers include: (1) referencesto and abstracts of articles from more than 100,000 interna-tional publications on science and technology, social sciences,and humanities, (2) full text of articles from more than 2,500journals, magazines, and newsletters, and (3) full text of over60 newspapers and stories from a range of wire services.

Environmental Resource Information Network(ERIN) {URL:http//kaos.erin.gov.au/erin.html}Through its computer network, ERIN is progressively build-ing up a holistic picture of the current state of knowledge aboutthe Australian environment, drawing data together from a widerange of disciplines. There is a diversity of information on thenatural resources of Australia and on their management at stateand federal levels.This information is compiled from a range ofnational and international sources, and in a number of caseslinks directly to the WWW servers of those sources.

Missouri Botanic Garden (MBG){URL:http:/straylight.tamu.edu/MoBot/welcome.html}MBG maintains a WWW server describing its activities and. in-cluding significant information on the plant species of certainparts of the Americas.


Wilderness @ InternetFinding the Information

Abstract: Over the last few years there has been a revolution in the availability of information and in the developmentand application of tools for managing information. More and more organizations and more and more countries arebeing drawn into the information superhighway The following excerpt describes different types of internet resourcesand examples of some World Wide Web (WWW) sites that cover environmental issues.


World ConservationMonitoring Centre (WCMC){URL: http//www. wcmc.org.uk}WCMC has developed a WWW serverthat both describes the work of the centreand gives examples of many of the ser-vices and products that the centre provides.

Fletcher School of Law andDiplomacy (FSLD){URL:http.7/www. tufts.edu/depart-ments/fletcher/multilaterals.html}The WWW server compiled by FSLDof Massachusetts, USA, includes textcopies of a substantial number of inter-national agreements relating toenvironmental issues.(This review was provided by JeremyHarrison, head of information servicesat the World Conservation Monitor-ing Centre in Cambridge, UnitedKingdom. E-mail: jer ry.har r ison@wcmc. org.uk.)

grams to fulfill a broad range of conser-vation, social, and economic needs.Information is needed on all aspects ofthese systems including conservation,management, tourism, and scientificresearch.This information is now be-coming available through electronicmedia. The PAVL provides a mechanismfor easy access to this information onthe internet.

A “virtual library” is an organized setof links to items (documents, software,images, databases) resident on differentcomputer sources on the internet. Thepurpose of a virtual library is to enableusers to find information that exists else-where on the network from a central“virtual” location, providing seamlesslinks to information. This library ismaintained by a custodian (in this caseWCMC), which regularly reviews in-formation to identify new web-basedsources.

The PAVL’s current links includenational activities such as Australia’s ter-restrial and aquatic protected areas,marine protected areas, and the GreatBarrier Reef Marine Park Authority.There are also links to several interna-tional programs including the 1993 UNList of National Parks and ProtectedAreas and the UNESCO Man and Bio-sphere (MAB) Reserves. Finally, thereare several links to international infor-mation transfer programs such as TheConvention on Biological Diversity andthe World Heritage Convention.

The PAVL can be accessed on theWWW at http://www.wcmc.org.uk/~dynamic/pavl/, or for those with internetaccess but without a graphical interface, anongraphical interface can be accessed byusing the following commands:

telnet rsl.ox.ac.uktype the following for “login”: lynxthen type: g http://www.wcmc.org.uk/ dynamic/pavl/

(This review was provided by JeremyHarrison, World Conservation andMonitor ing Centre; e-mail: [email protected].) IJW

(Excerpted from an article by the author thatappeared in Parks International magazine.)

The Protected AreasVirtual Library (PAVL)A system of parks or nature reserves toconserve areas of natural and culturalimportance has been established in mostcountries through international pro-

NBS DatabasesAccessible over the Internet{http://www.im.nbs.gov/bbs/bbs.html.}Several bird-related databases are avail-able over the internet through thehome page of the NBS PatuxentEnvironmental Science Center on theWWW Once on the home page,various pointers will direct users to thefollowing databases: (1) North Ameri-can breeding bird survey, (2) breedingbird census, (3) Christmas bird count,and (4) bird banding.


SINCE PASSAGE OF THE WILDERNESS ACT (PL 88-577) in 1964, wilderness management has emerged as an

important public policy issue. Specific wilderness manage-ment issues are highly diverse and include the role of naturalfire in wilderness ecosystems, reintroduction of predators, envi-ronmental impacts of recreation, visitor crowding, appropriaterecreation activities, and the level and type of visitor facilitiesand services. In many cases, these issues are highly controversial.

Information on visitor attitudes toward such issues can helpguide wilderness management, and a number of such studieshave been conducted (Stankey 1973; 1980; Lucas 1980; Hendeeet al. 1968; Watson et al. in press). However, it may be equallyuseful to explore the underlying ideas that may drive such atti-tudes’. We think the environmental values and ethics ofwilderness visitors can help explain their attitudes toward wil-derness management. Thus, this study focused on three concepts:

1. Environmental Values—Nature can be seen to carry anumber of values that may be of importance to humans.These values can be understood as the functions or prod-ucts of nature from which humans derive material ornonmaterial benefits. Examples include nature as a placefor outdoor recreation and nature as a source of raw ma-terials for economic development. Some values in natureaccrue directly to individuals, while others are more in-directly diffused through society as a whole.

2. Environmental Ethics—It is inevitable that humans in-teract with nature. But what ideas govern or structurethis interaction? What is the appropriate relationship be-tween humans and nature, and how is this determined?For purposes of this study, environmental ethics are de-fined as the diversity of ideas that drive human-naturerelationships. Examples include stewardship of nature as areligious duty and intrinsic rights of nature.

3. Attitudes Toward Wilderness Management—Wildernessmanagement issues are diverse, and visitor attitudes to-ward management issues have been found to vary. Wilder


(Peer Reviewed)

Environmental Values, EnvironmentalEthics, and Wilderness Management—

An Empirical StudyBY ROBERT E. MANNING AND WILLIAM A. VALLIERE

Abstract: This study explored the environmental values and ethics of wilderness visitors and how these influence attitudestoward wilderness management Visitors to the Breadloaf Wilderness in Vermont USA supported multiple values ofwilderness, including recreation, aesthetics, ecological protection, and scientific research. Visitors also subscribed to adiversity of environmental ethics, including anthropocentric(including stewardship and utilitarian ethics) and biocentric(including radical environmental ethics). Visitor values andethics explained 37% of the variance in attitudes toward aseries of wilderness purism-related management issues.Study findings suggest that increasing conflict overwilderness management may be inevitable, that protectionof the ecological integrity of wilderness is essential to satisfythe multiple values and ethics of wilderness visitors, andthat wilderness should be managed more systematicallyto meet the diverse and sometimes competing values andethics of wilderness visitors.

The diversity of wilderness values found in this study suggests increasingconflict over wilderness management.


ness purism is a general conceptused to characterize attitudes to-ward a var iety of wildernessmanagement issues (Hendee et al.1968; Stankey 1972; Shafer andHammitt 1995). Wilderness purismrefers to the extent to which anindividual’s attitudes conform toprinciples highlighted in The Wil-derness Act, such as naturalness,solitude, and lack of developed fa-cilities and services. The concept ofwilderness purism was used in thisstudy as the focus of attitudes to-ward wilderness management.

Study Objectivesand MethodsThe overall purpose of this study is toempirically explore the relationship be-tween the concepts described above. Forexample, what are the environmentallyrelated values and ethics of wildernessvisitors? Moreover, how are these val-ues and ethics related to attitudes towardwilderness management? To answerthese questions, three objectives weredefined: (1) conceptualize and classifyenvironmental values and ethics, (2) de-velop scales to measure environmentalvalues and ethics, and (3) analyze rela-tionships between environmental valuesand ethics and wilderness management.

There is a rich literature in history,philosophy, and a variety of environmen-tally related fields regarding environmentalvalues and ethics. Much of this literatureis reviewed in contemporary texts, includ-ing Bailes (1985), Calicott (1995), DesJardins (1993), Elliot and Gare (1983),Glacken (1956), Hargrove (1989), Mer-chant (1993), Nash (1983; 1989), Petulla(1988), Simmons (1993), Taylor (1896),Rolston (1988), Van DeVeer and Pierce(1994), Worster (1977, 1993), andZimmerman (1993). Based on this lit-erature, 11 potential values of wildernesswere identified (see Table 1) and 16 en-vironmental ethics were identified (seeTable 2). The 16 environmental ethicswere further classified into five broadcategories. We do not necessarily suggestthat these broad categories of ethics are

ideas that are clustered together withinsegments of society; rather, they repre-sent groups of ideas that we believe havesome conceptual commonality.

The second study objective involveddevelopment of scales to measure thevalues and ethics outlined above. Valueswere measured with a battery of state-ments describing the 11 potential valuesof wilderness (see Table l).To attain thesevalues, respondents were asked to ratethe degree of importance they attachedto wilderness as a place. A six-point re-sponse scale was used, ranging from“not-at-all” to “extremely” important.

between two and five statements. Rep-resentative statements are shown inTable 2.

The third study objective was accom-plished by means of a survey of wildernessvisitors. The values and ethics scales wereincorporated into a written questionnaire.In addition, a third battery of questionswas developed to measure attitudes to-ward wilderness management. Thesequestions were directed at the issue ofwilderness purism as described earlier. Aseries of 18 statements was constructedaddressing selected management issuesrepresentative of wilderness purism.These

Both wilderness values and environmental ethicscan be isolated and measured (and) are signifi-cantly related to wilderness purity.

Ethics were measured by means ofa battery of statements that attemptedto capture alternative dimensions ofeach of the 16 environmental ethics.An 11-point response scale was used,anchored at “strongly agree” and“strongly disagree.” An initial group of104 statements was pretested on 150undergraduate students who wereasked to comment on any problems,ambiguities, or other difficulties in in-terpreting and responding to thestatements. Based on this pretest, 62statements were retained. Each environ-mental ethic was measured with

statements are shown in Table 3. Respon-dents were asked the extent to which theyagreed with each statement. An 11-pointresponse scale was used, anchored at“strongly agree” and “strongly disagree.”

The questionnaire was administeredby mail to a sample of 251 visitors tothe Breadloaf Wilderness in Vermont,following procedures recommended byDillman (1978). Sampling was con-ducted at six sites within the wildernesson 28 randomly selected days from Julythrough October 1992. An interviewercontacted each wilderness visitor en-countered, briefly explained the study,


and asked for the visitor’s name andmailing address. Only four visitors de-clined to participate. A questionnaire andcover letter were then mailed to eachstudy participant, followed by a reminderpostcard, second questionnaire, andcover letter to participants not respond-ing within three weeks. Participants wereprovided with a stamped, self-addressedenvelope in which to return the com-pleted questionnaire. A response rate of78% was attained, yielding 196 com-pleted questionnaires.

Study FindingsWilderness Values—Visitors felt thatwilderness is important for most of thevalues included in the study, and a clearhierarchy of values was identified (seeTable 1). Direct use-related values, thosethat accrue more directly to individu-als, tended to be rated as more important.These include aesthetic appreciation,education, outdoor recreation, andtherapeutic values, which comprised the

first two tiers of importance in Table 1.Less direct values, those that accrue lessdirectly to individuals but more to so-ciety in general, constituted the third andfourth tiers of importance and includedthe values of ecological integrity to hu-man survival, wilderness as a scientificresource, and wilderness as a historical/cultural resource. More abstract valuesof wilderness, including wilderness as anexpression of moral/ethical obligationto nature and the spiritual value of wil-derness, represented a fifth tier ofimportance. The economic value of wil-derness as a source of raw materials wasrated lowest in importance.

Environmental Ethics—Data from the62 environmental ethics statements werefactor analyzed to test the validity of thestatements as measures of the 16 environ-mental ethics originally conceptualized.The relationship between these resulting17 factors and the original 16 environ-mental ethics derived from the literature

review is shown in Figure l. The two listsof environmental ethics are very similar.

Responses to the statements com-prising each environmental ethic factorwere added to form an index score. Be-cause factors contained unequalnumbers of statements, these raw scoreswere standardized by transforming themback to the original 11-point responsescale. These standardized index scores aregraphed in Figure 2.

As with wilderness values, it is clearthat wilderness visitors subscribed to adiversity of environmental ethics. Stew-ardship-based environmental ethics,particularly as they relate to duties to fu-ture generations and the generalimportance of nature, enjoyed especiallystrong support. Strong support for utili-tarian conservation ethics, includingquality of life, ecological survival, and ef-ficiency was also pervasive across thesample. Radical environmental ethics,ideas that tend to challenge the tradition-ally anthropocentric western worldviewregarding nature, also tended to bestrongly embraced. Environmental eth-ics comprising the benign indifferenceand anti-environment categories weregenerally not supported, with the excep-tion of some support for the view ofnature as a storehouse of raw materials.

Wilderness Purity—Findings regard-ing wilderness purity are shown in Table3. In some dimensions of wilderness pu-rity, such as allowing snowmobiling andhunting, visitors strongly favored a highdegree of wilderness purity. However,on other dimensions of wilderness pu-rity, such as shelters and signs, a decidedlynonpurist attitude prevailed. Visitors tothe Breadloaf Wilderness preferred anexperience that has some elements ofprimitive or pure wilderness recreationand some elements of a more developedrecreation experience.

To explore relationships betweenwilderness values, environmental ethics,and wilderness purity, multiple linear re-gression was employed. Respondentscores on the overall index of wilder-ness purity were used as the dependent


variable. Respondent scores on each ofthe wilderness values and environmen-tal ethics factors were used as theindependent variables. Three multipleregressions were conducted: valuesagainst wilderness purity, ethics againstwilderness purity, and values and ethicsagainst wilderness purity (Table 4).

Both wilderness values and environ-mental ethics are significantly related toattitudes toward wilderness purity. Wil-derness values explain approximately17% of the variance in the overall wil-derness purity index. Six of the 11wilderness values entered the equation.As might be expected intuitively, themore importance respondents attachedto educational, therapeutic, and moral/ethical values of wilderness, the morepurist their overall attitude toward wil-derness management. However, themore importance respondents attachedto the scientific, spiritual, and aestheticvalues of wilderness, the less purist theiroverall attitudes toward wilderness man-agement. These inverse relationships arenot intuitively obvious except that these

values may sometimes require or be en-hanced by some manipulation ormanagement of the environment.

Environmental ethics are morestrongly related to wilderness purity,explaining approximately 25% of thevariance in the overall wilderness pu-rity index. Six of the 17 environmentalethics entered the equation. The morestrongly respondents believed in theenvironmental ethics of animism/or-ganicism/pantheism, humanitarianism,and threat to survival, the more puristtheir overall attitude toward wildernessmanagement. The first two of these en-vironmental ethics come from theradical environmentalism category, andtheir positive relationship with wilder-ness purity makes intuitive sense. Thepositive relationship between the threatto survival ethic and wilderness puritymakes less intuitive sense, but is prob-ably relatively unimportant as both therelationship and support for the ethicwere weak. The more strongly respon-dents believed in the environmentalethics of religious stewardship, future

generations, and human rights to usenature, the less purist their overall atti-tude toward wilderness management.These ethics come from the utilitarianconservation and stewardship categoriesand thus may imply more sympathy forhuman management of some elementsof wilderness.

Finally, wilderness values and envi-ronmental ethics together explainapproximately 37% of the variance inthe overall index of wilderness purity.Ten values and ethics entered the equa-tion, generally the same variables asoutlined above.

Conclusionsand ImplicationsSeveral conclusions and implicationsmight be drawn from this study. First, itis apparent that wilderness values and en-vironmental ethics can be isolated andmeasured. Traditionally, such environ-mentally related values and ethics havebeen treated primarily at a conceptuallevel. However, these intellectual ideas canbe defined more explicitly, classified, and


measured through scale development andassociated survey and statistical tech-niques. While the values andethics-related classification systems andmeasurement scales are subject to con-tinued refinement, they suggest that anempirical approach to understandingthese issues can be potentially produc-tive and useful.

Second, the descriptive study find-ings provide some direct insights intoenvironmentally related values and eth-ics that visitors bring with them to thewilderness. Visitors value wilderness formany reasons. Although more direct orindividually related values, such as rec-reation, are rated as most important, lessdirectly or more societally related val-ues and more abstract values, such asecological protection and expression ofmoral/ethical obligations, are also ratedas important. In addition, visitors sub-scribe to a diversity of environmentalethics, including those that might gen-erally be described as anthropocentric(including stewardship and utilitarianethics) and biocentric (including radi-cal environmental ethics).

Descriptive findings also provide in-sight into visitor attitudes towardwilderness management, especially asthey relate to the issue of wildernesspurism. Again, a diversity of attitudes wasrepresented. Visitors to the BreadloafWilderness were strong wilderness pur-ists with respect to some issues such assnowmobiling and hunting and wereclearly not strong wilderness purists withrespect to some other issues such as signsand shelters.

These descriptive findings suggestseveral wilderness management impli-cations. Number one, more conflict overwilderness management may be inevi-table. The diversity of wilderness valuesand environmental ethics found in thisstudy suggests that wilderness is subjectto multiple demands, and some of thesedemands may inherently conflict. Forexample, use of wilderness for recreationcauses some ecological impact. This mayin turn be antithetical to the value ofwilderness as an expression of moral/

ethical obligation topreserve nature or tothe value of wilder-ness as a scientificresource. Similarly,the mix of anthropo-centric and biocentricenvironmental ethicsmay present compet-ing and potentiallyconflicting demandson wilderness man-agement.

Number two, itmay be wise for wil-derness managers tobe especially carefulto prevent or minimizeecological impacts towilderness. Many ofthe values of wilder-ness identified in thisstudy are heavilydependent uponmaintaining the ecological integrity ofwilderness. Moreover, many of the en-vironmental ethics identified arebiocentric, future-oriented, and arehighly dependent upon maintainingecological integrity. While a number ofvalues and ethics are more anthropocen-tr ic and utilitar ian, these can andprobably should be realized without

threatening ecological integrity. In do-ing so, wilderness can best meet themultiple demands placed upon it bycontemporary society.

Number three, wilderness managersprobably should give more explicit at-tention to nonrecreation values. It isclear from study findings that visitorsattain multiple values from wilderness,


and that recreation is only one of manybenefits. However, wilderness managementis often focused primarily on recreation-oriented values (Manning 1992).

The third general conclusion to bedrawn from this study is that values andethics explained approximately 37% ofthe variance in respondent scores on theoverall wilderness purity index. Thesestatistical relationships show that beliefsin selected wilderness values and envi-ronmental ethics are associated withcertain attitudes toward wilderness man-agement. These types of relationshipsmay help establish an empirical basis fora comprehensive wilderness manage-ment policy. For example, somewilderness areas may emphasize selected

wilderness values and adopt associatedmanagement policies. This approach tomanagement may allow wildernessmanagers to more effectively meet thediverse and sometimes competing val-ues and ethics of wilderness visitors,while avoiding the potential conflictdescribed above.

Although this study suggests severalconclusions and implications, it has limi-tations as well. Data are drawn fromvisitors to only one wilderness area, sothe degree to which study findings aregeneralizable is unknown. Moreover, theconceptualization and measurement ofthese concepts, wilderness values, envi-ronmental ethics, and attitudes towardwilderness management, are subject to

continued refinement.Exploration ofattitudes toward wilderness managementwas limited to issues related to wilder-ness purism. Finally, the study includedonly direct visitors to wilderness. Theenvironmental values, ethics, and atti-tudes of people who do not visitwilderness areas may differ significantlyfrom the sample population. IJW

ROBERT E. MANNING is professor ofnatural resources and chair of the RecreationManagement Program at the University ofVermont. He teaches and conducts research onhistory, philosophy, and management of parksand wilderness.

WILLIAM A. VALLIERE is a researchassistant in the School of Natural Resources atthe University of Vermont. The data describedin this paper were part of his master’s thesis.

REFERENCESBailes, K., ed. 1985. Environmental History: Critical

Issues in Comparative Perspective. Lanham, Mass.:University Press of America.

Calhcott J. 1995. Earth’s Insights: A Survey of Eco-logical Ethics from the Mediterranean Basin to theAustralian Outback. Berkeley: University of Cali-fornia Press.

Des Jardins, J. 1993. Environmental Ethics: An Intro-duction to Environmental Philosophy. Belmont,Calif: Wadsworth Publishing Company.

Dillman, D. 1978. Mail and Telephone Surveys: The TotalDesign Method. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

Elliot, R., and A. Gare., eds. 1983. EnvironmentalPhilosophy. University Park, Pa.: PennsylvaniaState University Press.

Glacken, C. 1956. Traces on the Rhodian Shore. Ber-keley: University of California Press.

Hargrove, E. 1989. Foundations of Environmental Eth-ics. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall

Hendee, J., W. Catton Jr., L. Marlow, and C.Brockman. 1968. Wilderness users in the Pa-cific Northwest: Their characteristics, values,and management preferences. USDA ForestService Research Paper PNW-61.

Lucas, R. 1980. Use patterns and visitor character-istics, attitudes, and preferences in nine wilder-ness and other roadless areas. USDA ForestService Research Paper INT-253.

Manning, R. 1992. Beyond standard standards: In-corporating non-recreational values into wil-derness management. Defining wildernessquality: The role of standards in wildernessmanagement. USDA Forest Service General Tech-nical Report PNW–305, 67–75.

Merchant, C, ed. 1993. Major Problems in American En-vironmental History. Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath.

Nash, R. 1983. Wilderness and the American Mind.New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.

______. 1989. The Rights of Nature. Madison, Wisc:University ofWisconsin Press.

Petulla, J. 1988. American Environmental History, re-vised edition. New York: Macmillan.

Rolston, H. 1988. Environmental Ethics. Philadel-phia, Pa.: Temple University Press.

Shafer, C, and W. Hammitt. 1995. Purism revisited:Specifying recreational conditions of concernaccording to resource intent. Leisure Sciences, 17:15–30.

Simmons, I. 1993. Environmental History: A ConciseIntroduction. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Pub-lishers.

Stankey, G. 1972. A strategy for the definition andmanagement of wilderness quality. In J. Krutilla,ed. Natural Environments: Studies on Theoreticaland Applied Analysis. Baltimore, Md.: JohnsHopkins University Press, 88–144.

_______1973. Visitor perception of wilderness rec-reation carrying capacity. USDA Forest ServiceResearch Paper INT-142.

_______1980. A comparison of carrying capacityperceptions among visitors to two wildernesses.USDA Forest Service Research Paper INT–253.

Taylor, P. 1986. Respect for Nature: A Theory of Envi-ronmental Ethics. Princeton, N. J.: PrincetonUniversity Press.

VanDeVeer, D., and C. Pierce. 1994. The Environ-mental Ethics and Policy Book. Belmont, Calif.:Wadsworth Publishing Company.

Watson, A., J. Hendee, and H. Zaglauer. In Press.Human values and codes of behavior: Changesin Oregon’s Eagle Wilderness visitors and theirattitudes. Natural Areas J.

Worster, D. 1977. Nature’s Economy: A History ofEcological Ideas. Cambridge, Mass.: CambridgeUniversity Press.

_______. 1993. The Wealth of Nature: EnvironmentalHistory and the Ecological Imagination. New York:Oxford University Press.

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[Editor’s Note: TheWilderness LeadershipSchool (WLSJ has, since itsinception 35 years ago,always invested in people.It nurtures an environmentalethic by enabling SouthAfricans to rediscover qualityof life within themselves andthe land of their birththrough experiencing thewilderness. The power of awilderness experience \s thesudden understanding ofthe indivisible relationshipbetween you and yourenvironment.

In a developingcountry like South Africa,environmental issues relateto every facet of humanlife. They relate to thestruggle for clean water,adequate shelter, andhuman dignity, strugglesrelentlessly played out in the settlements throughout SouthAfrica. As our country embarks on its reconstruction anddevelopment program, nature conservation andsustainability must be seen as an important investment inthe social and political well-being of all people.

cooperation with the WLS. The township environment standsin sharp contrast to the idealism of the wilderness as a safehaven. They live in New Crossroads, an African township inCape Town born out of the bitter struggle against theantiurbanization strategies of the former Nationalist govern-ment that formed the core of the apartheid policy The scarsof the struggle for access to urban resources are evident ev-erywhere. The grudging response by the former apartheidregime is reflected in the poorly constructed houses in vari-ous states of disrepair, piles of garbage on the sidewalks due topoor removal services, and lack of basic community facilitiessuch as clinics, shops, and recreational facilities. The rage of


Wilderness as a Resourcefor Healing in South Africa

BY MAMPHELA RAMPHELE

Within the new South Africa, the WLSmission remains: “To restore a balancedrelationship between nature andhumanity by providing a direct experienceof wilderness ...”

South African youth ready for “trail.” Patrick Marsh, Trail Officer, lowerright.

Equally, conservation ofwildlands must be recog-nized as an investment in areawakening of the humanspirit, for embedded in thelives of ordinary SouthAfricans is the violence of thepast and present. The subtlepower of a wildernessexperience, of naturerelatively undisturbed byhuman influence, fostersnew insight into our placein the world, heals thewounds of violence, andhelps build a new nation.

Within the new SouthAfrica, the WLS missionremains: “to restore abalanced relationshipbetween nature andhumanity by providing adirect experience ofwilderness.” The WLSachieves these objectives

by influencing a wide range of existing leaders throughyouth leader (scholarship) courses, teacher training,communication leader courses, opinion (political) leadertrails, and special research projects such as that beingconducted by Dr. Ramphele.

—Andrew Muir, Margot Morrison]

FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL, THE WILDERNESSHAS BEEN ASSOCIATED with the search for mean-

ing and the need for restoration of interior balance, and hasbeen a place where one is likely to encounter one’s creator orexperience special connectedness with the source of one’s be-ing. Indeed, the wilderness is used as a site of many rituals andrites of passage by indigenous people worldwide and by citi-zens of developed nations. But what value would young peoplederive from a wilderness experience they did not seek, andnot imagine could be accessible to them? We explored thatquestion with South African youth from the New CrossroadsTownship in Cape Town going on wilderness trails (treks) in


township residents toward symbols ofauthority is reflected in angry graffiti onconcrete walls and burnt-out cars andtires on the streets.

New Crossroads has 1,738 residen-tial sites and 48 designated public spacesfor churches, creches, schools, and busi-nesses. There are three primary schools,one high school, one creche, and threechurches serving an estimated 10,500people. The high population density isreflected by hundreds of people whoalways seem to be spilling into the streets.The streets act as extensions of the lim-ited home environments; children meetand play there, adults shout across themto converse with neighbors, and loversseek corners in the darkness of the nightto share stolen kisses.

Of the population, 36% are under 16years, and 13% are from 10 to 14 yearsold (the target of our research), of which92% go to school. Of the households,32% are female-headed, 67 percent aremale-headed, and 1% have children liv-ing on their own with no resident head.Average weekly income per householdis $83, and the houses consist of one tothree bedrooms, a kitchen, and a livingroom. Occupancies range from 3 to 15per residential site, and many residentshave built shacks in their backyards toaccommodate their large households orto sublet for extra income.

The township is thus characterizedby overcrowding, lack of proper services,high noise levels and many other indi-cators of urban poverty. Constraints ofphysical space have profound implica-tions for social relations; conflicts overspace as a scarce resource are a reality oflife. So too are conflicts over other scar-cities, such as taxi wars. Here, survivalof the fittest as a dictum assumes a par-ticular significance. Children being theleast powerful members of society loseout in terms of the allocation of scarceresources, including physical space(Ramphele 1993).

Relationships between children andadults are complex. The shared love andcare is often marred by what our infor-mants regard as cruelty: “Adults are cruel.

They just beat, beat, beat. You get beatenat home, at school, and in the streets,”said a 14 year old. Children are also af-fected by the violence in the widersociety. The culture of political intoler-ance and conflict has its roots in theinstitutional violence of apartheid thatdeliberately impoverished black peoplewhile promoting a privileged lifestylefor whites, as detailed in the Second

Garmezy 1991; Straker 1992; Dawes andDonald 1994), we nonetheless recognizethat the adolescents we took into thewilderness were bruised to varying de-grees by their social environment.

The Research ProcessForty-eight adolescents between 10 and14 years old were randomly selected fromour 1991 demographic data base. They

But what value would young people derive froma wilderness experience they did not seek, anddid not imagine could be accessible to them?

Fresh from the township, a youth receives help from Andrew Muir on his first experi-ence of a river.

Carnegie Enquiry into poverty in SouthAfrica (Wilson and Ramphele 1989).Degrading poverty and daily humilia-tion by a racist system has bredself-hatred and criminal violence in mostblack townships.

The negative impact of violence onadolescent development is evident in thechildren with whom we interact. Theyhave come to understand social life asorganized around power relationships inwhich the powerful impose their willon the weak, who have no alternativebut to submit (Ramphele 1993). Whilemindful of the growing body of litera-ture on children in adversecircumstances (Werner and Smith 1983;

were divided into groups of eight, eachgroup being taken on a weekend trip intothe wilderness areas in the Cape Penin-sula at least three times over a period oftwo years. The South African nature con-servation laws provide for declared“wilderness areas” limit human access asa strategy for preserving their flora andfauna. In reality such areas have beenlargely inaccessible to blacks, given racialdiscriminatory laws that made even theKruger National Park, an internationaltourist attraction, a white preserve untilonly a few years ago. The Cape Penin-sula is world renowned for its beauty andhas a number of declared wildernessareas within easy reach of Cape Town.


At least three adults accompanied theadolescents on each hiking trip. TheWLS, founded by Dr. Ian Player andactive in promoting the use of the wil-derness for personal growth, arrangedall the trips. Andrew Muir, the Cape re-gional director from 1989 through 1993for the WLS and now its national direc-tor, raised sponsorship for proper hikingoutfits and provisions for the adolescents

a longitudinal study sample and will befollowed up into their adulthood. Thegoals of the longitudinal study are todocument the life trajectories of Afri-can township children with a view toidentifying the resilience factors in theirsocial environment as well as in theirindividual personalities. We also intendto examine some of the subtle or hid-den costs of resilience that do not seem

shops where further participant observa-tion and discussion occurred.

Silence Wasa New Experience“There is nothing like silence to suggesta sense of space,” Bachelard, a Frenchphilosopher, observed in his book entitledThe Poetics of Space (1969). The ability totolerate silence could be taken as thesingle most important measure of changein behavior in the group of adolescentswe studied. The level of noise during ourfirst few trails was exceedingly high, asobserved in numerous aspects.

Peer conversations were high-pitchedaffairs. The logic seemed to be that thelouder one shouts the more likely one isto succeed in putting a case across. A par-ticularly striking example was an argumentabout whether snakes had legs. It was onlyafter one of the adolescents asked the adultsthat the shouting match stopped. Therewere many other examples where argu-ments were settled by brute force—eithervocally or through the threat of physicalviolence. In such cases only factual infor-mation lowered tension levels.

But the impact of long-term exposureto high levels of noise seemed to be a con-tributing factor. People continuallyexposed to high levels of noise risk per-manent damage to their hearing, so it ispossible that sensitivity to noise diminishesover time in a high-noise-level environ-ment. (I have noticed with my own speechhow much lower the tone has becomewith exposure to lower noise levels.)

Bedside chatter during the first fewtrips, especially by the 10 to 12 year olds,nearly drove the adult leaders insane. Theexcitement of an outing, the high bloodsugar level after a hearty meal, and thenovelty of sleeping in a group contrib-uted to the problem. It was only whenwe learned to mix the age groups, andafter the adolescents adapted to the ideaof silence, that the problem abetted.

Fear of emptiness occasioned by si-lence was an interesting phenomenonto observe. During the first few trails itwas almost impossible to get the adoles-cents to walk in silence for any length of

... wilderness does offer a social leveling spacewhich permits a healing process to occur even inour fractured society.

Trailists discover the natural life in a wilderness puddle.

as well as provided logistical support forthe trips. The trips began with the chal-lenging environmental exposure. As theadolescents became more confident,exploration of more rugged environswas introduced.

The sample of adolescents was fur-ther reduced to a group of 16 chosenon the basis of the following criteria:leadership or creative qualities; particu-larly difficult family circumstances, suchas violent family relations; and at-riskfactors (such as being on the verge ofdropping out of school or joining gangs).We also had a gender balance in oursample, with eight boys and eight girls.This group of young people constitute

to have received much attention thusfar in the literature. We hope that ourstudy will enrich the debate on moresupportive social policies in the chang-ing South African political landscape.

The research methods used are multiple.The wilderness provides a milieu with asocially leveling effect that enhanced par-ticipant observation opportunities.Discussions were held with individuals toexplore various issues; each adolescent madeentries into notebooks during the week-ends to record their impressions, importantinsights, and feedback. Photographs wereused to document important moments, andthe wilderness data were complementedby home visits, visits to schools, and work-


time. “If one keeps one’s mouth shut fortoo long, it starts rotting,” ventured oneof the girls when asked why she couldnot be silent for any length of time. An-other said “Why has God given ustongues?” But others admitted that it wasa matter of habit and even in a classroomsituation they cannot bear to be silent.This is not surprising, given the noiselevels to which these children were ac-customed in order to survive in thetownship environment. Little space isaccorded them to be heard without firsthaving to scream—adults are too preoc-cupied with survival to afford the luxuryof listening to children. Over time, mostof the adolescents began to appreciate theneed to be silent and to listen to thesounds of nature around them.

We observed other measures of growthover the three years, some due to naturalmaturation, but others we think indicatethe impact of our work with them. Thefollowing areas are worth noting:

Peer Relations—Peer conflict was veryhigh initially. Most of the children knewone another from then-neighborhoods orschools. Peer harassment included humili-ating comments on one another’s physicalattributes, family circumstances, and otherhurtful words aimed at diminishing oth-ers. The level of teasing was also high.Laughter was used as a powerful weaponagainst one’s peers, something researchersstudying inner city black youth in theUnited States have also noted (Silverstein1975; Nightingale 1993). The degradationof poverty and powerlessness that childrensee around them seems to trigger both adeprecation of self and of others sharingthe humiliation. It is noteworthy thatwhen I asked them under what circum-stances they would beat their own children,all of them replied that they would do soif the child ever were to make them anobject of scorn and laughter.

During the program there was a sig-nificant change in peer relations towardmore caring and considerate interactions.This was in part due to growing friend-ships, but was also noticeable among thosenot particularly intimate. Dumo, a name

we have given to one of our focus ado-lescents, says of the experience,” We aretaught to treat others with respect so thatthey too can treat us with respect.”

Gender Relations—The tendency toreplicate the unequal gender relationsthat prevail in New Crossroads—and therest of South Africa—also declined con-siderably. In the initial stages werepeatedly had to challenge the boys toshare chores with the girls, as well as todiscourage the girls from seeing them-selves as the people to wash and cleanup. It is gratifying to see them sharingnaturally now, a change aptly capturedby one of the girls on the trails:

“We were also told when wewere working that there is nei-ther a girl nor a boy. There isnothing like, ‘A girl is supposedto wash dishes.’ Even a boy issupposed to. Even gardeningwork, girls are supposed to dogardening. We were taught aboutcleanliness, at home and in thestreets. We were told not to leavepapers in the streets, saying ‘Thisis not my home.’ When parentsare sleeping we should not makenoise if we are awake, becausethey did not make noise whenwe were sleeping. On all thetrails, I liked the way we weretaught manners.”

But such laudable statements of the idealare challenged by their lived experience.All the males in the sample, like theirpeers in the township, will have to gothrough the circumcision ritual wherethey are taught how to be real men,which requires that women must be un-ambiguously women and know theirplace in society—at the bottom—figu-ratively and otherwise. We intend tostudy how they deal with the contra-dictory approaches to gender relations.

Adult/Adolescent Relations—Rela-tionships between adults and adolescentson the trails were complex. They are

defined by the South African traditionsof race, class, and gender differentials. Agedifferences, although important, take aback seat whenever blacks and whitesinteract. On one of the first trails one ofthe children from a particularly violentfamily environment, whom we shall callBonga, wrote on a black board in ourhut:” Down with the white man!” An-drew Muir, the only “white man on thetrail, was not amused. The same childthree years later has nothing but ten-derness for Andrew, whom he nowassociates with caring, love, and respect.

Bonga could not make eye contactwith adults in 1991. Up to that time hisinteractions with adults had beenmarked by pain—repeated beatings byhis father, his teachers, and older boysin the streets. He physically shudderedon one occasion when I put my armaround him to comfort him from thepain of being laughed at by his peers forcrying from hunger. It was six o’clockin the evening and he had not had anybreakfast or lunch. The snack we hadgiven all of them earlier had only madehim hungrier—an understandable reac-tion for a twelve year old. He dived intoadditional food he was given at my re-quest. It is gratifying to see him glowwhen one embraces him now.

It is also noteworthy that the adoles-cents called me by my first name, mostunusual for African children who arebrought up to treat adults with reverence.So strong is the custom that even I havea problem breaking free from it, usingfirst names for people older than myself.Thus it was a measure of the intimacythat evolved between the adolescents andthe adults that we were on a first-namebasis. At the end of one of the trails oneof the girls made this entry into her note-book: “We very much enjoyed having ourfriends Mamphela and Andrew with usthis weekend.”

The fact that Andrew Muir did mostof the cooking also has had an impacton gender relations and on the youngpeople’s attitudes about possibilities forequitable relations between blacks andwhites. They were released from the bur-


den of chores that adults often load onthem as a consequence of poverty. Thewilderness trails offered them the spaceto be children again.

Adolescent/Environment Rela-tions—The impact of living in crowded,harsh, and neglected environs showedup in the adolescents’ relationships tothe environment.

Littering was a major problem. How-ever much Andrew explained theimportance of leaving the environmentin the state we found it, candy wrapperswould be dropped casually along theway, peels of fruit left with gay abandonafter meals or thrown into pools. It tookrepeated reminders over almost a yearto change this behavior. The adolescentsassure me now that they try to propa-gate the message in the townshipamongst their peers, but their success atthis level will depend on fundamentalchanges in levels of service provision bylocal authorities.

Attitudes toward other creatures isconditioned by one’s level of securitywithin the universe. It is difficult to seehow someone who is not treated withrespect could easily respect others, letalone creatures of species lower thanhumans. Bonga’s instinct whenever hesaw wild creatures was to kill them. “IfI had a gun I would go poof! poof!” hesaid in response to the sound of ba-boons in a nearby hill. He also found ittempting to throw stones at birds orany other creature coming his way. Healso harbored hunting fantasies nur-tured by his part-rural upbringing inthe Eastern Cape, where he lived withhis paternal grandmother until he waseight years old.

Fear of the wild is not somethingwilderness lovers focus upon. My ownchildhood memories of fear of the darkand the unknown wilderness it holdswere rekindled in 1991 on a trail in theUmfolozi Game Reserve, in Natal. IanPlayer, the leader of our hiking group,was amazed at the fear I displayed. An-drew Muir literally had to hold my handacross the darkness while with pound-

ing heart, I sat out my turn minding thecampfire, imagining the worst. I couldthus empathize with the adolescentswho balked at the idea of sleeping un-der the stars.

The presence of baboons, normallyassociated with witchcraft in adolescentculture, compounded their fear. Theywould tell stories of how so-and-so re-ported seeing a baboon being ridden bya witch in someone’s backyard.The lackof control over one’s circumstances inlife fuels fear of the wild, which is seenas the source of misfortune and danger.Our trails offered nowhere near thechallenges of facing the night alone, butit was nevertheless interesting to watchhow the adolescents huddled togetherin mutual support against the secrets ofthe darkness around them. There wasalways a scramble for the central sleep-ing spots. Yet over time, fear graduallygave way to quiet contemplation of themysteries of the night. A comment byone of the girls is revealing:

“When we were told we aregoing to sleep outside I thoughtI would not be able to sleep. Iwas terrified. But when I gotinto my sleeping bag I gotwarm like I am at home and Ifell asleep.”

It is noticeable how all the adoles-cents have become increasingly curiousabout life around them in the wilder-ness areas. Andrew Muir taught themabout the Western Cape fynbos (indig-enous plant life) with its rich variety ofspecies, the animal species we cameacross, as well as the relationship betweenplants, animals, and humans. These wereinformal lessons that seem to have lefttheir mark on the young people as evi-denced by the high levels of detailrecollection in the children’s trail reports:

“I woke up very early in themorning and I heard some birdssinging and frogs making theirnoises and I enjoyed washing inthe dam. I like being a memberof the Wilderness LeadershipSchool because here we arelearning about the wildlife [sic]and on the way we saw beauti-ful flowers such as Proteas, Eri-cas and we sat on the mountainand saw the Indian Ocean.”

Mastery and self-confidence are impor-tant elements in normal developmentof young people and their understand-ing of their place in society, andconsequently in the larger scheme ofthings within the universe. Ecologicalbalance is thus tied up with balance

Instruction in proper fording of a swollen stream.


within us as humans. Areas where ouradolescents increased their competenceincluded the facility to converse fluentlyin English (some of them specificallymentioned it as a positive outcome ofthe trail experience), swimming, andknowledge of flora and fauna.

UnresolvedContradictionsTough questions remain unanswered. Onthree occasions during our trail interac-tions the young people indicated somedifficulty in treating the wilderness as aplace to intermittently escape to. “Whycan’t you build us schools here so that wedo not have to go back to the townshipwith its noise and pain?” asked some ofthem after unsuccessfully attempting toprevent departure by running away intothe wild. Another one asked why we couldnot simply set up a permanent settlementand remain immersed in the surroundingbeauty and peace. Yet another asked whatsense there could be in having places likethe Groot Winterhoek with its vast ex-panses of open veld left “underutilized”while so many squatters struggle for a pieceof land on which to set up house. Theseare uncomfortable questions about theaffordability of “the wilderness” in a worldwhere the majority of people are merelystruggling to survive.

A comment by an adult-woman resi-dent of New Crossroads also needs tobe taken into consideration as we pon-der the paradigm of the wilderness as aplace of relaxation. “I grew up havingto walk up and down mountains on thetails of cattle. There is no way I am go-ing to spend my precious free weekendnow doing the same thing as an adult.”

Like O’Hea, my experience in thisresearch process has reminded me abouthow hard it is to contemplate when oneis reduced to survival. Survival sets one’sconsciousness at a level of basic and im-mediate human needs and so occupiesit with food, clothing, and shelter thatgives no attention to deeper levels ofreality” (O’Hea 1993).

ConclusionOur data suggest that the wildernessdoes offer a social leveling space thatpermits a healing process to occur evenin our fractured society. Social relation-ships at various levels seem to benefit:adult/child, black/white, child/child,and male/female. We hope that the lon-gitudinal study we are conducting willthrow more light on this possibility.

There are, however, cautionary notesin this apparently successful symphony.The majority of those who enjoy thewilderness experience do so out of

choice. That choice is made possible bythe process of modernity, which hasmade leisure affordable. It is thus ironicthat those of us who have benefitedfrom modernity need the continuedexistence of areas untouched and un-spoiled by that very modernity in orderto sustain our lifestyles with a measureof sanity. Is the cost of having vast areasof the globe “frozen in time” for theprimary purpose of satisfying our questfor the peace and healing we derivefrom them justified?

Ecological balance has to extend be-yond the campaigns waged byenvironmental activists. Ecological bal-ance has to be reflected in daily humanrelations. There can be no sustainable en-vironmental protection withoutsustainable development that placespeople at the center of the universewhere they truly belong. The challengefor those who revere the wilderness isto consistently act with due reverencein relation to the least powerful mem-bers of the human race.

DR. MAMPHELA RAMPHELE is vicechancellor of the University of Cape Town, andis a medical doctor, an anthropologist, and amother. She presented the preliminary findingsof her research with the Wilderness LeadershipSchool at the 5th World Wilderness Congress(Norway 1993), and in this article updates theresults of their collaborative project.

REFERENCESBachelard, G. 1969. The Poetics of Space. Boston:

Beacon Press.Cole, J. 1986. Crossroads—The Politics of Reform and

Repression 1976–1986. Johannesburg, SouthAfrica: Raven Press.

Dawes, A., and D. Donald. 1994. Child and Diver-sity—Psychological Perspectives from South AfricanResearch. Cape Town, South Africa: David Philip.

Garmezy, N. 1991. Resiliency and vulnerability toadverse developmental outcomes associated withpoverty. American Behavioral Scientist, 34: 416–430.

Nightingale, C. H. 1993. On the Edge. New York:Basic Books.

O’Hea, E. P. 1993. Hermitage, a metaphor of life.Review for Religious Christian Heritages and Con-temporary Living, 52 (4): 506.

Ramphele, M. 1993. A Bed Called Home—Life inthe Migrant Labour Hostels of Cape Towu. CapeTown, South Africa: David Philip.

Ramphele, M. 1993. Adolescence and violence inSouth Africa. Working Paper 3. Series on Inter-national Mental and Behavioral Health,

Programme in Medical Anthropology, HarvardUniversity, Cambridge, Mass.

Silverstein, K. 1975. Children of the Dark Ghetto. NewYork: Praeger Press.

Werner, E. E., and R. S. Smith. 1983. Vulnerable butInvincible—A Longitudinal Study of ResilientChildren andYouth. New York: McGraw Hill.

Wilson, E, and M. Ramphele. 1989. Uprooting Pov-erty—The South African Challenge. New York:W.W. Norton, and Cape Town, South Africa:David Philip.


Introduction

NAMIBIA IS A SPARSELY POPULATED, DESERT-DOMINATED COUNTRY on the southwestern

coast of Africa astride the tropic of Capricorn. About twicethe area of California, its population is approximately 1.6million with an estimated annual growth rate of 3%. Namibiahas set aside 39,947 square miles, or 12.6%, of its nationallands as protected areas, not including 85,863 square miles ofwilderness. Namibia’s most pressing environmental problemsare desertification, water resource management, and thedemocratization of environmental governance.

The need to involve local communities in conservationhas long been recognized in modern conservation theory(Hales 1989). It is argued that if local communities have con-trol over the use of resources and can derive a direct financialbenefit from this use, they will have an incentive to use theresources sustainably. Furthermore, where wildlife such as el-ephants and other predators cause stock and crop losses, peopleare willing to conserve these animals if the benefits from con-servation outweigh the costs (Metcalfe 1993).

Since the advent of colonial rule in Namibia, control overwildlife as a resource has been increasingly centralized by thestate. By the 1960s wildlife was owned by the state and couldbe used consumptively only by its express permission, whichalso severely limited the types of use. In 1968 the state grantedlimited rights over wildlife to commercial farmers who metcertain conditions. This has done much to halt a decline inwildlife numbers on commercial land and has spawned a bur-geoning wildlife industry (Berry 1990).

Such rights had never before been given to farmers in com-munal areas of Namibia. Possibly as a direct result of this, therewas a marked decrease in wildlife, and poaching was particularly

rife in the 1970s. The exception was in those areas wherethere has been long-standing community involvement in wild-life conservation, such as in the northern Kunene Region(Carter 1990). In a series of surveys carried out by the Ministryof Environment and Tourism (MET) it was learned that peopleon communal lands are committed to the conservation ofwildlife for cultural and aesthetic reasons, but are alienatedfrom wildlife as a resource because of more pressing consider-ations, such as poverty and the need for land for a rapidlygrowing population.

Namibia still has significant populations of wildlife onmost of its northern communal lands, and there are remnantpopulations of various species in other regions. For example,a large proportion of Namibia’s elephant population spendsat least part of the year outside protected areas. Because itwas evident that past discriminatory treatment of wildlifeon commercial and communal lands had contributed to aconsiderable reduction of wildlife on communal lands,Namibia needed to develop appropriate new policies toredress this situation. If successful, this would ensure the con-tinued survival of wildlife in communal areas and wouldprevent game reserves from becoming islands of wildlife pres-ervation and wilderness values surrounded by potentiallyhostile communal people. In line with current conservationthinking, such policies must be developed with rural com-munities as partners. They must also acknowledge thatcommunal people have the right to derive financial benefitsfrom wildlife living on communal lands, and that conserv-ing natural resources by wise and sustainable resourcemanagement is of paramount importance for the protectionof Namibia’s biodiversity—as well as for the communalfinancial benefits accrued.

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

[Editor’s Note: In most developing countries, wildlands are still utilized by local people as they have been for millennia.Increasingly rural communities are therefore recognized as important users and stakeholders \n the management andprotection of wildland, wildlife, and wilderness values. Southern Africa has been a leader in this concept and this articledescribes how community-based conservation is being approached in Namibia (southwest Africa). Further news onNamibia’s steps toward wilderness recognition and management will be in future issues of IJW.

—Vance G. Martin]

Reversing Marginalization—Private Community-Based Conservation in Namibia

BY BRIAN T. B. JONES AND ELISABETH BRAUN

Abstract: Namibia’s community-based conservation efforts attempt to integrate wildlife management, utilization, andtourism in communal areas through a conservancy model. If successful, this approach will help rural communities gaingreater self-sufficiency, increased financial benefits, and improved sustainability of wildlife and wildland resources throughpartnership with government and commercial elements. The goal is responsible natural-resource decision making thatreverses the present marginalization of rural communities and stems the loss of biodiversity and wilderness valuesoutside protected areas.


Wildlife,Conservation,and Tourismin NamibiaNamibia’s wildlife and wild country areimportant national assets with consid-erable international value. It is one ofthe cornerstones of the country’s tour-ism industry, which is currently thethird largest sector of the Namibianeconomy and the only one presentlyexperiencing strong growth. In addi-tion to growth within the moreobvious tourist industry sectors, suchas hotels and tour operators, commer-cial land owners are benefitingfinancially from wildlife managementthrough a wide range of activities. Grossrevenues to the private sector from tro-phy fees, daily guiding fees, and gamemeat sales amounted to N$19.6(U.S.$5.6) million in 1993 (Ashley andHealy 1994). Indirect earnings derivedfrom food, travel, and purchase of othergoods and services would more thandouble this figure to over U.S.$10 mil-lion. Tourism can therefore play asignificant role in Namibian rural de-velopment. This is of par ticularimportance as sustainable tourism isone of very few economic activities that

can be undertaken in remote ruralareas by local communities.

Wildlife onCommercial LandsThere is a vast discrepancy between ben-efits accrued from wildlife utilization onNamibia’s commercial farmland and oncommunal land. This is mainly a resultof South African colonial policy, whichfocused attention and resources exclu-sively on commercial farming areas. Forexample, if commercial farmers meetcertain conditions, largely related tofencing, they obtain the right to use thegame on their farms to derive an in-come. Thus farmers may capture and sellgame, sell animals to trophy and sportshunters, cull game for meat, or use theirfarms for safari-style tourism. This isdone by permit from the MET in orderto ensure that the pr inciple ofsustainability is being met.

The extension of rights of access,utilization, and benefit from wildlife tocommercial farmers in the past resultedin an increase in game on commercialfarmlands and a change in attitudeamong commercial farmers towardwildlife. Whereas in the past wildlife wasviewed as belonging to the state, as com-

peting with domestic stock for grazing,and being good only for biltong (driedmeat), farmers began to realize that gamehad a substantial commercial value. Thisrealization has resulted in more than 70%of Namibia’s wildlife being held oncommercial farms today. After manyyears of absence some game farmers,aware of the healthy financial benefitsto be derived, have even begun to rein-troduce such species as elephant,rhinoceros, and lion to commercial lands.The state has also benefited from gameutilization on commercial farmlands. In1992 the estimated revenue was aboutN$41 (U.S. $11.7) million, much ofwhich was in foreign currency.

In line with preindependence reali-ties, no attempt was made in the past toextend the rights and benefits outlinedabove to residents in communal areas. Itis commonly accepted today that thediscrimination of the past needs to beredressed, and people living on commu-nal lands must be given the same rightsas are given to commercial farmers.

WildlifeConservanciesA significant advance in wildlife utili-zation on commercial farmland has beenthe emergence of the conservancy con-cept developed by the MET. Individualfarmers have realized that it is advanta-geous to pool their land and financialresources to make available a larger uniton which integrated management prac-tices can be car r ied out. This isparticularly pertinent in Namibia’s aridenvironment, where wildlife moves overlarge areas in search of food and water.For commercial lands, the MET definesa conservancy as a group of farms onwhich neighboring landowners havepooled their resources for purposes ofconserving and utilizing wildlife on theircombined properties.Through coopera-tive management of wildlife, farmers canenhance their productivity, stabilizeyields, and increase their individual rev-enues. Not yet in existence oncommunal lands, these conservancieswould be formed by a community or

Namibia still has large herds of animals, such as elephants, living outside game parks. These ani-mals are an important national asset, yet schemes are currently being devised to allow localcommunities living alongside wildlife to receive benefits from these animals. (Photo by Chris Weaver.)


group of communities within a definedgeographical area that would jointlymanage, conserve, and utilize the wild-life and other natural resources withinthis area. While the advantages of a con-servancy are obvious to commercialfarmers, the specific advantages of acommunal conservancy for its partici-pants includes improvement of the statusand variety of wildlife on communalland, increase of game numbers, im-provement of habitat, greater return ofincome, better control of poaching, andequally important, the empowerment ofcommunal area residents in decision-making and self-sufficiency as well asimproved community cooperation andplanning for resource management.

Conservation inCommunal AreasRural Afr ican communities inprecolonial times had well-establishednatural resource and wildlife manage-ment systems based on religious beliefs,the rights of chiefs, other cultural val-ues, and ownership of resources.However, successive colonial adminis-trations throughout Africa have alienatedrural people from their environment bytaking away their rights and responsi-bilities in favor of centralizing controlover natural resources and making manytraditional practices illegal. Eurocentricviews of conservation led to the cre-ation of a network of protected areas allover the African continent. Local peoplewere rarely consulted, and their needsfor natural resources contained withinthese reserves rarely were considered. Inmost cases people were moved off landabout to be proclaimed as a wildlife pres-ervation area and were relegated to astatus of the rural dispossessed. Havinglost “ownership” of wildlife, local peoplesaw little reason to conserve the “state’sgame.” Poaching became viewed as a le-gitimate activity by rural communities,and conservation practices in commu-nal areas came to mean “lawenforcement,” usually with little or noattention being given to communityinvolvement.

Community-BasedConservationNew approaches to conservation, whichtake into account people s needs, con-sult people, involve them directly indecision making, and enable them toderive financial benefits from conserva-tion, have been developed in many partsof the world over the past few decades.

support the widely accepted (outsider)view that elephants must be protected atall cost. Councils have gained the right tosell trophy hunting concessions and havefetched up to N$30,000 (U.S. $8,575) perelephant. The government, in cooperationwith the communities, sets a realistic quota,and at least 50% of the profit goes to thecommunity, which decides itself how the

... conservancies would be formed by a community orgroup of communities within a defined geographicalarea that would jointly manage, conserve, and utilizethe wildlife and other natural resources within this area.

The introduction of community game guards in several areas of Namibia has resulted in closerliaison between communities, non-governmental organizations, and the Ministry of Environ-ment and Toursim.

Community-based approaches alsohave been successfully applied in severalareas of southern Africa. In Zimbabwe, un-der the Communal Areas ManagementProgramme for Indigenous Resourcesproject, the country’s wildlife departmenthas devolved authority over wildlife utili-zation to regional councils, enabling themto gain a direct income from conserva-tion. One of the main sources of incomefor the council is trophy hunting, with el-ephants the species bringing in the mostmoney. The sizable elephant populationsexisting in southern Africa, Zimbabwe,Zambia, South Africa, and Namibia do not

funds should be distributed (Maphosa1990). A similar project in Zambia, theAdministrative Management Design pro-gram, has resulted in a considerable declinein poaching and an increase in revenuefrom wildlife used by local people for de-velopment projects (Mwenya et al. 1990).

In Namibia, successful community-based projects have been developed in theKunene Region by local nongovernmen-tal organizations (NGOs) and the MET.In former Kaokoland, a community ofHimba and Herero people have receivedas much as N$25,000 (U.S.$7,150) over aperiod of two to three years from tourists


who use their land and resources. In north-ern Kunene Region, the cooperationgained from local people in conservingwildlife has resulted in sufficient gamebeing available for the members of thecommunities involved to cull for meat. Thekey to local cooperation has been a com-munity-game-guard system that has givencommunities a sense of responsibility forwildlife as a sustainable resource.

Although financial gain is important,the most significant element in thesethree examples is the link that has beenestablished between conservation, wild-life utilization, benefits, and ruraldevelopment. Once income is derived bylocal communities for the use of wildlife,they develop a vested interest in conserv-ing the game animals. Local communitiesare also empowered to make decisionsconcerning wildlife management and thedistribution of benefits. Communities arethus achieving greater local self-suffi-ciency and relying less on directgovernment support.

Extending Rights toCommunal AreasThe main constraint to further commu-nal development in Namibia has beenthe lack of an enabling environment that

provides an appropriate policy frameworkand legislation, giving rights over wild-life—including financial—to ruralcommunities. In order to provide suchan environment, a number of key issuesare currently being addressed. These in-clude issues related to land and resourcetenure; the determination of appropriatebeneficiaries and resource users; the es-tablishment of a direct link betweenbenefits and sustainable use; the propa-gation of community decision makingversus government regulations; allowingfor equity with commercial farmers; theestablishment of an appropriate manage-ment structure; and enabling legislation.

The Namibian Cabinet has approveda policy that allows for conservancies oncommunal land to be the vehicle for as-signing rights over wildlife to communalfarmers. If communal area residents forma conservancy that is registered by theMET, they will gain the right to trophyhunting, sport hunting, hunting for meat,live sale of game, and tourism conces-sions. They will be able to retain allincome gained from these activities, sub-ject to income tax, and will be able todecide how to use this income. It is esti-mated that some communities withsignificant wildlife and tourism resources

could earn up to N$600,000(US.$171,430) a year. Once conservan-cies have gained rights over wildlife andtourism, they will be able to decide onthe best possible use of their land. Wherecrops and livestock are of only marginalpotential, they will have the option todevelop consumptive and non-consump-tive wildlife-based enterprises.

The MET is now developing legisla-tion to put into effect the policy approvedby the cabinet. The MET and conserva-tion NGOs have been working closelywith various local communities to assistthem in forming conservancies. It is ex-pected that once legislation is passed,several communities will form conser-vancies and begin to manage theirwildlife themselves, with extension sup-port from the MET and NGOs.

BRIAN T.B. JONES IS a planning officer inNamibia’s Ministry of Environment and Tourismand coordinates the ministry’s community-basedconservation program. He is a former journalistwho has lived and worked in Namibia since 1981.

ELISABETH BRAUN is a U.S. researcher, writer,and photographer who has recently spent three yearsin Namibia as an associate of The WILD Foundation.She is the author of Portraits in Conservation: Easternand Southern Africa (Golden, Colo.: North AmericanPress, 1995) and of the forthcoming African Wisdoms(Fulcrum Publishing, 1997).

REFERENCESAshley, C, Barnes, J., and T. Healy. 1994. Profits,

equity, growth and sustainability: The potentialrole of wildlife enterprises in Caprivi and othercommunal areas of Namibia. Research Discus-sion Paper No. 2, Directorate of EnvironmentalAffairs, MET. Windhoek, Namibia.

Berry, H. 1990. Large scale commercial wildlifeutilisation: Hunting, tourism and animal pro-duction in Namibia. Proc. of the National Muse-ums of Kenya Conference on Wildlife Research forSustainable Development.

Carter, L. A. 1990. Report to the commission ofthe European commumties: The wildlife survey

of Skeleton Coast Park, Damaraland andKaokoland, North West Namibia, May/June.Windhoek, Namibia.

Hales, D. 1989. Changing concepts of NationalParks. In E. Western and M. Pearl, eds. Conser-vation for the Twenty-First Century. New York:Oxford University Press.

International Institute for Environment andDevelopment. 1994. Whose Eden? An over-view of community approaches to wildlifemanagement. London, England.

Maphosa, G. S. 1990. A presentation to the Envi-ronmental Education Association of Southern

Africa Conference: CAMPFIRE and ruraldevelopment in Bulilimamangwe, Zimbabwe.EEASA Conference, Windhoek, Namibia.

Metcalfe, S. 1993. The Zimbabwe Communal AreasManagement Programme for IndigenousResources (CAMPFIRE). Proc. of the LizClaiborne, Art Ortenberg Foundation Community-based Conservation Workshop. Airlie,Virginia.

Mwenya, A. N., et al. 1990. ADMADE policy, back-ground and future. National Parks and WildlifeServices New Administrative Management Designfor Game Management Areas. National Parks andWildlife Services. Chilanga, Zambia.


JON ROUSH RESIGNS FROM

THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY

On March 6, Jon Roush resigned his position as president ofThe Wilderness Society (TWS), leaving with pride and know-ing that the organization is in good shape and has a strongfuture. Jon came to TWS 26 months ago to help re-focus theorganization for a rapidly changing environment, rebuild thesenior management team and morale, reverse a downward trendin membership, and put the organization back on sound fi-nancial footing.

Under Jon’s leadership, these goals and more have beenachieved with a new strategic vision and plan, new senior man-agers, membership up 30,000 and rising, and a healthy budgetsurplus. During Jon’s tenure,TWS provided national leadershipon crucial wilderness issues, including the California Desert,the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Utah wilderness bill,National Forest policy, and the defense of public lands.

Leaders in TWS s governing council will initiate immedi-ately a national search for a successor. In the mterim,TWS’ssenior management team will provide leadership. Good luck,Jon, and thank you and TWS for your support of IJW.

THE WILDLANDS PROJECT

When an animal species is forced to exist as a small, isolatedpopulation, it becomes genetically weak and more vulnerableto disease, inbreeding, and possibly extinction. Members ofthe Wildlands Project hope to preserve animal species andhabitats by establishing safe corridors that link larger protectedcore areas, like a national park. These corridors would allowfor seasonal migration, dispersal of young animals to new ter-ritories, and reduction of the inbreeding threat. “We seek notonly the reflowering of North America, but to inspire similarefforts throughout the world,” says project leader, Dave Fore-man. To become locally involved, contact: The WildlandsProject, 117 East Fifth Street, Suite F, McMinnville, OR 97128,USA. (Excerpted from Taproot, a publication of the Coalitionfor Education in the Outdoors, 1996.)

NEW ELECTRONIC

CONSERVATION ECOLOGY JOURNAL

AVAILABLE ONLINE

Conservation Ecology is a new peer-reviewed journal of theEcological Society of America. Article preparation, submis-sion, review, and publication will be entirely electronic.Conservation Ecology is intended to supplement, rather thansupplant, similar existing periodicals. Papers will range fromtheoretical to applied and will focus on (1) the ecological basesfor the conservation of ecosystems, landscapes, species, popu-lations, and genetic diversity; (2) habitat restoration; and (3)resource management.

Online access and subscriptions are offered without charge.Access to the journal will be via the Worldwide Web, Gopher,and e-mail over the internet. Find the journal at http:/ /jour-nal, biology, carleton.ca/journal/overview.html.

ALDO LEOPOLD STAMP

The 50th anniversary of the death of renowned author andconservationist Aldo Leopold will be in 1998, and the 50thanniversary of his celebrated book, A Sand County Almanac, in1999. A proposal has been made to honor his memory with adedicated postage stamp. Letters of endorsement should besent to: Citizen’s Stamp Advisory Committee, c/o Stamp Man-agement, U.S. Postal Service, 475 L’Enfant Plaza, SouthwestRoom 5301, Washington, D.C. 20060-2420, USA.

ALBERTA WILDERNESS ASSOCIATION

CELEBRATES THREE VICTORIES IN A ROW*Since the beginning of 1996, the Alberta Wilderness Associa-tion of Canada has enjoyed an unprecedented three victoriesin a row. This winning streak started on the afternoon of January11, with the establishment of the 792-square-kilometer Wild-land Park in the Elbow-Sheep Wilderness.

Next came the announcement on January 17 of thecreation of the Kakwa Wildland Park in Northern Alberta onthe British Columbia (B.C.) border. Finally came the news

WILDERNESS DIGEST

Announcements andWilderness Calendar

• JON ROUSH RESIGNS FROM THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY

• THE WILDLANDS PROJECT

• NEW ELECTRONIC CONSERVATION ECOLOGY JOURNAL AVAILABLE ONLINE

• ALDO LEOPOLD STAMP

• ALBERTA WILDERNESS ASSOCIATION CELEBRATES THREE VICTORIES IN A ROW

• WILDERNESS GRAZING

• CONFERENCES


that the Alberta Energy and UtilitiesBoard had issued an interim directivethat will protect an internationally sig-nificant wetland in the Hay-Zama LakesArea of northwestern Alberta. Under-standably, the Alberta WildernessAssociation is encouraged by this“progress” and the wildlife and wilder-ness it protects.

• New Wildland Park for Alberta—Ever since the Town of Cochrane an-nounced that it was building its ownwater treatment plant on the Bow River,water quality has become a hot topic inCalgary. The Elbow River, however, alsoplays a major role in supplying water toCalgary, and protecting it is every bit asimportant as the Bow. The Alberta gov-ernment took a major step forwardtoward protecting that water supplywhen it legally established 792 squarekilometers of the Elbow-Sheep wilder-ness, located in the Rocky Mountainsof Kananaskis Country, as a wildlandpark. The wilderness lies just 40 kilo-meters southwest of Calgary. From itsmajor peaks and bowls are born severalkey streams. Its tranquil scenery is thehome for bighorn sheep, mountain goat,elk, and occasionally wolves.

• Kakwa Wildland Park Becomes aReality—Lucky are those few who haveexperienced the rare beauty of theKakwa. Forming the northern stretchof the Rockies and bordering B.C., theKakwa ranges from lofty mountainpeaks to rounded, forested hills. A pla-teau known as Caw Ridge is celebratedfor its abundance of wildlife. It is prin-cipal habitat for black and grizzly bears,wolverine, wolf, bighorn sheep, the en-dangered mountain car ibou, andAlberta’s largest population of moun-tain goats.

The campaign to protect the Kakwawas launched in 1971 by the WildKakwa Society based out of Grande

Prairie. The work of the Wild KakwaSociety began to pay off on January 17,when the Lieutenant Governor ofAlberta signed into being the KakwaWildlife Provincial Park. The park blan-kets 649.3 square kilometers of the1,467-square-kilometer Wild KakwaWilderness on the Alberta side of theB.C. border.

The park’s founding brings into le-gal reality the 1987 announcement ofthe Kakwa Wildland Recreation Area bythe former environment minister DonSparrow and an Alberta governmentthrone speech in 1975 that promised aprovincial park. Its significance, however,seems to be that it heralds a huge leapforward by the Alberta government inthe arena of wilderness protection.

• The Protection of the Hay-Zama—In late January the AlbertaEnergy and Utilities Board issued aninterim directive that will guide futureoil and gas activities in the Hay-ZamaLakes region of Northwestern Alberta.The Hay-Zama lakes area is a varied areacovering thousands of square kilome-ters of marshes, open water, willowswamps, floodplain woodlands, and wetmeadows.

Although oil and gas exploration hasbeen allowed in the lakes, the Hay-ZamaCommittee was established more thanten years ago to address concerns overexploration in the area.

The directive outlines an orderly andfair cessation of practices in the area withthe highest risk. The efforts of the Hay-Zama Committee will protect thespectacularly diverse cultural and biologi-cal values of the Hay-Zama Complex,while initiating the retreat of explorationfrom the area. The directive that the com-mittee recently issued is the collaborativework of government, industry, the AlbertaEnergy and Utilities Board, and the con-servation community.

* Announcement by Bruce Ramsay.

WILDERNESS GRAZING

In a precedent-setting decision in Feb-ruary, U.S. Forest Service Chief Jack WardThomas’s office ruled that congressionalgrazing guidelines for wilderness don’tallow construction of “a substantial num-ber of new improvements” in awilderness. This overturned a 1995 GilaNational Forest decision authorizing 15earthen impoundments for Diamond Barrancher Kit Laney in the Gila and AldoLeopold wilderness areas.

Although the proposed water holeswere meant to move cows uphill fromdegraded rivers and streams on the 227-square-mile grazing allotment,environmentalists contended the tankswould degrade upland areas by causingmore cattle pressure on them.

This decision makes it harder to buildlarge watering tank developments in wil-derness, and easier for U.S. Forest Serviceofficials to reduce cattle numbers whenthe land is in bad shape. Gila NationalForest Supervisor Abel Camarena wasgiven 180 days to rewrite his 1995 deci-sion. (Excerpted from High Country News.)

CONFERENCES

Wolves of America: A conference onwolf biology, recovery, management, andactivism. November 14–16, Albany, NY,USA. Sponsored by Defenders of Wild-life. Telephone: (202) 789-2844, ext. 334.

Association for Experiential Education,International Conference, September26–29, 1996, Spokane, WA, USA. Tele-phone: (303) 440-8844.

Institute on Americans Outdoor Confer-ence, November 8–10, 1996. Telephone:(317) 349-5100.

North America Association for Environ-mental Education, November 1–5, 1996.Telephone: (513) 676-2514.

National Society for Experiential Edu-cation, October 23–26, 1996. Telephone:(919) 787-3263.


Wild Ideas is an attractive little book. Its appearance makesyou want to read it. Its size is not overwhelming, it has ad-equate margins for inveterate notemakers, and its chapter titlesare irresistible—”The Princess of the Stars: Music for a Wil-derness Lake,” “The Idea of North: An Iceberg History,”“Healing by the Wilderness Experience,” and ten others.

Most of the 13 authors in this collection of essays werepresenters at the 5th World Wilderness Congress in Norway.There, according to the foreword by Vance Martin (IJW ex-ecutive editor), philosophy was placed on equal footing withscience, management, economics, and education. Few wouldargue with the wisdom of such a holistic approach to exam-ining wilderness, especially if the future of Earth’s wild placesare to benefit from discussions across disciplines, cultures, andespecially from theorists communicating with policy makers.But whether this book contributes to that discussion is ques-tionable. Jargon coupled with an expectation that the readershares the writer’s intellectual background do not contributeto widening the insights of philosophy. There are exceptions.Some of the authors, such as Marvin Henberg in “PanculturalWilderness,” attempt to communicate with the wider audi-ence not schooled in philosophy. He takes the time to explainwhat is meant by “the body of deconstructive literary theory”so we can understand how it fits into an explanation of whysharing the meaning of” wild” across languages is difficult.

Some other authors are less charitable. Unfortunately, toooften at the end of a page or chapter, the reaction has to be—what did the author say? What does this mean? How can thispossibly have application to solving the problems that facewilderness? By and large, the book was written by philoso-phers for philosophers.

David Rothenberg, editor of this compendium, tries tohelp. His introduction provides an absolutely essential guideto the contents. Overall, Rothenberg explains, the essays areintended to challenge our notions of wilderness and wild placesthat have been central to the development of conservationand environmentalism. They are intended to bring out deepermeanings of wilderness, as opposed to assuming they are sim-ply places within designated boundaries. The first section doesthis by arguing over the concept of wilderness and problems,including how best to spread the concept worldwide. Sectiontwo bears in on the challenges of translating the idea of wil-derness across oceans and cultures. Section three, perhaps even

more challenging (to readers, atleast) is “The Art of the Wild”—different ways of perceiving, writingabout, and celebrating the extremesof the natural world. The final sec-tion attempts to point out wherethe idea of wilderness must go tosurvive into the next century.

There are rays of brilliance hiddenin this book, and they break throughlike flashes of sun in dissipating fog.Rothenberg’s epilogue, “ParadoxWild,” is one of them. And perhaps ina sentence he summarizes the book:“Wild is a power word, a beguiling force, both a romantic andclassical concept. It will elude explanation, and we continue tofight to explain it, and to evoke it.” There is even one chapter, “Beautyand the Beasts: Predators in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains” byTom Wolf, that is both easy to read and instructive.

Certainly there is much to be gained from the intellectualexercise of wrestling with terms such as “contemporary epis-temological relativism.” Similarly, for those of us who tend toread mostly on topics of science or management, there is muchto be learned from those who dwell with equal enthusiasmon the arts. If only we could reach out to each other withgreater clarity than is found in much of Wild Ideas.

But you be the judge. Here is a test, a prototypical passage,if there can be such a thing, from a book with 13 authors. It istaken from “Silent Wolves: The Howl of the Implicit” by IreneKlaver. The editor calls it “phenomenology in action”:

Silent is the stream’s roaring path through the forest,not because there is no sound but because the water’sspeaking is immediate, unmediated, without represen-tation. The river does not name. Silence is not-nam-ing, it is letting things appear without interpreting,translating, or casting in static forms; silence affords aplace for many sounds. Indiscriminately the river takesup what comes along and has its say by washing away.

If the foregoing sample from Wild Ideas excites your intel-lect, this book is for you. If it does not, you will find Wild Ideaswildly frustrating.

WILDERNESS DIGEST

Book ReviewsBY JAMES R. FAZIO, BOOK REVIEW EDITOR

Wild Ideas edited by David Rothenberg. 1995. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis and London.225 pp., $19.95 (paperback).


Citizen organizations such as the Na-tional Parks and ConservationAssociation (NPCA, see National ParksAssociation) play vital roles in theAmerican political system. This thor-ough and detailed book reveals how thegroup helps to ensure that the nationalparks meet their highest purposes, some-times to the discomfiture of the U.S.Department of Interior National ParkService (NPS) director.

John Miles has done a great serviceto history and to the present genera-tion. He carefully combed, studied, anddocumented the fascinating evolutionof the NPCA, which started in 1919 asan elite group and grew (recently) intoa very large organization. Professor Milesplumbed the archives of the NPCA andsomehow pulled a sensible story fromthem. He extracted both color and sub-stance from minutes of meetings,correspondence, National Parks magazinearticles, and scholarly writings.

The story has two major strands.Thefirst tells of key NPCA “star” executives suchas Robert SterlingYard,Devereux Butcher,Anthony Wayne Smith, and Paul Pritchard,along with directors such as WilliamP.Wharton and Sigurd Olson. The support-ing cast includes directors Herbert Hoover,G. B. Grinnell, John Merriam, LawrenceMerriam, Clarence Cottam, Fred Packard,and Destry Jarvis. Many of them appear ina rich collection of photographs.

The second strand revolves aroundrecurring issues and themes. Readerslearn about NPCA’s concerns with:

• education and interpretation in thenational park system;

• water fights in places such as Glacier,Grand Canyon, Big Bend,Everglades, and Dinosaur (the bestaccount I’ve read);

• wariness toward Mission 66, GrandTeton, and Kings Canyon;

• and maintaining “standards” in parks,despite little success in defining themclearly.

The book also reveals how fragile arethe threads that hold together such an or-ganization, yet how persistent are the issuesand needs. National Park policy didn’t justevolve out of Congress or the NPS. Thevital input of the NPCA through the de-cades is finally written down concisely.When the NPS wouldn’t produce a com-prehensive park system plan, the NPCAstaff did it for them. When the NPS neededto improve interpretation, the NPCApushed vigorously and did much of thework itself for some time.

From chapter to chapter, the bookprogresses chronologically from 1919 to1993. It ceases mention of the NPS de-velopments in 1988, ignoring manypositive results since then. Within eachchapter, however, the text meandersamong dates and topics, sometimes dis-tracting sequential readers. This readerneeded (1) a simple time-line graphicshowing dates of key personnel andpolicy changes and (2) tables summa-rizing membership (never over 50,000until 1989) and budget, now irretriev-ably sprinkled through the text.

Several puzzles remained unmen-tioned: Why hasn’t NPCA pushedwilderness designation of Yellowstoneand Grand Canyon? What position didNPCA take on urban parks? How doesthe board justify its historic insistenceon high park standards and significancewith its recent “all parks at any cost”stance? Why is there no mention of in-terpretation in the index despite theNPCA’s own Freeman Tilden Award tothe top NPS interpreters.

Dr. Miles has written a balanced andsensible book. He warns against over-emphasizing tensions and differences.He presents people with their strengthsand weaknesses. Except for a subtlepartisan political bias, the evenhandedanalysis of issues and careful documen-tation gives this book considerableweight and value.

Guardians of the Parks makes evidentthat NPCA’s work will not go away. Thejetport near the Everglades has gone, butthe U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ wa-ter schemes and population sprawlcontinue to threaten the “River ofGrass.” The “wise” use movement provesthat commercial interests of old still tryto gnaw at the parks and monumentsafter all these decades. The NPCA—“conscience of the National ParkService”—cannot rest.

*Reviewed by Douglas M. Knudson,

Professor of Forestry, Purdue University.

Guardians of the Parks—A History of the National Parks and Conservation Association by John C. Miles.1995. Taylor & Francis, with National Parks and Conservation Association, Washington, D.C. 363 pp., $29.95(hardcover)


Troubled Waters: The Fight for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness by Kevin Proescholdt, RipRapson, and Miron L. Heinselman. 1995. North Star Press, St. Cloud, Minnesota. 332 pp., $19.95(paperback)

battle has been to see thisunique water wilderness passedunimpaired to future genera-tions. Don Fraser will not beback in the 96th Congress, buthis legacy for future generationswill endure.

Mondale, as this book shows, undercutFraser. So did Representative JamesOberstar, the congressman of the northcountry, who delivered a mean-spiritedspeech on the floor of the House equat-ing Fraser s defeat with a referendumon the BWCA.

I believe these data are of primeimportance in the unending struggle toprotect the BWCA and, beyond it, thesurviving shreds of wildness whereverthey may be. Even now, RepresentativeOberstar, a Democrat, and Senator RodGrams, a Republican, are pressing legis-lation to open the million-acre BWCAwilderness to motor-boats, trucks, andjeeps, and to create a locally dominatedcitizens council for the BWCA (and an-other for nearby Voyageurs National Park)to dictate how these internationally sig-nificant treasures should be managed.

That is the legacy they choose toleave, but the overriding lesson ofTroubled Waters is that citizens who en-joy wilderness need to care about it too,with principle and vigilance strongenough to get the message across topoliticians so they understand andrespond to it in-kind.

*Reviewed by Michael Frome,

conservation author and journalist.

For the thousands of people who eachyear enjoy the presumably untroubledwaters of the greatest canoe country onearth, Troubled Waters ought to be re-quired reading. I mean that the manywho benefit ought to know and appre-ciate the struggles and sacrifice of ahandful of heroes on their behalf. Andfor the serious student of wildernesspolicy—of what it takes to make it hap-pen anywhere, everywhere—thispolitical history is an absolute must.

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area(BWCA), covering a substantial portionof Superior National Forest in north-ern Minnesota USA, just below QueticoProvincial Park in Ontario, Canada, hasbeen the field of one battle after anotherdown through the years. The principalfocus of this work, however, is themonumental campaign in the 1970s tobring the area into the National Wil-derness Preservation System, free ofintrusive logging, mining, motor boat-ing, and snowmobiling. The threeauthors all were intimately involved,which accounts for the detailed blow-by-blow account of events within theregion and in Washington, D.C. In a fewspots there may seem more insider in-formation than the reader really needs,but it’s all history and it hangs together.

Hubert Humphrey and Walter F.Mondale, both influential U.S. senatorsfrom Minnesota, and both former vicepresidents of the United States, are keyfigures in the book but definitely notthe heroes. They come across as com-promisers, dealing with a great resourceas petty politicians, not as statesmen.

When, for instance, an official of Presi-dent Carter’s administration earnestlyapproached Mondale at a social func-tion for any advice he might offer aboutthe BWCA, the vice president shruggedand said, “Some of my friends are for it,some of my friends are against it, andI’m with my friends.” Then Mondaleturned and walked off.

More the heroes are Sigurd Olson,the celebrated author and conservation-ist who was ridiculed and ostracized byredneck neighbors at Ely, in the northcountry but never wavered from thewilderness cause; Miron (Bud)Heinselman, the forest ecologist whoretired early from the U.S. Forest Ser-vice to devote his energy to saving theBWCA through the Friends of theBoundary Waters Wilderness; and PhilipBurton, the California congressionalleader who ingeniously maneuvered thewilderness legislation to passage.

But my favorite hero is Don Fraser,the congressman from Minneapolis,whose pr incipled devotion to theboundary waters cost him a Senate seatwhen the anti-wilderness faction in thenorth stirred up enough votes to defeathim in the Democratic primary. As Bur-ton declared on the House floor:

Don Fraser stood for the fullprotection he knew the re-source deserves, and he hasnever strayed from that com-mitment despite personal at-tacks and terrible damage to hisown political career. His onemission throughout this entire


Dear Dr. Hendee:

Thank you very much for the copies of the inaugural issue ofthe International Journal of Wilderness. It is a very beautiful maga-zine, and interesting too for those, such as me and my friends,who are thirsty for philosophy, conservation, and managementnews about the wilderness idea in a world dimension. I amvery proud of our collaboration with the journal. We are hon-ored for the inclusion of Italy in your first editorial and forthe recognition of our work. Thank you very much!

Here are two copies of the last issue of our magazine, dedi-cated to the Italian (and Alps Mountains) very first “WildernessArea” established by local authorities.

Yours sincerely,Franco ZuninoWilderness Associazione ItalianaCPn.6167050 Villavallelonga, Italy

Dear Dr. Hendee:

Max Oelschlaeger took a courageous stand against sustainabledevelopment (“Development and Overpopulation ThreatenWilderness,” IJW 1, [2]). It is very tempting to look for the oneperfect solution to population and economic problems. If it’s notexamined closely, sustainable development sounds like a panacea.

As Oelschlaeger points out, continued “development” inthe common usage of the word is not sustainable, even if donewith the utmost care, with all of the “soft” technology wehave at our disposal today.

What, then, is to be done? To abandon environmentally sen-sitive development, where development takes place, would notbe wise; we must do what we can to soften the blow.To imme-diately stop all development of any kind is, unfortunately, notpolitically or physically possible. The real issue, overpopulation,must be brought to the forefront of the debate. The bloatedhuman population is the real culprit and we must recognizethat until the human population is vastly reduced—no matterwhat we do to mitigate destructive development—wildernessis going to continue to disappear and we are going to lose notonly our wildlands, but that part of ourselves and our culturethat desperately needs wilderness.

Sincerely,Brian SudermanGustavus, Alaska USA

Dear Dr. Hendee:

Don Duff ’s article, “Fish Stocking in U.S. Federal WildernessAreas—Challenges and Opportunities” (IJW 1, [1]) raised im-portant issues. Early residents of North America might be indictedfor planting fish indiscriminately as they moved westward, butmany of their stocks we brand as exotics today were well knownto these immigrants. They imported them to improve the re-source and make it similar to that left behind in Europe. In thelate 19th century the US. government sponsored fish culture andmoved native and introduced fishes throughout North America.For a time in the 1880s, “carp ponds” were maintained in Wash-ington, D.C., from which carp were shipped across the countryon order. Spencer F Baird (first US. Fish Commissioner) chargedLivingston Stone to raise salmonids and distribute them widelyacross the United States. Their actions were right for their time inunderstanding natural systems.

Today, a different script is evolving in management for fishes,natural systems, and forests and wilderness areas, with the ideas ofbiodiversity and the ecosystem approach frequently mentioned. Iam convinced that the foundation of fisheries management issolidly rooted in how systems function, and it is demonstrated bythe success of management for fishes. I am equally convincedthat most modern fish management in wilderness is not indis-criminate. Rather, it is conceived with care, accounting for stocksof native fishes, naturalized introduced stocks, natural recruitment,maintenance of fishless waters, and by opportunities to reintro-duce native fishes. This is Wyoming’s approach, and it is notuncommon in wilderness fish management generally.

Before the 1994 workshop on Wild and Planted Trout, 45issues were identified through a survey of experts and angler groupsand were rated in importance by 80 participants. Of the top elevenpriority issues, two concerned fisheries in wilderness.

All fisheries agencies must agree on common ground for re-source management. At the final fisheries stewardship roll call,fisheries managers (state, federal, and private) will be judged ac-cording to how well they cared for the resource. Yes, stocking fishin wilderness has impacted natural systems. Stocking has yieldedvery positive results on balance with the negatives inferred in thearticle. Fisheries managers are addressing the challenges andopportunities of fish stocking and management in wilderness.

Sincerely,Robert W. WileyFisheries Management CoordinatorWyoming Game and Fish DepartmentCheyenne, WY, 82006 USATelephone: (307) 777-4559

WILDERNESS DIGEST

Letters to the Editor

Documents

International Journal of Wilderness, Vol 2 no 2, August 1996