international journal of wilderness, vol 08 no 2, august 2002

FEATURESEDITORIAL PERSPECTIVEWildernessIt’s Got SoulBY VANCE G. MARTIN

SOUL OF THE WILDERNESSStrengthening Wilderness in South AfricaStrategy and Programs of theWilderness Foundation S.A.BY ANDREW MUIR

STEWARDSHIPTrappers Lake and Arthur CarhartRocking the Cradle of WildernessBY JAMES E. McCOBB

Wilderness in AlaskaIs it Exceptional?BY GREGORY BROWN

SCIENCE and RESEARCHPERSPECTIVES FROM THE ALDO LEOPOLDWILDERNESS RESEARCH INSTITUTEUnderstanding Wilderness Visitor ExperiencesBY BRIAN GLASPELL

Comparing the Effectiveness of Interpretiveand Sanction Messages for InfluencingWilderness Visitors’ Intended BehaviorBY GARRETT S. DUNCAN and STEVE R. MARTIN

EDUCATION and COMMUNICATIONInternational Wilderness-Related WebsitesCurrent Status and Suggested DirectionBY CHARLES BESANCON and WAYNE FREIMUND

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

Journal of WildernessAUGUST 2002 VOLUME 8, NUMBER 2

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The front COVER PHOTO shows the tangled lianas and maquenque palmsfrom the lowland tropical rainforest of Cana in Darien National Park,Panama. PHOTO INSET of a green macaw, from the same national park.Both photos © 2001 courtesy of Alan Watson/Forest Light.

Evaluating Student Satisfaction inWilderness Education CoursesAn example from theNational Outdoor Leadership SchoolBY CHRISTOPHER MONZ

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVEFinding the Voice of Japanese WildernessBY AYA HAYASHI

New Technology and the Futureof the Wilderness ExperienceBY NICK SAWYER

WILDERNESS DIGESTAnnouncements and Wilderness Calendar

Letters to the Editor

Book ReviewsEdward Abbey: A Life

By James M. CalahanREVIEW BY JOHN SHULTIS

The Porcupine Wilderness JournalsEditors: Christopher Julian-Fralish,Stacey Julian-Fralish, and James Julian-FralishREVIEW BY JOHN SHULTIS

Ecological Integrity: IntegratingEnvironment, Conservation, and Health

Editors: David Pimentel, Laura Westra,and Reed NossREVIEW BY JOHN SHULTIS

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2 International Journal of Wilderness AUGUST 2002 • VOLUME 8, NUMBER 2

EDITORIAL BOARDAlan W. Ewert, Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind., USA

Vance G. Martin, WILD Foundation, Ojai, Calif., USAAlan Watson, Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, Missoula, Mont., USA

John Shultis, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, B.C., CanadaSteve Hollenhorst, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho, USA

Wayne A. Freimund, University of Montana, Missoula, Mont., USARebecca Oreskes, White Mountain National Forest, Gorham, N.H., USA

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFJohn C. Hendee, Professor Emeritus, University of Idaho Wilderness Research Center, Moscow, Idaho, USA

MANAGING EDITORChad P. Dawson, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, N.Y., USA

ASSOCIATE EDITORS—INTERNATIONALGordon Cessford, Department of Conservation, Wellington, New Zealand; Karen Fox, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; Andrew Muir,Wilderness Foundation Eastern Cape, South Africa; Ian Player, South Africa National Parks Board and The Wilderness Foundation, Howick, Natal, Republic ofSouth Africa; Vicki A. M. Sahanatien, Fundy National Park, Alma, Canada; Won Sop Shin, Chungbuk National University, Chungbuk, Korea; Anna-LiisaSippola, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland; Franco Zunino, Associazione Italiana per la Wilderness, Murialdo, Italy.

ASSOCIATE EDITORS—UNITED STATESGreg Aplet, The Wilderness Society, Denver, Colo.; David Cole, Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, Missoula, Mont.; John Daigle, University ofMaine, Orono, Maine; Don Fisher, USFS, Washington D.C.; Lewis Glenn, Outward Bound USA, Garrison, N.Y.; Glenn Haas, Colorado State University, FortCollins, Colo.; Troy Hall, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho; William Hammit, Clemson University, Clemson, S.C.; Greg Hansen, U.S. Forest Service, Mesa,Ariz.; Dave Harmon, Bureau of Land Management, Portland, Oreg.; Bill Hendricks, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Calif.; EdKrumpe, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho; Jim Mahoney, Bureau of Land Management, Sierra Vista, Ariz.; Bob Manning, University of Vermont, Burlington,Vt.; Jeffrey Marion, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, Va.; Leo McAvoy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn.; Michael McCloskey, SierraClub; Christopher Monz, Sterling College, Craftsbury Common, Vt.; Bob Muth, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Mass.; Connie Myers, Arthur CarhartWilderness Training Center, Missoula, Mont.; Roderick Nash, University of California, Santa Barbara, Calif.; David Ostergren, Northern Arizona University,Flagstaff, Ariz.; Marilyn Riley, Wilderness Transitions Inc., Sausalito, Calif.; Joe Roggenbuck, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, Va.; Holmes Rolston III,Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, Colo.; Susan Sater, U.S. Forest Service, Portland, Oreg.; Tod Schimelpfenig, National Outdoor Leadership School,Lander, Wyo.; Rudy Schuster, SUNY-ESF, Syracuse, N.Y.; Elizabeth Thorndike, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.; Jay Watson, The Wilderness Society, SanFrancisco, Calif.; Dave White, Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz.

International Journal of Wilderness

International Journal of Wilderness (IJW) publishes three issues per year(April, August, and December). IJW is a not-for-profit publication.

Manuscripts to: Chad P. Dawson, SUNY-ESF, 211 Marshall Hall, OneForestry Drive, Syracuse, N.Y. 13210-2787, USA. Telephone: (315)470-6567. Fax: (315) 470-6956. E-mail: [email protected].

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All materials printed in the International Journal of Wilderness, copyright© 2002 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,and allocation strategies; wilderness education, including descriptionsof key programs using wilderness for personal growth, therapy, andenvironmental education; wilderness-related science and research fromall disciplines addressing physical, biological, and social aspects ofwilderness; and international perspectives describing wildernessworldwide. Articles, commentaries, letters to the editor, photos, bookreviews, announcements, and information for the wilderness digest areencouraged. A complete list of manuscript submission guidelines isavailable 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.

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Printed on recycled paper.

SPONSORING ORGANIZATIONS• Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute • Indiana University, Department of Recreation and Park Administration • NationalOutdoor Leadership School (NOLS) • Outward Bound™ • SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry • The WILD®

Foundation • The Wilderness Society • University of Idaho Wilderness Research Center • University of Montana, School of Forestryand Wilderness Institute • USDA Forest Service • USDI Bureau of Land Management • USDI Fish and Wildlife Service • USDINational Park Service • Wilderness Foundation (South Africa) • Wilderness Inquiry • Wilderness Leadership School (South Africa)

The International Journal of Wilderness links wilderness professionals, scientists, educators, environmentalists, and interestedcitizens 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.

International Journal of Wilderness AUGUST 2002 • VOLUME 8, NUMBER 2 3

WildernessIt’s Got Soul

BY VANCE G. MARTIN

presented—the “soul” ofthe work—but not to re-place rigor, if science andresearch is the underlyingmethod. Soul is motiva-tion and effect—notmethod.

Many of the articles inthis issue are about the ex-perience of wilderness,which can be a soulful ex-perience, as just noted. Wecover a wide range—Arthur Carhart; Wilder-ness Visitor Behavior;National Outdoor Leader-ship School; Alaskan wilderness; and even web-basedwilderness surfing. Also, don’t miss our first article fromJapan—Finding the Voice of Japanese Wilderness.

Finally, in the tough debate and controversy surround-ing wilderness policy, management, research, and advocacyissues, which may find even our wilderness soul brothersand sisters at odds, let’s keep two truths close to mind andheart. Remember that the ecological services wildernessprovides go to everyone on the planet, regardless of poli-tics, race, religion or environmental disposition. And re-member the awesome power of wilderness to touch people,transform their perspective, and inspire understanding ofhow the world can and should work. Remember thatwilderness has soul.

VANCE MARTIN is the executive editor (International) for the IJW,and, as president of The WILD Foundation, is involved in wildernessconservation efforts worldwide. E-mail: [email protected].

FEATURES

E D I T O R I A L P E R S P E C T I V E S

Wilderness raises many questions, a lot of ire,and fuels great debate. For example, the uproar in Congress over proposed oil drilling in

the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (defeated in the Senateby a 54–46 vote) illustrated the divisive views over wilder-ness protection.

However, most of these Congressmen and women haveexperienced the grandeur and mystery of wilderness or wildcountry and might use the word soul in describing the ef-fect on them: “It was a soulful experience,” “It touched mysoul,” and so on.

Each of us has no doubt had many such experiences,and these experiences no doubt shaped our decisions towork for the protection of wilderness areas and wildlandvalues. Something deep inside influenced us. We made asoul decision!

The IJW places value on soul. That’s why we lead eachissue with a “Soul of the Wilderness” column, inviting awilderness leader to share more than just his or her logic,but to go deeper into individual feelings and experiences,the wilderness issues he or she feels are most important,what he or she thinks needs to be done, and what he or sheis doing. In this issue, the soul column is by one of ourwilderness soul brothers from another continent, AndrewMuir. As executive director of The Wilderness Foundation-South Africa (an IJW Sponsor), Andrew has a clear visionfor the importance of an African view of wilderness to hisregion, the value of wilderness experiences for underservedcommunities in Southern Africa, what needs to be done,and a strategy and programs that his organization and itsaffiliates are implementing.

But soul is not just restricted to the IJW article in the“soul” column. We welcome soul in other articles too, totap experiences, feelings, and values behind the information

Vance Martin, IJW’s Executive Editor (International)and President of the WILD Foundation at theConundrum Trailhead, Snowmass-Maroon BellsWilderness, Colorado.


Over the past two decades wilderness as a protected-area category has continued to gain visibility andmomentum worldwide. Encouraging this progress

has been the influence of global nongovernment organiza-tions such as The WILD Foundation, Conservation Inter-national, recently the Sierra Club foundation, andinternational organizations like The World ConservationUnion (IUCN). The future of wilderness—like that of sus-tainable development—is critically dependent on the ef-forts of all such organizations, and the building of broad

coalitions of partners among them. Only together can wesuccessfully address issues such as how to integrate theneeds for development with conservation of the environ-ment, and to bring into full play the value of wildernessas benchmark and control areas for judging the effects ofhuman development on natural systems.

South Africa (SA) has been a leader in wilderness con-servation on the African continent and is earning respectamong developing nations with wilderness. This is in largepart due to our wilderness pioneers such as Dr. Ian Player(Player 1995, 1998, Martin 2001), Bill Bainbridge (2001a,2001b), and others. South Africa is the only African coun-try to make provision for the protected area category “Wil-derness Area” (WA) in its legislation. The first areas wereprotected in the present-day KwaZulu region of Natal Prov-ince, being the Umfolozi and St. Lucia wilderness areasestablished by administrative means nearly fifty years ago(Player 1998). Then countrywide provision was made inthe Forest Act to set aside national wilderness areas in theearly 1970s. The first areas set aside as wilderness underthe Forest Act were the Drakensberg and the CedarbergWilderness Areas in 1973.

South Africa is proud of these wilderness accomplish-ments, coming some twenty years before the IUCN Com-mission on National Parks and Protected Areas includedwilderness as one of the international protected area catego-ries in 1994 (Bainbridge 2001a and b). Related to these wil-derness accomplishments has been South Africa’s hosting ofthe first and seventh World Wilderness Congresses in 1977and 2001, respectively (Player 1978; Martin and Muir 2002).

S O U L O F T H E W I L D E R N E S S

FEATURES

Strengthening Wildernessin South AfricaStrategy and Programs of

the Wilderness Foundation S.A.

BY ANDREW MUIR

Andrew Muir, (left) executive director of the Wilderness Foundation, SA, and Vance Martin,president of the WILD Foundation, USA, co-leaders of the 7th World Wilderness Congress. TheWilderness Foundation and WILD are frequent partners in African wilderness initiatives.


Greater Equality inWilderness AppreciationAlthough South Africa has led the wayin Africa in terms of wilderness conser-vation, a great sadness is that far morewestern tourists have been stirred bythese wilderness areas and related wildlands than have local black South Afri-cans. The reason for this is that underthe previous white nationalist (apart-heid) government, black people wereexcluded and denied access to publicnature reserves, picnic areas, and hik-ing trails. For many black people ourprotected areas and reserves are not onlyreminders of discrimination but, insome quarters, hated symbols of pain-ful forced relocations.

Even today, after nearly eight yearsunder the new South African govern-ment, experiences in nature reserves arebeyond the economic reach of mostSouth Africans. Alarmingly, a SouthAfrican National Park report confirmsthat only 4% of the country’s blackpopulation has experienced protectedareas. Because the development of en-vironmental awareness and appreciationfor wilderness and nature is largely de-pendent on personal exposure, it is nowonder that wilderness and nature pro-tection lack the broad public supportwe would like to have. It is imperativefor the future protection and well-be-ing of wilderness and wild lands that abroader spectrum of our citizens, youngpeople, and leaders who shape our so-ciety are somehow exposed to these ar-eas and their importance.

The IUCN, the World ConservationUnion, recognizes that all protected area-categories, including WA, have a num-ber of common functions globally. Thesefunctions include scientific research; pro-tection of species and genetic diversity(biodiversity conservation); protection ofspecific natural or cultural features; tour-ism and/or recreation; education; sustain-

able use of resources from natural eco-systems (e.g., water supplies from moun-tain catchments); maintenance ofcultural/traditional values; and spiritualvalues. Each country, particularly in thedeveloping world, needs to define its ownsystem of values derived from its ownwilderness areas. For example, in SouthAfrica we have too often depended onU.S. literature and debate in this regardand, as a result, are often accused of sup-porting a North American andeurocentric approach to wilderness andwild land conservation.

Emphasizing AfricanWilderness ValuesAlthough not advocating reinventing thewheel, I believe that for the wildernessconcept to take root in Africa it is impor-tant that Africans help define and createthe unique values and benefits these ar-eas can have for the continent. Wilder-ness with unique African values will addstrength to the global wilderness move-ment. Though all of these functions ofwilderness are of critical importance forSouth Africa, four of these benefits areexpanded on here to illustrate how we

can derive added value from wildernessareas in South Africa.1. A Focus on cultural and traditional

values of wilderness. As the birth-place of mankind South Africa andAfrica have a rich cultural and hu-man history, with much evidenceof this found in wilderness andrelated wild lands. Wilderness andwild lands give people the oppor-tunity to visit cultural sites (suchas bushman paintings and caves)in natural settings and allow thesesites to remain intact. Some ofthese sites are also sacred to localtribes. Tribespeople often have spe-cial and traditional relationshipswith these wild places and, if en-listed sensitively by managers, can

Figure 2—The Baviaanskloof Wilderness is the major water catchment area for the Eastern Cape in South Africa.Photo by Vance G. Martin.

Figure 1—Baviaanskloof Wilderness Area has been a story ofcooperation between private and public organizations, and localcommunity and government. Photo by Vance G. Martin.


add immeasurably to their inter-pretation and conservation.

2. Conservation of ecological services.South Africa is a water-scarce coun-try. Protection of high altitudecatchments, the headwaters of all theprincipal rivers of the country, is prob-ably one of the most important of theecological services provided by the SAwilderness system. For example, theBaviaanskloof Wilderness Complex inthe Eastern Cape provides 90% of thedrinking water for the NelsonMandela Metro Area (the vicinity ofPort Elizabeth), SA’s fourth largestpopulation center.

3. Spiritual and healingvalues. Wilderness is theonly protected-area cat-egory that specifically pro-motes and requires anexperience of nature on itsown terms, without inter-vening technology, andemphasizing a basic enjoy-ment of freedom, solitude,and spiritual, aesthetic,and mystical dimensionsof the natural environ-ment. It also provides op-portunities for people to

relate to their historic past, and fortherapy and healing purposes. Forexample, specific programs in SAprovide wilderness-based interven-tion and therapy for traumatizedyouth and young offenders, many ofwhom are victims of apartheid andan AIDS-era society.

4. Tourism. Over the past four yearstourism has emerged as the secondbiggest industry in South Africa, andthe biggest job generator. Our chal-lenge is to centrally position wilder-ness as a resource within thisindustry. In our favor is the fact thatthe fastest growth in our tourism sec-

tor is in the nature-based category.We need a strategy and plan to co-operate with government and privatelandowners to protect the core wil-derness and wild land resources andvalues, because this is what manytourists want to visit. For example,Kruger National Park wildernesstrails (guided wilderness experiences)are booked out 12 months in ad-vance. And these wilderness trails donot interfere with the opportunity forperipheral development, and com-munity co-ownership adjacent to thePark boundary.

The lesson and objective in SA wilder-ness conservation is clear. We need todevelop partnerships with Africans thatsupport indigenous African conservationprograms, recognize and build upon lo-cal traditions and culture, promote co-management of protected areas oncommunal land, and build the capacityof the land and resource managers. Thisprocess has already begun in South Af-rica, and some exciting models exist, butwe still need to create greater awarenessfor this work and encourage synergy andpartnerships between like-minded orga-nizations and institutions.

Wilderness FoundationStrategy and ProgramsThe Wilderness Foundation SA is com-mitted to the just mentioned strategy. Ourmission is to achieve wider understand-ing and recognition for the concept ofwilderness in SA, in particular, and trans-fer of our models and programs to otherAfrican countries as opportunities arise.To achieve this mission, we have devel-oped programs in six key focus areas: (1)public awareness and information; (2)experiential programs in wilderness; (3)wilderness conservation; (4) managertraining and research initiatives; (5)wilderness advocacy; and (6) privatesector wilderness. The following includes

Figure 4—The Imbewu Program will take 10,000 black youths from urban townships into the South African wilderness.Photo by Margot Morrison.

Figure 3—Retired African Game Guards—referred to as “wise men”—are theteachers in the Imbewu program, instilling cultural and environmental values.Photo by Margot Morrison.


a description of one of our projects ineach of these six focus areas.

1. Public Awarenessand Information

Wilderness Support Groups—the aim ofthis project, funded by the Sierra ClubFoundation (USA), is to create (whererequired), support, and assist various“friends groups” formed around differ-ent wilderness areas across South Af-rica. The Wilderness Foundation willassist these independent local groups intheir role to official management orga-nizations as citizen auxiliaries for theiradopted areas. Local knowledge andappreciation for the area is best voicedby these groups, who support and cri-tique the management agencies, andassist in local awareness campaigns.

2. Experiential Programsin Wilderness

Imbewu—this African initiative literallytranslated means “seed” and is a fullyfunded, four-day “entry level” wilder-ness experience (Muir 1999). It is ajoint venture between the South Afri-can National Parks Board and The Wil-derness Foundation. Imbewu enablesSouth African youth, particularly thosefrom previous disadvantaged commu-nities, to reclaim the birthright of aquality experience in their game re-serves. One of the unique aspects ofImbewu is that retired black gameguards are selected and trained as theImbewu teachers, many of who can-not read or write, but whom have tra-ditional knowledge of the area that theyshare with the youth in local languagesusing the African art of story telling.

Traditional knowledge links wildlands, trees, animals, and birds to theheart of the people (Ramphele 1996).The insight and knowledge of blackconservationists, who live and workfor a lifetime in the African wilderness,have for too long remained unshared.

4. Manager Training andResearch Initiatives

Wilderness Management Training for wil-derness area managers is critical for theprotection and sustainability of these ar-eas. The Wilderness Foundation hasbeen involved in sponsoring and facili-tating wilderness management trainingfor several years, cooperating with ourcolleagues in SA’s Wilderness ActionGroup, University of Natal and U.S. wil-derness agencies, universities, and theWILD Foundation to ensure that Afri-can managers are trained in concepts,theory, and field skills of wilderness man-agement (Weingart 1998; Draper andWatson 2002; Martin and Muir 2002).

A research needs analysis for SA wil-derness is currently under way, funded,and managed by The WILD Foundationand the Wilderness Foundation SA, car-ried out in a partnership with The AldoLeopold Institute (USA) and Univer-sity of Natal (SA). Initially the team willanalyze 7th World Wilderness Congresspapers for wilderness state-of-knowledgerelevant to SA; meet with the WildernessAction Group and others to further iden-tify issues; and with this background willprepare a draft wilderness research needsassessment report for review by peers,

Over 3,000 youth have been throughthis pilot program in the past 30 months,and we can now see that the Imbewuexperience affects the participants at adeep emotional level. The youth experi-ence and begin to appreciate wildernessas irreplaceable and inspirational to thehuman spirit. Imbewu is environmentaleducation conducted as an empower-ment process, instilling personal confi-dence and identity while rooting natureconservation in an African context. Wewill expand this program to as manyother parks as possible, eventually en-abling many thousands of young peopleto experience their heritage in this way.

3. Wilderness ConservationThe Greater Baviaanskloof Complex is oneof South Africa’s most important and di-verse protected areas. The WildernessFoundation is working actively withthe regional implementing agency (De-partment of Environmental Affairs andTourism), in coordinating all the Bav-iaanskloof stakeholders. This partner-ship will raise funding and co-managethe project to develop and implementthe necessary conservation, local par-ticipation, land consolidation, anddevelopment planning for this area.

Figure 5—Adrian Gardiner (right) officially signs over the servitude to the Wilderness Foundation (SA) for the first privatelydeclared and managed wilderness in Africa. Photo courtesy of the 7th WWC/WILD.


management officials, and others, prior tosubmission to potential funding sources.

5. Wilderness AdvocacyThe Opinion Leaders Trails (OLT),funded by the Green Trust, brings to-gether parliamentarians and key com-munity and environmental leaders onfour-day wilderness trail trips. This isa quality experience in the natural en-vironment, facilitating networkingamong formal and grassroots opinionleaders, and catalyzes an environmen-tal awareness among these policy mak-ers. Over the past seven years morethan 200 opinion leaders, includingmany South African parliamentarians,have participated. It is no small feat toget them to dedicate four days to sleep-ing on the ground, walking in thebush, and with no cell phones!

Participants on the OLT programconsistently comment on how the ex-perience in wilderness created a uniquetime for much needed debate in an ap-propriate environment. Judy Chalmers,MP National Assembly, reinforces thisin her statement, “The debate was mademore real, more urgent, more relevantbecause we sat in surroundings wecould not ignore.” Senator Lubidla, MP,commented “We never actually appre-ciated the environment, and now that

we have experienced it wehave learnt how vital it is.”Many of the participants, in-cluding the parliamentarians,had never previously experi-enced a nature reserve orprotected area prior to partici-pating on these trail trips.Some of the participantsinitially expressed a negativeattitude toward formal con-servation and saw “brown”environmental issues, suchas waste and water and airpollution, as separate and

unrelated concepts. After participatingon the OLT program, we believe thatmany of these perceptions changed ina positive way.

6. Private Sector WildernessThe role of private landowners in con-servation in Africa cannot be under-stated. Only 5.5% of the country fallsunder the national protected system(and the wilderness component of thiscomprises only 2.8% of the designatedareas), but private landowners accountfor at least another 6% of the land massof the country under some form ofconservation management. It was an-nounced at the 7th World WildernessCongress in Port Elizabeth thatShamwari Game Reserve in the East-ern Cape Province of South Africa hascreated Africa’s first privately owned,legal wilderness area of 3500 hectares(see IJW Vol. 8, No. 1, April 2002).The mechanism for this protection isthrough a “legal servitude” to The Wil-derness Foundation (SA) that amountsto a conservation easement. We arenow implementing a program to teachinterested private landownersthroughout Africa how to apply thismodel to their protected lands. We be-lieve this can be another effective wayto expand wilderness on the continent.

The Wilderness Foundation and itsassociates, including the WILD Founda-tion (USA), have been working aroundthe world for 28 years, and in southernAfrica for 40 years. We hope our effortsin this region will be a model for Africaand the world to enhance appreciationfor the important link between wilder-ness, wildlife, and people.

REFERENCESBainbridge, William R. 2001a. Mountain wilder-

ness in South Africa. International Journal ofWilderness 7(2): 30–34.

Bainbridge, William R. 2001b. Conservation inthe New South Africa. International Journalof Wilderness 7(3): 38–42.

Draper, M., and A. Watson. 2002. Running withthe wild dogs: Global wilderness manage-ment education in Africa. InternationalJournal of Wilderness 8(1): 31–32.

Martin, Vance. 2001. Wilderness Leadershipin focus: Ian Player-Madolo. InternationalJournal of Wilderness 7(3): 10.

Martin, Vance and Andrew Muir. 2002. The7th World Wilderness Congress: Wildernessand Human Communities. InternationalJournal of Wilderness 8(1): 4–9.

Muir, Andrew. 1999. The Wilderness LeadershipSchool of South Africa’s Imbewu andOpinion Leader Programmes. InternationalJournal of Wilderness 5(2): 41–43.

Player, Ian, ed. 1978. Voices of the wilderness—Proceedings of the 1st World WildernessCongress. Capetown, SA: Jonathan Ball Pub.

Player, Ian. 1988. Foreword, For the conserva-tion of Earth: Proceedings of the 4th WorldWilderness Congress. Vance Martin, ed.Golden, Colo.: Fulcrum Publishing.

Player, Ian. 1995. What happens to the birdsand animals may happen to us. InternationalJournal of Wilderness 1(1): 6–7.

Player, Ian. 1998. Zulu Wilderness. Shadow andSoul. Golden, Colo.: Fulcrum Publishing.

Ramphele, Mamphele. 1996. Wilderness as aresource for healing in South Africa. Inter-national Journal of Wilderness 2(2): 33–38.

Weingart, Paul 1998. Wilderness Manage-ment Training in Africa. International Journalof Wilderness 4(1): 39–41.

ANDREW MUIR is executive director of TheWilderness Foundation of South Africa,and former executive director of the SouthAfrican Wilderness Leadership School. Hewas executive director of the 7th WorldWilderness Congress in Port Elizabeth,South Africa, November, 2001.

Figure 6—South African wilderness areas are the most secure reserves in all ofAfrica for the highly endangered rhino and other threatened wildlife. Photo bySalli Randel.


In a clearing on a rise to the left of the Forest Servicetrail is a small, bronze plaque:

“Cradle of Wilderness … the wilderness conceptwas born and the principle was first applied in the

summer of 1919 at Trappers Lake,White River National Forest, Colorado.”

The Arthur Carhart Trail leaves the parking lot at the northend of Trappers Lake, abruptly breaking through the trees atlakeshore to present the startling view of the second largestlake in Colorado. Brilliant blue at midday, the Lake lies be-neath a massive trapezoidal mountain. Its top is flat, its sidesstriated by molten rock flows, its northern side hollowed outby glaciers that created the concavity that suggests a hugeamphitheater, hence—“Amphitheater Mountain.” “Trapper’sLake,” wrote Carhart following his return to the lake in 1928,“is as much of a scenic climax as that last blaring theme of thePilgrim’s Chorus is a climax of music” (Carhart 1932, p. 270).

Carhart Begins His CareerIn 1919, Arthur H. Carhart, the first landscape architect tograduate from Iowa State University, recently separated fromthe Army, found a position with the Forest Service in Dis-trict 2 headquartered in Denver as “recreation engineer.”There he shared an office with another key player in thegenesis of the wilderness concept, his supervisor, Carl J.Stahl, Assistant District Forester. Stahl was a warm-hearted,sensitive man who loved the wildlands and had regainedhis health in the forests. Had Carl Stahl not been an assis-tant District Forester of District 2 in 1919, commentsCarhart, “the wilderness movement might have founderedat its first launching” (1970, p. 1).

Carhart’s first assign-ment was to visit forests inWyoming, South Dakota,and Minnesota includingthe Superior National For-est. His visit to the Supe-rior was Carhart’s firstfull-scale exposure to wil-derness. Carhart returnedfrom his trip expecting totake up work on a masterland-use plan for the SanIsabel National Forest.Stahl, however, had a dif-ferent idea because he hadbeen receiving demandsfor homesites on TrappersLake, and some persons had already built in the area with-out permits. He assigned Carhart the task of plotting sev-eral sites for homes around the lake and planning a roadup the north fork of the White River, around Trappers Lakeand Little Trappers Lake, then over the Flat Tops to theStillwaters on the Yampa River. Carhart requisitioned a planetable and an alidade surveying outfit and boarded a trainfor Yampa. He found Trappers Lake astounding:

Whenever a guest stepped out of his junkyard, halfcanvas shanty, the scene he faced was one of themost magnificent views in the Rocky Mountains;one of the finest on the continent. Across thelength of the Lake, Amphitheater Mountain rearedits massive beauty in multi-colored grandeur. AfterI visited Yellowstone Park, seen its famous attrac-tions, after I had heard the eerie call of a loon

STEWARDSHIP

Trappers Lake andArthur Carhart

Rocking the Cradle of Wilderness

BY JAMES E. McCOBB

James E. McCobb at the Forest Service plaque aboutCarhart. Photo courtesy of James McCobb.


across the darkling waters ofLac la Croix as dusk shadedto starlit night—after seeingthese wildland beauties,Trappers still slugged merepeatedly with its surpassingbeauty. (Carhart 1970, p. 4).

Two hunters in camp, George Rainey,a well-known big game hunter withAfrican experience, and WilliamMcFadden, who had made his fortunein the oil business in Oklahoma,watched Carhart working at his planetable. They asked him to meet, andone evening the three gathered at thetable in the cook tent, coffeepot at theirelbows, and talked well into the night.

Carhart found himself confronted bya verbal assault. Rainey and McFaddenwere determined and relentless:

What the hell do you ForestService people think you’redoing in making a lake likethis a shambles, putting

scolded him for intruding. Lookingback on that experience from the per-spective of later life, Carhart wrote:

That incident at TrappersLake was in truth a momentwhen I stepped across athreshold. I discovered truewilderness and reached theconviction that without thesanctuary found in ourwildlands, without theexperience of living as a partof it, this nation might perishfrom the earth. (1970, p. 38).

Nothing changed on the surface ofcamp life. Carhart continued with hismapping, and Rainey and McFaddenkept up a steady needling. TrappersLake continued its quiet reinforcementof Carhart’s developing thought:

Each day I remained atTrappers Lake, each morning,noon and twilight, Amphithe-ater Mountain rising at the farside of the lake, sometimesdraped in wispy fog, some-times in regal aloofness, themore certain I was that somepriceless presence dwelt here,and that haunt of magnificentpeace and quietude shouldn’tbe destroyed to satisfydemands of any one person orten thousand. A ring of shackcabins around the lakewouldn’t be use, it would bemisuse. (1970, p. 43)

Discussionon Trappers LakeBack in Denver, Carhart showed Stahlhis maps: where the roads would beand where cabins could be located.“But I’m against it,” he told his super-visor. Stahl was silent. Then he beganprobing at Carhart and digging foranswers. Eventually he leaned back:“Maybe we’ve got something here. Letme talk to the Chief and we’ll see”

summer homes all aroundit, bringing in a bunch ofscreaming kids to choptrees with their cute littlehatchets? Don’t youForest Service peoplerealize that places are ofhigher value as they are?Than they could possiblyoffer after being convertedinto a resort slum?”(Carhart 1970, p. 41)

Carhart countered with thestandard Forest Service argu-ment of the period that theland belongs to the people,and all have a right of access.Rainey and McFadden admit-ted that everyone had a rightto use the land, but, they em-phasized, no one has thelicense to misuse it.

Carhart came awaytroubled. Still bothered on alater evening, he took the trail

along the lakeshore to “Old ManColby’s” cabin that still stands on theeast side of the lake. Colby, a veteranof some of the fiercest Civil Warbattles, had come to Trappers Lake insearch of sanctuary; he was a good lis-tener with a reputation for sagacity,someone Carhart must have neededafter the horse shedding Rainey andMcFadden had just put him through.

Preoccupied by his recent encoun-ter, Carhart continued his way in thesilent forest. Suddenly the lake basinseemed filled with eerie whispers.Carhart stopped abruptly looking anx-iously about him searching for thesource of the soft sound. Just as sud-denly as it had begun the sibilanceceased. He took a step forward, andthe strange sound returned, swelled,diminished, and in a moment disap-peared. Carhart felt himself sharplyaware of nature: a light breezetrembled in the trees; pygmy waveslapped at the shore; a gray squirrel

Figure 1—Arthur Carhart at his plane table, Trappers Lake, 1919. Thephotograph is used with the permission of The Library of Western History,Denver Public Library.


(Carhart 1970, p. 53). Nothing spe-cific was done as a result of that meet-ing, no pronouncement was made, butthe supervisor of the White River Na-tional Forest was quietly informed thatcabins would not be built aroundTrappers Lake.

Toward the end of November, C. J.Stahl stopped Carhart in the hallwayoutside their office. “I just got back fromSalt Lake City where I spoke with AldoLeopold. He was asking about the Trap-pers Lake deal. I’ll call him to have himcome up” (Carhart 1970, p. 61).

Aldo Leopold had rejoined the For-est Service in 1919 following a briefstint with the Chamber of Commercein Albuquerque. He was appointed as-sistant district forester in charge of op-erations on the twenty million acresof land comprising District 3, the sec-ond highest position in the District.The chief of operations had three prin-cipal tasks: to conduct inspection toursof the individual national forests in thedistrict, to report on his findings, andto recommend changes. One of hisfirst acts was to inspect the ranger sta-tions of the Datil National Forest. His

received a recommendation from oneof his assistants that the shoreline ofTrappers Lake be kept free of roadconstruction and summer homes andinvited comment. When Leopold ex-pressed an interest, Stahl suggested ameeting with Carhart (Meine 1988).

The fateful meeting of ArthurCarhart and Aldo Leopold facilitatedby Carl Stahl took place in Denver onDecember 6, 1919. Carhart andLeopold were both concerned aboutroads. Carhart commented:

It should be noted, and notedwith emphasis, that inactuality it was the almostblind fanaticism, current atthat time, with regard to thebuilding of roads, buildingthem hell-bent and sometimesseemingly recklessly andanywhere, that lit the fuse onthe wilderness movement forit was a road built in 1919that would have broughtwaves of people stampedingto grab cabin sites aroundTrappers Lake. Leopold and

tour of the backcountry provided himthe opportunity to fish the headwa-ters of the Gila River on the southernborder of the forest. Soon after heattended the Salt Lake meeting andmet Carl Stahl. Stahl reported to theassembled foresters that he had just

CRADLE OF WILDERNESS

Forest Service Trail No. 1815, which circles Trappers Lake isnamed the Arthur H. Carhart Trail in recognition of Mr. Carhart’s

pioneering wilderness concepts. Arthur H. Carhart wasborn in 1892 and died in 1978.

“The wilderness concept was born and the principle was first applied inthe summer of 1919 at Trappers Lake, White River National Forest, Colo-rado. Assigned to make a survey of the Trappers Lake area to plot severalhundred summer home sites on the lake shore and to plan a ‘through’road around the lake, Carhart completed the surveys pursuant to hisinstructions, but made it known to his immediate supervisor that heopposed further ‘Improvements where natural landscape would suffer.’After some discussion the Denver District Office of the Forest Serviceagreed that the Trappers Lake area should remain roadless, and that themany applications for homesite permits around the lake should not behonored. That was an unprecedented step in Forest Service history.”

Quoted from the Quiet Revolution by Donald H. Baldwin.

Figure 2—Old Man Colby’s cabin still stands today. Photo by James McCobb.


associates were terriblyworried over a road that aninfluential rancher wantedbuilt through a part of theforest that later became theGila Wilderness. (Carhart1970, p. 63)

The exchanges among the three: “fo-cused on policies governing human useof the wildlands, and particularly theTrappers Lake program. (Carhart 1963).

The historic memorandum of themeeting written by Carhart is datedDecember 9, 1919. Three major pointsare made: (1) the inherent task of theForest Service in its role as steward isto preserve wilderness for its scenicbeauty and for recreation; (2) with re-gard to land use, there is a definite pointwhere all man-made improvementsshould stop; and (3) to maximize theappropriate use of the forests, a systemof zoning should be developed that willdetermine recreational activities appro-priate to places of differing scenic value(Carhart 1919). The three foresters lefttheir meeting to trace out, each in his

of responding to the escalating annualnumbers of visitors, Stahl pointed tozoning on the San Isabel Forest undera plan devised by Carhart that confinedsummer homes to designated areas(Stahl 1921).

In the summer of 1921, Leopoldpaid a second visit to Carhart who wasin the process of writing his report onthe Superior National Forest whenLeopold stopped in. The two men dis-covered that they had arrived at nearlyidentical conclusions. “Leopold wasparticularly interested in saving thebest of the remaining wilderness ar-eas. I talked of the dominant use prin-ciple, and wilderness set aside topreserve its values was an applicationof that principle” (Baldwin 1972, p.155). In the fall of 1921, Aldo Leopoldpublished his well-known piece: “TheWilderness and Its Place in Forest Rec-reational Policy” in which he definedwilderness as “a stretch of country pre-served in its natural state … bigenough to absorb a two weeks’ packtrip and kept devoid of roads.” Hewent on to propose the Gila Wilder-ness (Leopold 1921, p. 718). Implicitin Leopold’s argument are the threefundamentals: responsibility for wil-derness belongs to the Forest Service;there is a point at which burgeoningcivilization must stop its invasion ofthe natural world; and managing theforests for recreation requires zoningcertain sections for activities appropri-ate to the specific environment.

As he looked back over the eventsof the 1920s, Carhart suggested thatthe wilderness idea rose from a syn-ergy experienced by him and the otheractors in the drama:

I believe all of us who hadany part of [the struggle topreserve wilderness] at anydegree in relation to anywildland values that existed,

own way, the implications of theirshared vision.

Beyond Trappers LakeCarhart and Stahl reprised their Trappersexperience over the Superior NationalForest. Carhart wrote a comprehensiverecreational plan for the Superior in1921. Included in his report was the rec-ommendation that the road from Ely,Minnesota, along the Kawishiwi River,should not be built even though fundshad already been allocated. Stahl en-dorsed Carhart’s recommendation andwithheld the $53,000 (Baldwin 1972).

That same summer, Carl Stahl pub-lished an article in Journal of Forestry:“Where Forestry and Recreation Meet,”in which he asserted that forestry andrecreation do not so much meet; theyco-exist. Stahl concluded that the posi-tive influence of forests on the healthand strength of the citizenry should begiven emphasis equal to profit-makingpurposes. He had no doubt the ForestService had the responsibility to man-age recreation in the forests. As a way

Figure 3—Trappers Lake, Colorado, in 2001. Photo by James McCobb.


reacted and were guided byinstinct or intuitive forecast ofwhat might be happening tosome of these places which inthemselves were sanctuariesto which man might go andfind the peace that originallyand always dwelt there.Certainly, for my part, I claimno special distinction becauseof what was said and donewith regard to Trappers or ofwhat followed it. It was all soevident, so right, that all of uswho were moving in thisperiod certainly had thefeeling that what must be donewas done for some reason thatwas deep inside of us.

And one more thought.Had there not been at thattime the application, theacceptance of the concept ofprotecting such sanctuaries inwildlands, established in thecase of Trappers Lake andfollowed also certainly by theestablishment of the GilaWilderness Area and theBorder Lakes Canoe Area,there would have been nosuch protection as we haveattained (Carhart 1970, p. 64)

The Carhart Trail around TrappersLake is not heavily traveled. The hikeris on his or her own fording creeks

and crossing marshland; Colby’s cabinstill stands in the meadow on the eastshore; no homesites have been devel-oped; and the camping areas are notvisible from the lake. Civilization hasrestrained its proclivity for improve-ment. The silence of the forest, thesound of waves lapping the shore, theclear blue lake reflecting the sky, theawesome beauty of AmphitheaterMountain still provide sanctuary to theseeker. The scene is still “one of themost magnificent views in the RockyMountains”(Carhart 1970, p. 34).

That the Forest Service shoulddesignate Trappers Lake as “thecradle of Wilderness” is a fitting trib-ute. The first stirring of the wilder-ness idea was felt there when, overcoffee in the cook tent, two huntersin love with Trappers made a verbalassault on a young forester. The ideatook shape along the path to Colby’scabin when pygmy waves lapped theshore, and a gray squirrel scolded theintruder. In a magnificent momentin 1919 the idea took on actualitywhen three dedicated foresters foundthat they shared a revolutionary con-cept of how wildlands should bemanaged. The movement to preserveand protect the wilderness sanctu-

aries of our time owes its existenceto them—but not only to them—toTrappers Lake as well. The Cradle ofWilderness is there.

REFERENCESBaldwin, D. L. 1972. The Quiet Revolution:

Grass Roots of Today’s Wilderness Preser-vation Movement. Boulder, Colo.: Pruett Pub-lishing Company.

Carhart, A. H. December 10, 1919. Memoran-dum for Mr. Leopold, District 3. (Library ofWestern History, Denver Public Library).

Carhart, A. H. 1932. Colorado. New York:Coward-McCann.

Carhart, A. H. December 14, 1963. Key Sheetto a Series of Memos. (Library of WesternHistory, Denver Public Library).

Carhart, A. H. 1970. This Way to Wilderness,(Library of Western History, Denver PublicLibrary).

Leopold, A. 1921. The Wilderness and Its Placein Forest Recreational Policy. Journal of For-estry 19: 718,

Meine, C. 1988. Aldo Leopold: His Life andWork. Madison: The University of Wiscon-sin Press.

Stahl, C. J. 1921. Where Forestry and Recre-ation Meet. Journal of Forestry 19: 526.

JAMES E. MCCOBB is a lawyer and formerminister who is beginning his third year asa volunteer information officer on theDeschutes National Forest, Oregon, andworking on the Three Sisters Wilderness.He can be contacted at 9975 SW SattlerRoad, Tigard, OR 97224([email protected]).

I believe all of us who had any part of [the struggle to preserve wilderness] atany degree in relation to any wildland values that existed, reacted and wereguided by instinct or intuitive forecast of what might be happening to some ofthese places which in themselves were sanctuaries to which man might go andfind the peace that originally and always dwelt there.


IntroductionThe common idiom that Alaska is “the last frontier” sug-gests that the relative remoteness and unsettled characterof Alaska create a unique Alaskan identity, one that is botha “frontier” and the “last” of its kind. The frontier idiomportrays the place and people of Alaska as exceptional ordifferent from the places and people who reside in the lower48 states, especially in regards to human perception andinteraction with the surrounding landscape.

Cuba (1987) described how the forces of migration andmobility have served to reinforce and strengthen Alaska place

identity among its residents.Symbolic images of a wild Alaskaframe the expectations of mi-grants to Alaska with some mi-grants identifying themselves asdifferent from other people (e.g.,more adventurous or more inde-pendent) even prior to moving toAlaska. Once migrants arrive,they establish and perpetuate anidentity based on comparativeexperiences with the world “out-side” Alaska. The constructedAlaska image is one where thepeople are friendlier; more inde-pendent, economic opportunities

are greater and more challenging; and its government moreaccessible and immediately felt. The distinctiveness of Alas-kan life is reinforced through travel to the contiguous UnitedStates where friends, family members, and even strangersexpect them to display visible signs of their Alaskan experi-ences. Indeed, some Alaska residents begin to think of them-selves as Alaskans only after they travel outside of the state.As Cuba noted, “residents of Anchorage assume a frontiermien because it is expected of them” (1987, p. 165).

But the construction of an Alaskan identity is not purelysymbolic. The meaning of place is derived through every-day, local interaction and cannot be separated from its lo-cation. Accordingly, “the content of the Alaskan placeidentity is anchored in the particulars of place” (Cuba 1987,p. 170). In other words, it is the subjective response ofAlaska residents to the place of Alaska that constructs andreinforces the image of Alaska as exceptional or different.

In his analysis of Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier the-sis, Cuba (1987) wrote that Turner actually references threedistinct types of frontier: (1) as a geographic territory withidentifiable physical characteristics (e.g., “the margin ofsettlement which has a density of two or more to the squaremile”), (2) as set of social conditions resulting from humaninteraction with the environment (e.g., “a form of society”),and (3) a subjective response to place that includes atti-tudes, beliefs, and values (e.g., “a state of mind”). Thus, theconcept of “frontier” is an ambiguous one without refer-ence to the definitional type of frontier. With respect toAlaska, Cuba believed that Alaskans, particularly residentsof Anchorage, have adopted a frontier “state of mind” thatis quite far removed from a daily routine that requires cop-ing with primitive living conditions.

The adoption of a “frontier” state of mind stands in starkcontrast to the realities of everyday life (social conditions)for the majority of Alaska residents. Historian StephenHaycox (1999) noted that the majority of Alaskans live inwhat he terms a “replication corridor” consisting of a nar-row strip of human habitation that mirrors urban condi-tions found outside Alaska. Here, life in both the large andsmaller urban centers is nearly indistinguishable from life incities and towns across the western United States. Residentscan access all the amenities, conveniences, and comforts ofurban life found elsewhere in America. Haycox believesAlaska’s replication corridor “manifests little that is differentfrom the American West” despite its more remote location

STEWARDSHIP

Wilderness in AlaskaIs it Exceptional?

BY GREGORY BROWN

Article author Gregory Brown.


and the potential within it for an em-brace of wilderness values. ForHaycox, the culture where the major-ity of Alaska residents live does notsupport the Alaska exceptionality hy-pothesis, at least with respect to theset of “social conditions.”

The concept of “frontier” is predi-cated on contrasting images—civiliza-tion versus wilderness, urban versusrural life, and conformity versus indi-vidualism. Without the concept of“wilderness” there would be no “fron-tier.” The argument set forth here isthat the concepts of wilderness andfrontier are derivatives of each otherand share the same basic typology andconceptual ambiguity. Like the fron-tier, wilderness may alternatively beconceived of as a geographic territory(e.g., an area within the National Wil-derness Preservation System), as a setof social conditions (e.g., a subsistencelifestyle), or as a state of mind (e.g., anatural or pristine area). These threeconcepts of wilderness are describedand followed by a discussion of theexceptionality argument.

Wilderness as“Exceptional”Geographic TerritorySince passage of the Wilderness Actin 1964 (Public Law 88-577), substan-tial additions have been made to theNational Wilderness Preservation Sys-tem (NWPS) in Alaska. Most of theAlaska wilderness acreage was identi-fied in 1980 with passage of the AlaskaNational Interest Lands ConservationAct (ANILCA) (Public Law 96-487)that added over 56 million acres to theNWPS. Alaska now has more than 58million acres of wilderness in 48 unitslocated in National Wildlife Refuges,National Parks, and National Forestsspread from the extreme southeast(Tongass National Forest) to the Arc-

tic Coast (Arctic NationalWildlife Refuge). Over55% of the entire NWPSacreage is located inAlaska, and Alaska wil-derness has more landarea as a percentage oftotal state land (15.4%)than any other state(Landres and Meyer2000). The largest wil-derness unit in Alaska isthe Wrangell-St. EliasWilderness at 9.7 millionacres, and the smallestunit is the Hazy IslandsWilderness at 32 acres.

The geography ofAlaska wilderness ap-pears exceptional from anecological perspective.Alaska is dominated bythe polar ecosystem(Bailey 1980) with tun-dra and subarctic divi-sions defining the largestarea of land. The tundraclimate is characterizedby very short, cool sum-mers and long, severewinters. Polar ecosystemscontain vegetation domi-nated by grasses, sedges,lichens, and willowshrubs. Subarctic ecosystems areshaped by a climate with great seasonalrange in temperature, severe winters,and small amounts of annual precipi-tation concentrated in the three warmsummer months. Subarctic vegetationis dominated by the boreal forest.These tundra and subarctic areas com-pose approximately 14.5% of the to-tal land area in the United States(Bailey 1980). The other ecosystemdivision present in Alaska is the “ma-rine” division that shares some char-acteristics with coastal areas in thePacific Northwest. The marine

ecoregions occupy a relatively smallland area in the United States (3.7%)along the Pacific coast. These ecosys-tems of Alaska support abundantpopulations of faunal species notfound elsewhere in such large concen-trations including brown and blackbear, caribou, and moose.

Alaska contains relatively few pub-lic roads for its size, a total of 12,686miles of roads. Only the smaller statesof Hawaii (4,257), Delaware (5,748),and Rhode Island (6,052) have fewerroad miles, but with significantlyhigher road densities.

Figure 1—The vast expanse of Alaskan wilderness is difficult to access and manyvisitors use commercial operators that provide transportation services into remoteglaciers and mountains like those in Denali National Park. Photo courtesy of PaulRoderick, Talkeetna Air Taxi.


Thus, from a size and ecology per-spective, the geographical territory ofwilderness in Alaska is “exceptional”from that found in the lower 48 states.

Wilderness asSocial ConditionsAre social conditions surroundingAlaska wilderness more primitive orwild than in the lower 48? The popu-lation of Alaska, like many westernstates, is urban with over half the state-wide population of 627,000 living inAnchorage or the nearby Matanuska-Suisitna Valley. Alaskans who live in the“replication corridor” are not self-suffi-cient in the frontier sense, many hold-ing jobs in the service or governmentsectors of the economy. These people

live ordinary lives and are accustomedto all the conveniences and nuances ofmodern, nonwilderness living that arenearly indistinguishable from cities andtowns in the lower 48. The muchtouted “higher cost-of-living in Alaska,”a general characteristic of frontier ge-ography, has largely faded, at least inthe “replication corridor” through effi-cient transportation and distributionchannels. As Haycox (1999) wrote, “inthe human culture of the replicationcorridor … there is little to distinguishthe places as Alaskan.”

The “primitive” living conditions,generally associated with a frontier andwilderness existence, are absent in thereplication corridor although primitiveconditions continue to exist in rural or“bush” Alaska. For example, 89 of the

192 Alaska Native villages do not havewater piped or trucked to homes. Butfor most Alaskans, water, waste, andhealth conditions are similar to thosefound elsewhere in the United States.

And yet, even in the area of socialconditions, one could argue, perhapsunconvincingly, that small things inAlaska add up to “differences” in so-cial conditions. Anchorage is the onlylarge urban area in the United Stateswhere mega fauna such as moose andbears co-exist, uneasily at times, withurban residents. Anchorage is the onlymajor city with a 500,000-acre statepark (including wilderness) locatedwithin its municipal boundary. Alaskahas a relatively high population(98,000) of American Indian andAlaska Natives whose unique and tra-ditional culture continues to color thelives of Alaskan residents.

Wilderness asa State of MindIf wilderness is a social construct asCronon (1996) and others sug-gested, the Alaska wilderness excep-tionality hypothesis would posit thatAlaskans perceive and value wilder-ness differently than other U.S. resi-dents in the lower 48. How doAlaskans perceive their wildernesslandscapes compared to those out-side? Ideally, one would construct astudy to measure wilderness percep-tions and values, sampling bothAlaska and outside residents utiliz-ing commonly recognized wilder-ness themes and places. Althoughthis type of data is not currentlyavailable, a comparison of nationalwilderness values (Cordell et al.1998) with landscape values from astudy of the Chugach National For-est in Alaska (Brown and Reed 2000)provides a starting point for exam-ining similarities and differences inperceived wilderness values.

I have raised the supposition that Alaska wilderness isexceptional—its unique geographical and historicalcontext resulting in a different subjective response towilderness among Alaskans.

Figure 2—Many tourists to Alaskan wilderness will only visually access the wilderness from the cabin of a airplane, the deckof a cruise ship, or as a distant mountain range as seen from the few roads in Alaska. Photo by Chad Dawson.


Alaska residents appear to hold amore instrumental view of wildernessin Alaska (Brown 2002). Wildernessis a place to use, recreate, and explore,not a place to be left alone. Alaskansrecognize the economic value of wil-derness from a tourism perspectiveand fully expect that the landscape willbe exploited for its tourism potential.Alaskans also acknowledge the ex-traordinary scenic beauty of the land-scape and place a high value onaesthetics.

One important area of agreementbetween Alaska residents and thoseoutside is the importance of wilder-ness to sustain life—as a source ofclean air and water, and as a reposi-tory of biological diversity. These val-ues ranked high with both Alaskaresidents and U.S. residents living out-side Alaska.

In an analysis of the spatial locationof landscape values, Alaska residentsidentified proportionately more aes-thetic, economic, historic, and subsis-tence values outside recommendedwilderness areas whereas more life-sus-taining, intrinsic, spiritual, and futurevalues were located inside wildernessstudy areas (Brown 2002). The valuesinside wilderness study areas roughlycorrespond to values associated withindirect, intangible, or deferred humanuse of the landscape whereas valuesoutside the area roughly correspond todirect, tangible, and immediate use val-ues of the landscape.

The Case for AlaskaWilderness ExceptionalityIs Alaska wilderness exceptional com-pared to other wilderness in theNWPS? In support of the argument,one could point to the tangible differ-ences between Alaskan wilderness andthat found in the lower 48: (1) wil-derness areas in Alaska are signifi-cantly larger and less fragmented, (2)

wilderness areas are located inecoregions not found elsewhere in theNWPS, (3) wilderness areas receivesignificantly more subsistence use byboth Alaska Natives and rural resi-dents, (4) wilderness areas are the des-tination of a large and growing“ecotourism” market, and (5) wilder-ness in Alaska is managed by a set oflegal guidelines from ANILCA (1980)that provide a series of legal “excep-tions” to wilderness management suchas the construction and maintenanceof cabins, the use of motorized vehiclessuch as snowmobiles, motorboats, andaircraft, and temporary fishing andhunting camps.

To refute the exceptionality argu-ment, one could point to technologysuch as the airplane, helicopter, orsnowmobile that negate size and scaledifferences in wilderness areas. Thescale of the landscape may be larger,but technology can greatly diminishthe physical challenges required toaccess wilderness areas. Regarding theexceptionality of wilderness manage-ment, one can point to other wilder-ness areas in the NWPS that contain

ANILCA-like management exceptionssuch as the use of airplanes in theFrank Church River of No ReturnWilderness in Idaho.

If the physical size, location, ecol-ogy, and management of Alaska wil-derness appear exceptional, what canone say about the social constructionof the wilderness concept in Alaska?Alaskans perceive themselves to beexceptional even if the social condi-tions (at least within the replicationcorridor) appear unexceptional. Alas-kans hold higher instrumental values(e.g., subsistence, recreation, and eco-nomic) toward the landscape, influ-enced to some extent, by the concept,culture, and history of subsistence inAlaska. Even as the physical necessityof subsistence hunting and fishing di-minishes in postmodern Alaska, theculture of subsistence as a surrogatefor Alaska Native rights and land ac-cess increases in importance. For ru-ral and Alaska Natives, the land is aplace that provides sustenance (evenif only symbolic) for survival.

The Alaska Native view and theWestern concept of wilderness clearly

Figure 3—The Alaskan wilderness experience includes many references to and stories of winter travel. Photo byChad P. Dawson.


diverge (Ongtooguk 2002). Visitors toAlaska appear disappointed to en-counter Alaska Natives living in so-called wilderness areas, a situation thatappears contradictory to the 1964Wilderness Act. For Alaska Natives,the landscape is home, a land to berespected but equally important, aland to be utilized. But for Alaska ur-banites and visitors to Alaska, the land-scape is valued as a place to recreateand enjoy the scenic beauty ratherthan as a place for permanent habita-tion or resource exploitation. This ro-mantic view of the landscape is moreconsistent with the Western “received”idea of wilderness whose ideals areembodied in the 1964 Wilderness Act(Callicott and Nelson 1998).

Thus, there is a paradox of the wil-derness idea in Alaska, and it pertainsto the Alaska exceptionality theme.Migrants (and visitors) to Alaska, par-ticularly new professional migrants, areattracted to Alaska for the Western “re-ceived” idea of wilderness, as one of thelast places where the landscape is largelypristine and empty. Over time, migrantsto Alaska embrace the exceptionality ofAlaska wilderness. They acknowledgethat Alaska wilderness is not, in fact, the“received” idea of wilderness as experi-enced in the lower 48, but rather wilder-ness that is a living and workingwilderness. People come to Alaska aswilderness purists and evolve into wil-

derness pragmatists. The enormity andchallenges of the Alaska landscape mol-lify the purist wilderness ideals of new-comers and visitors. Airplanes,helicopters, and snowmobiles becomethe pragmatic tools of the Alaska wilder-ness user and reinforce the exceptional-ity of Alaska wilderness in the NWPS.

I have raised the supposition thatAlaska wilderness is exceptional—itsunique geographical and historicalcontext resulting in a different subjec-tive response to wilderness amongAlaskans. The data in support of thesupposition is limited and would ben-efit from further research. Specifically,it would be beneficial to compare thevalues and attitudes of Alaskans andnon-Alaskans directly using the samemeasurement scales. It would be ben-eficial to apply wilderness “purism”scales to selected resident populationsin Alaska to compare with Alaska visi-tor ratings. And it would be benefi-cial to closely examine ethnic groupsthat have migrated to Alaska to de-termine if their ethnic culture bondshave been modified or become “ex-ceptional” in Alaska.

REFERENCESBailey, Robert G. 1980. Description of the

Ecoregions of the United States. PublicationNumber 1391. Ogden, Utah: U.S. Dept. ofAgriculture, Forest Service.

Brown, G. 2002. The Alaska exceptionalityhypothesis: Is Alaska wilderness really dif-ferent? In Alan Watson, Lillian Alessa, and

Mike Patterson. comps. Wilderness in theCircumpolar North: Searching for Compat-ibility in Traditional, Ecotourism, and Eco-logical Values; 2001 May 15–16;Anchorage, AK. Proceedings RMRS-P-(inpress). Ogden, Utah: U.S. Department ofAgriculture, Forest Service, Rocky MountainResearch Station.

Brown, G., and P. Reed. 2000. Validation offorest values typology for use in NationalForest planning. Forest Science 46(2): 1–8.

Callicott, J. Baird, and Michael P. Nelson, eds.1998. The Great New Wilderness Debate.Athens: University of Georgia Press.

Cordell, H. Ken, Michael A. Tarrant, Barbara L.McDonald, and John C. Bergstrom. 1998.How the public views wilderness. Interna-tional Journal of Wilderness 4(3): 28–31.

Cronon, William. 1996. The trouble with wil-derness or getting back to the wrongnature. In William Cronon, ed. UncommonGround. New York: W.W. Norton andCompany, pp. 69–90.

Cuba, James L. 1987. Identity and Communityon the Alaskan Frontier. Philadelphia: TempleUniversity Press.

Haycox, Stephen. 1999. The view from above:Alaska and the Great Northwest. Paperpresented at the conference A Region inTransition: A Pacific Northwest, OregonState University, Feb. 11–13, 1999.

Landres, P., and S. Meyer. 2000. NationalWilderness Preservation System Database:Key Attributes and Trends, 1964 Through1999. USDA Forest Service Gen. Tech. Re-port RMRS-GTR-18-Rev. Ed. Ogden, Utah:Rocky Mountain Research Station.

Ongtooguk, P. 2002. Native perspectives ofwilderness: What’s in a name? In AlanWatson, Alan, Lillian Alessa, and MikePatterson. comps. Wilderness in the Cir-cumpolar North: Searching for Compat-ibility in Traditional, Ecotourism, andEcological Values; 2001 May 15–16;Anchorage, AK. Proceedings RMRS-P-(inpress). Ogden, Utah: U.S. Department ofAgriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Moun-tain Research Station.

GREGORY BROWN is an associate professorof Natural Resource and Environmental Policyin the Environmental Science Department,Alaska Pacific University, Anchorage. E-mail:[email protected].

Like the frontier, wilderness may alternatively beconceived of as a geographic territory, as a set ofsocial conditions or as a state of mind.


Understanding the nature of human experiences inwilderness is a priority research issue at theLeopold Institute. Past investigations have typi-

cally focused on measures of solitude, such as perceivedcrowding, or other experience dimensions derived from theWilderness Act. These studies have provided useful infor-mation, but they do not capture the full meaning or signifi-cance of the experiences sought and received by modernwilderness visitors.

Much has changed since the Wilderness Act was debatedand finally passed in 1964. The spectrum of places nowprotected in the National Wilderness Preservation Systemincludes urban proximate lands threatened by high visitoruse, and vast, remote landscapes where nearby residentsstill practice modified subsistence lifestyles. Wilderness visi-tors may come seeking solitude, but they may also seekand find an array of other experiences. It is apparent thatno generalized understanding of wilderness experience, norany single approach to management, is sufficient to recog-nize and protect the diversity of wilderness experience op-portunities. Expanded research approaches, includingefforts aimed at gathering in-depth, site-specific informa-tion, are needed to further our understanding of wilder-ness visitor experiences and ensure that uniqueopportunities are protected.

Recognizing this need, scientists at the Leopold Insti-tute have reinvigorated their efforts to understand wilder-ness experiences. One example of this initiative is anongoing, multiphase research project at Gates of the ArcticNational Park in northern Alaska. In a series of in-depthinterviews conducted during the summer of 2001, we foundthat visitors to Gates of the Arctic described their experi-ences in terms that reflected some of the central themes

from the Wilderness Act. However, they also describedother, locally significant dimensions related to high-latitudeweather and light conditions, evidence of the human his-tory of the arctic, opportunities for discovery, and oppor-tunities to practice and witness wilderness stewardship. Thenext phase of our research will involve measuring the dis-tribution and saliency of these experience dimensions acrossthe Gates of the Arctic visitor population.

Results of this research serve two purposes. First, theycontribute to scientific understanding of the myriad waysthat people relate to and experience wilderness settings.Second, they will be useful to Gates of the Arctic manag-ers, who are just beginning a revision of their wildernessmanagement plan. We identified unique values of Gatesof the Arctic that may help managers consider their deci-sions in the context of other regional and national protected

SCIENCE and RESEARCH

P E R S P E C T I V E S F R O M T H EA L D O L E O P O L D W I L D E R N E S S R E S E A R C H I N S T I T U T E

Understanding WildernessVisitor Experiences

BY BRIAN GLASPELL

Continued on page 41


SCIENCE and RESEARCH

IntroductionMany land management agencies in the United Statesuse interpretation to help accomplish resource manage-ment objectives. Interpretation is described by Knudsonet al. (1995) as a method of communicating the signifi-cance or meaning of something in a way that instillsunderstanding and appreciation. Interpretive commu-nication may be personal (e.g. on-site naturalists) orimpersonal (e.g. signs, brochures, or exhibits), and mayuse images, analogies, metaphors, or stories to explainthe significance of natural resources or cultural events,or to present the rationale behind management policiesor regulations.

Comparing the Effectiveness ofInterpretive and SanctionMessages for Influencing

Wilderness Visitors’Intended Behavior

BY GARRETT S. DUNCAN and STEVEN R. MARTIN

Abstract: A laboratory experiment was designed to compare the effectiveness of sanction and interpretivewritten messages for influencing wilderness visitors’ intended behavior. Questionnaires were presented to 237people assigned to one of three treatments (control, sanction, or interpretation). Each viewed a series of slidesof a hypothetical wilderness outing. Sanction and interpretation groups viewed signs containing messagesinterspersed in the slides; the control group viewed no such messages. Participants responded to writtenscenarios and indicated the likelihood that they would perform certain behaviors. In three of the four scenariosthe interpretation message was as effective as the sanction message at eliciting intentions to perform desiredbehaviors and not to perform undesired behaviors; both were more effective than no message. In the fourthscenario, the interpretation message was more effective at eliciting the desired response than the sanctionmessage, which was in turn more effective than no message.

(PEER REVIEWED)

Article co-authors Garrett S. Duncan (left) and Steven R. Martin.


Agencies commonly rely on pleaand sanction messages to promulgateregulations. A sanction, as used here,is defined as threatening a penalty(usually a fine) for behaviors consid-ered inappropriate by the managingagency. Commonly used sanctions are,in certain situations, effective for visi-tor management. Gramann et al.(1995) found that participants re-ported stronger intentions to obey arule if they were aware of the sanctionfor violating that rule. Johnson andSwearingen (1992) reduced off-trailhiking by 75% with a threatened sanc-tion sign at Mount Rainier NationalPark. Of the signs they tested, thesanction message was the most effec-tive. Martin (1992) reduced pumicecollection at Mount St. Helens Na-tional Volcanic Monument by 97%with a simple sanction sign.

Providing the reasons for a regula-tion is almost always more effective thansimply stating the rule (Ham 1992). In-terpretive messages can explain the ra-tionale behind management regulationsand the necessity for them withoutthreatening a penalty for noncompli-ance. Interpretation can protect the re-source by increasing the visitor’sawareness of its value, of behavior thatdegrades the resource, and of damagethat occurs with improper actions (Dame1985). Vander Stoep and Gramann(1987) evaluated the effectiveness ofwritten interpretive messages at theShiloh National Military Park in reduc-ing damage by youth to cultural resourcessuch as cannons, statues, and monu-ments. They found that even the mostbasic design of the three tested was ef-fective in reducing depreciative behavior.

Oliver et al. (1985) found a bro-chure successful at reducing litteringand tree damage impacts at campsites.The brochure contained sketches andverbal messages explaining to visitorswhich behaviors were destructive, the

effects of these behaviors, the costs ofrehabilitating damaged campsites, andways that visitors could help protectthe campground and camping expe-rience. The brochure-only treatmentreduced the percentage of campinggroups that damaged one or more treesfrom 39% to 20%, and reduced thepercentage of groups leaving litterfrom 82% to 67%.

Gramann et al. (1995) exposed par-ticipants to what they called an “aware-ness of consequences” (AC) message,which included the reason for the ruleand the negative consequences to theresource or other visitors of not obeyingthe rule, but no mention of a sanction.They found that AC participants weresignificantly more likely to indicate thatthey would obey the rule than partici-pants who did not receive this message.

Widner and Roggenbuck (2000)tested the effectiveness of three inter-ventions designed to reduce theft ofpetrified wood at Petrified Forest Na-tional Park. They found that there wasno significant difference in effective-ness among a signed pledge, an on-site ranger, and “a theory-based,

well-written, and well-designed inter-pretive sign.” The interpretive sign wasas effective as the on-site ranger at afraction of the cost. The interpretivemessage reduced resource degradationsignificantly over the previous signthat simply read “Removal of petrifiedwood is prohibited.”

Although not universally agreed on(McAvoy and Dustin 1983; Schindlerand Shelby 1993), the idea that indi-rect or nonregulatory management ispreferred to direct or regulatory man-agement of wilderness visitors is never-theless widely accepted (McCool andChristensen 1996). One of the problemswith using the threat of sanctions in wil-derness is that they likely decrease thevisitor’s sense of behavioral freedom, anoutcome long accepted as important tomost wilderness visitors. As effective assanctions can be, wilderness experiencesmay be diminished by threatened sanc-tions. Interpretive messages may bemore appropriate in situations wherethe threat of a sanction is either notwarranted or otherwise consideredcontrary to the desired experience.This study examined the effectiveness

Figure 1—Campfire interpretation sign seen by subjects in slide presentation.


of interpretive messages as an alterna-tive to sanction messages for wilder-ness visitor management.

MethodsQuestionnaires were completed by atotal of 237 participants randomly as-signed to one of three treatments: con-trol (no message), sanction message,or interpretive message. The partici-pants were college students from up-per division and graduate classes innatural resources and other classes. Atotal of 12 presentations occurred(four for each treatment type) averag-ing about 20 participants each, at twouniversities, one in a rural setting andone in an urban area.

All participants viewed slides of ahypothetical wilderness outing. To thecontrol groups the researcher presented17 slides with images they would en-counter on a typical wilderness trip. Forexample, the first slide was of a trailhead;then a trail starting up a mountain; thena group of backpackers; then a scenic

view; then a campsite, and so on. Thesanction and interpretation participantsviewed four additional slides of mes-sages on signs, interspersed in the se-ries of slides (sanction participantsviewed sanction messages; interpreta-tion participants viewed interpretivemessages).

After viewing the slides, all partici-pants completed a written question-naire. Four scenarios were presentedin the questionnaire. The scenarioscorrelated to the topic of the sanctionor interpretive messages in the slidepresentations (firewood collection,human waste disposal, cultural arti-facts, and food scraps disposal).

All participants responded to the fourscenarios by indicating, on a scale from0% to 100%, the likelihood that theywould perform each of three differentbehaviors in response to that scenario.One of these behaviors was the desir-able or preferable behavior (from themanager’s perspective); the others wereincorrect or less desirable behaviors.

ResultsThe order of the message slides wasrotated among the four groups in eachtreatment. An analysis of differencesin behavioral intention scores (thedependent measure) among thegroups within each treatment revealedthat order of message slides was insig-nificant, with only six statistically sig-nificant differences (Tukey’s HSD,p<0.05) out of 216 possible pairwisecomparisons (3 responses/scenario x4 scenarios x 3 treatments x 6 pairwisecomparisons/treatment).

An examination of differences acrossthe three treatments on each of the 12intended behavior responses (4 sce-narios x 3 responses each) revealed 4of the 12 intended behavior responsesshowed no significant difference acrossthe three treatments. Eight responsesshowed a significant difference betweenat least two of the three treatments(Table 1). For all eight of these re-sponses, the control group (no mes-sage) differed significantly from boththe interpretation and sanction messagetreatments. In only one instance wasthere a significant difference betweenthe sanction and interpretation messagetreatments. In that case, the interpreta-tion message was significantly moreeffective than the sanction message (i.e.,it elicited a higher probability of par-ticipants intending to perform the de-sired behavior).

Looking just at the undesired behav-iors, each of the four scenarios had atleast one response (and in scenarios 3and 4, both responses), for which anymessage (sanction or interpretive) de-creased the likelihood that a personwould perform that incorrect behavior.Looking just at the desired behaviors,for two of the scenarios (firewood col-lection and food scraps), any message(sanction or interpretive) increased thelikelihood that a person would performthe desired behavior. In summary, for

Figure 2—Campfire sanction sign seen by subjects in slide presentation.

Providing the reasons for a regulation is almostalways more effective than simply stating the rule.


Table 1—Mean Scores for Intended Behavior Responses to Scenarios with Scores on a 0–100 ScaleRepresenting the Probability of Subject Performing a Behavior. Scenario Responses that Represent the

Desired Behavior for Each Scenario are Labeled.

Intended Behavior Control Group Sanction Interpretation F ratioResponses to Treatment Treatmentthe Scenarios

HUMAN WASTE DISPOSAL

1/1 24a 12b 14b 4.46*

1/2 (desired behavior) 76a 78a 81a 0.74

1/3 32a 23a 23a 2.02

CULTURAL ARTIFACT REMOVAL

2/1 (desired behavior) 70a 73a 79a 2.06

2/2 25a 17b 9b 6.96**

2/3 40a 32a 28a 2.57

CAMPFIRE APPROPRIATENESS

3/1 51a 37b 26b 8.94**

3/2 62a 50b 42b 5.91**

3/3 (desired behavior) 49a 62b 77c 12.93**

FOOD SCRAP DISPOSAL

4/1 (desired behavior) 47a 65b 67b 6.88**

4/2 42a 25b 24b 7.85**

4/3 48a 28b 21b 13.46**

a,b,c mean values with different superscripts are significantly different based on Tukey’s Honestly Significant Difference test at a = .05.*F ratio significant at a = .05. **F ratio significant at a = .01

all four of the scenarios, the interpre-tive message was at least as effective asthe sanction message, and in one sce-nario (firewood collection), the interpre-tive message was more effective than thesanction message.

Finally, participants’ scores for thefour desired behaviors were summed,as were their scores for the eight un-desired behaviors. This allowed us toexamine the effect of the three treat-ments on composite desired and un-desired intended behaviors. Thisanalysis mediates the effects that theindividual scenarios might have, be-cause certain scenarios may be more

realistic or more compelling than oth-ers. For the desired behaviors, anymessage (sanction or interpretive) wassignificantly more effective than nomessage at increasing the probabilityof participants performing the desiredbehavior. For the undesired behaviors,any message (sanction or interpretive)was significantly more effective thanno message at decreasing the probabil-ity of participants performing the un-desired behavior. For both the desiredand undesired intended behaviors, theinterpretive and sanction messageswere equally effective (i.e., there wasno significant difference).

DiscussionThese results are consistent with thefindings of Gramann et al. (1995);participants exposed to an interpretiveor “awareness of consequences” (AC)message were more likely to indicatethat they would obey the rule (or per-form the desired behavior) than par-ticipants not given any message.Gramann et al. found that sanctionmessages were somewhat more effec-tive than AC messages at increasing theintentions to obey the rules, but thisstudy found interpretive messages tobe as effective as sanction messages.The explanation may lie in the subtle


difference between AC messages and“interpretive” messages. Equally plau-sible is that differences may simply bean artifact of the different populationsand/or the different scenarios and in-tended behaviors studied.

In this study, the firewood collectioninterpretive message was the only onethat was more effective than its corre-sponding sanction message. It is pos-sible that this scenario was more realisticor more compelling; it may have reso-nated more with participants than theother scenarios, or the interpretive mes-sage itself may have made the difference.

The dependent measure in thisstudy was purposely limited to behav-ioral intention in response to an im-mediate scenario. Though speculative,exposing wilderness visitors to inter-pretive messages may have other ef-fects, perhaps even more likely and/or more beneficial than influencing abehavioral intention on an immediatescenario. For example, Christensenand Dustin (1989) suggested that in-terpretive messages tailored to levelsof moral development could ulti-mately increase a visitor’s ethical un-derstanding of his or her responsibilitytoward resources. Also, exposure tointerpretive rather than sanction mes-sages may affect how visitors perceivethe managing agency. Might wilder-ness visitors exposed to interpretivemessages view the managing agencymore favorably than those exposed tosanction messages?

This study presented interpretivesigns in the wilderness, viewed by par-ticipants as they proceeded on a hypo-thetical wilderness outing. This raisesthe question of whether interpretivesigns are appropriate in designated wil-derness. Nothing in the Wilderness Actappears to preclude interpretation.National Park Service (NPS) Director’sOrder 41 on Wilderness Preservationand Management (NPS 1999) statesthat guided interpretive walks may beconducted in wilderness so long as theyare in accordance with day use limitsprescribed in the park’s WildernessManagement Plan. If interpretive walksare permissible in designated wilder-ness, perhaps interpretive signs are notinappropriate. However, the NPS(2001) Management Policies also state(section 6.3.10.4 ) that “Signs detractfrom the wilderness character of an areaand make the imprint of man and man-agement more noticeable. Only thosesigns necessary for visitor safety or toprotect wilderness resources, such asthose identifying routes and distances,will be permitted.” To the extent thatthe purpose of the interpretive sign isto protect wilderness resources, it maybe appropriate. However, perhaps suchsigns are more appropriate at wilder-ness portals, rather than inside wilder-ness boundaries.

Would interpretive signs attrailheads be effective? McCool andCole (2000) examined visitors’ atten-tion to low-impact messages placed on

wilderness trailhead bulletin boardsand found that only 64% of visitorsstopped at the bulletin board, and only70% of those stopping attended to themessages placed there. For those visi-tors who did attend to the messages,there was a significant positive rela-tionship between average attentiontime per message and message com-prehension, and between messagecomprehension and knowledge.

Visitors who stopped at wildernesstrailheads to look at low-impact mes-sages with various appeals (the appealsencouraged visitors to stop and readthe messages) attended to those mes-sages for an average of 52 seconds(Cole 1998). Including an appeal in-creased attention time by 88% over aprevious study (Cole et al. 1997) withno such appeal. Cole (1998) notedthat deciding whether to pay attentionto a message appears to be differentfrom deciding how much attention togive to a message, and listed severalattention-gaining techniques. Al-though not tested in this research, wesuggest that presenting information inan interpretive fashion (made interest-ing and relevant) may increase the like-lihood of gaining and holding visitors’attention to messages.

The ways that people respond tomessages are complex, influenced bya great many variables. This study ex-amined one such variable, the inter-pretive versus sanction nature of themessage itself. The interpretive mes-sages were as effective as the sanctionmessages. This is significant becauseinterpretive messages may be more“wilderness experience appropriate”than sanction messages for managingwilderness visitors. This study did nottest actual (observed or self-reported)wilderness visitor behavior. But if oneaccepts the premise that interpretivesigns are more appropriate for wilder-ness than signs that threaten sanctions,

Interpretive communication may be personal or …impersonal … , and may use images, analogies,metaphors, or stories to explain the significance ofnatural resources or cultural events, or to present therationale behind management policies or regulations.


then the results of this experimentsuggest a next step of conducting afield experiment similar to that of Cole(1998). Observation or visitor self-re-ports of behavior could be used tocompare the effectiveness of interpre-tive signs with that of sanction and/orother traditional minimum-impactmessages at gaining behavioral com-pliance with managers’ low impactrecommendations.

REFERENCESChristensen, H. H., and D. L Dustin. 1989.

Reaching recreationists at different levels ofmoral development. Journal of Park andRecreation Administration 7(4): 72–80.

Cole, D. N. 1998. Written appeals for atten-tion to low impact messages on wildernesstrailside bulletin boards: Experimental evalu-ations of effectiveness. Journal of Park andRecreation Administration 16(1): 65–79.

Cole, D. N., T. P. Hammond, and S. F. McCool.1997. Information quantity and communi-cation effectiveness: Low impact messageson wilderness trailside bulletin boards. Lei-sure Sciences 19: 59–72.

Dame, V. D. 1985. The role and responsibilityof interpretation as a function in total parkoperation. Trends 22(4): 2–7.

Gramann, J. H., R. L. Bonifield, and Y. Kim.1995. Effect of personality and situationalfactors on intentions to obey rules in out-door recreation areas. Journal of LeisureResearch 27(4): 326–343.

Ham, S. H. 1992. Environmental Interpretation:A Practical Guide for People with Big Ideasand Small Budgets. Golden, Colo.: NorthAmerican Press.

Johnson D. R., and T. C. Swearingen. 1992. Theeffectiveness of selected trailside sign texts indeterring off-trail hiking at Paradise Meadow,Mount Rainier National Park. In H. H.Christensen, D. R. Johnson, and M. H. Brooks,eds., Vandalism: Research, Prevention, andSocial Policy. Gen. Tech. Report PNW-GTR-293.Portland, Ore.: USDA Forest Service, PacificNorthwest Research Station, p. 121–131.

Knudson, D. M., T. T. Cable, and L. Beck.1995. Interpretation of Cultural and Natu-ral Resources. State College, PA: VenturePublishing.

Martin, D. C. 1992. The effect of three signsand a brochure on visitors’ removal of pum-ice at Mount St. Helens. In H. H. Christensen,D. R. Johnson, and M. H. Brooks, eds., Van-dalism: Research, Prevention, and SocialPolicy, Gen. Tech. Report PNW-GTR-293.Portland, Ore.: USDA Forest Service, PacificNorthwest Research Station, p. 104–119.

McAvoy, L. H., and D. L. Dustin. 1983. Indirectversus direct regulation of recreation behav-ior. Journal of Park and Recreation Admin-istration 1: 12–17.

McCool, S. F., and N. A. Christensen. 1996.Alleviating congestion in parks and recre-ation areas through direct management ofvisitor behavior. In D. W. Lime, ed. Crowd-ing and Congestion in the National ParkSystem: Guidelines for Management andResearch. MAES Misc. Pub. 86-1996. St.Paul, Minn.: Department of Forest Resourcesand Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Sta-tion, University of Minnesota.

McCool, S. F., and D. N. Cole. 2000. Commu-nicating minimum impact behavior withtrailside bulletin boards: Visitor characteris-tics associated with effectiveness. In D. N.Cole, S. F. McCool, W. T. Borrie, and J.O’Laughlin, comps. Wilderness Science ina Time of Change Conference—Volume 4:

Wilderness Visitors, Experiences, and Visi-tor Management; May 23–27, 1999;Missoula, MT. Proceedings RMRS-P-15-VOL-4. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agricul-ture, Forest Service, Rocky MountainResearch Station, p. 208–216.

National Park Service. 1999. Director’s Order41: Wilderness Preservation and Manage-ment. Effective date August 3, 1999; Sunsetdate August 2, 2003.

National Park Service. 2001. NPS ManagementPolices, 6.3.10.4: Wilderness ResourceManagement, Management Facilities, Signs.

Oliver, S. S., J. W. Roggenbuck, and A. E.Watson. 1985. Education to reduce impactsin forest campgrounds. Journal of Forestry83(4): 234–236.

Schindler, B., and B. Shelby. 1993. Regulatingwilderness use: An investigation of user groupsupport. Journal of Forestry 91: 41–44.

Tilden, F. 1967. Interpreting our heritage, revised ed.Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Vander Stoep, G. A., and J. H. Gramann. 1987.The effect of verbal appeals and incentiveson depreciative behavior among youthfulpark visitors. Journal of Leisure Research9(2): 69–83.

Widner, C. J., and J. Roggenbuck. 2000. Re-ducing theft of petrified wood at PetrifiedForest National Park. Journal of InterpretiveResearch 5(1): 1–18.

GARRETT DUNCAN is a recreationplanner for EDAW Inc., an environmentalplanning firm in San Francisco, CA; e-mailis [email protected]. STEVEN MARTINis professor of Natural Resources Recre-ation in the Environmental and NaturalResource Sciences Department at HumboldtState University, Arcata, CA; e-mail [email protected].


Wilderness information on the World Wide Web(www) has grown from the equivalent of electronic brochures into interactive information

resources that together provide a wide range of useful in-formation. In 1996, Freimund and Queen argued that masscommunication could have a profound effect on develop-ing a wilderness constituency and culture. After reviewingmany wilderness-related websites on the World Wide Web,they called for an integrated online strategy to facilitate com-munication across the Internet, leading to the creation ofthe Wilderness Information Network (www.wilderness.net).Today, with over 5,000 hits per day, the website is a popu-lar source of wilderness information.

Wilderness.net is not the only Internet source for wilder-ness information. In this article, we re-examine the presenceof wilderness on the WWW to identify which sites are beingused, and their purpose, mission, audience, and financialsupport. Websites specific to the concept of wilderness are

dominated by U.S. organizations. The term protected areas isbetter suited to find the sites of the major global organiza-tions that influence the conservation of wilderness. Althoughthere are many good sites on the web, it is still a challenge tofind the relevant information on a topic at a global or re-gional level. Search results also suggest that the technicalnetwork developing around these terms wilderness and pro-tected areas remain separate. We suggest the development ofa global clearinghouse that approaches the global supply ofinformation about wilderness and protected areas from theuser perspective rather than the addenda of the organiza-tions that are producing the information.

Searching for Wilderness onthe World Wide WebIt is no surprise that the resources on the WWW have prolif-erated at an amazing rate. Human behavior, on the other hand,has not dramatically changed and most Web visitors are onlywilling to scan a couple of pages of results from a search whenseeking information. Given the increasingly commercializeduse of the Web, webmasters have become increasingly savvyon techniques to improve the chance of being rated towardthe top of a search. In other words, the sites that appear at thetop of a search engine do not necessarily reflect the popularityof the site—only their accessibility.

To address these issues, researchers at Stanford Univer-sity have developed Google.com. Google uses a rating sys-tem that is based on the number of times a site is linked toand the popularity of the sites doing the linking. For ex-ample, the Wilderness.Net site rates very high because it islinked to by many well-established wilderness organiza-tions or agencies. Likewise, it provides links to other sites

EDUCATION and COMMUNICATION

InternationalWilderness-Related Websites

Current Status and Suggested Direction

BY CHARLES BESANCON and WAYNE FREIMUND

Article co-authors Charles Besancon (left) and Wayne Freimund.


that are highly used and rated. Googlehas remained detached from the in-fluence of advertising or other com-mercial interests to provide a site thathas a research tool with high integrity.Thus, an internet search on Google,while not perfect, often returns a setof discrete sites that are specificallyrelated to the topic and are often used.

SearchingWilderness SitesOur first search using Google.com wassimply on the word wilderness. The topsite returned was from The WildernessSociety. The second was Wilderness.Net.The next two sites were not related towilderness as a land designation. Theremainder of the sites in the top ten in-cluded non-American sites in the Wil-derness Society of Australia, and theCanadian Park and Wilderness Society.Also represented were the SouthernUtah Wilderness Alliance, WildernessInquiry, the Chicago Wilderness page,and the Wild Wilderness home page.In total, the top ten included the Na-tional Wilderness Preservation System(via Wilderness.Net), six advocacy or-ganizations, with two of those beingnon-United States, an adventure travelorganization, and two sites unrelated towilderness as a land use.

To add context to these initial re-sults, we searched on the words Inter-national Wilderness. The first siteretrieved was the WILD Foundation,followed by International Journal ofWilderness, Wilderness.Net, The Wil-derness Society’s global page, SunriseExpeditions to Arctic Canada, theWord of Life Fellowship InternationalWilderness Ministries, InternationalWilderness First Aid, North CarolinaOutward Bound, and the ListeningPoint Foundation. Again, the top re-sults were dominated by U.S. organi-zations that represent a wide varietyof interests in wilderness.

Protected Areas SearchesRecognizing that many of the largeinternational organizations in wilder-ness conservation did not surface nearthe top of these searches, we broad-ened our lexicon from wilderness toprotected areas in subsequent searchesand accessed a very different set of re-sults. At the top of the list was the ar-ray of resources offered by The WorldConservation Union (IUCN) WorldCommission on Protected Areas; theMarine Protected Areas site providedby the National Oceanic & Atmo-spheric Association (NOAA); UnitedNations Environmental Program(UNEP)—World Conservation Moni-toring Centre; the Protected AreasConservation Trust of Belize, CentralAmerica; and the Science and Manage-ment of Protected Areas Association,which is based in eastern Canada.Searching on the term protected areasresulted in a more global result andincluded sites dedicated to the marineenvironment.

A Review ofSelected Protected Areaand Wilderness WebsitesTo better understand the design andrange of content now available on theWeb, we reviewed selected sites chosenon the basis of the large amount of in-formation found there and the relativeimportance of the organization or coa-lition to protected-area and wildernessissues. The sites reviewed here repre-sent the best global websites the authorscould find for detailed informationabout protected areas and wilderness.The specific websites listed should notbe considered the only resources avail-able or the best. They simply reflect sitesthat ranked highly using the Googlesearch engine and some we discoveredby following links on other websites.The sites selected for review were the

World Commission on Protected Areas(WCPA), Wilderness.Net, World Heri-tage Information Network (WHIN),EarthTrends from World Resources In-stitute, and the UNEP World Conser-vation Monitoring Centre (WCMC).

As a first step in our review, we triedto answer the following questions:what is the mission of the sponsoringorganization, what is the function ofthe site, how is the site organized, whois/are the audience(s), who funds theorganization/website, and finally, howcan we categorize the site?

The World Commission on Pro-tected Areas site (http://wcpa.iucn.org)is sponsored by the World Commis-sion on Protected Areas (WCPA), partof the IUCN. The mission of the com-mission is to “promote the establish-ment and effective management of aworld-wide representative network ofterrestrial and marine protected areas,as an integral contribution to theIUCN mission.” The audience for the

Figure 1—Programs like Earth Trends and World ConservationMonitoring contain valuable website information.


site is members of WCPA and includesmany documents for download includ-ing guidelines for creating and manag-ing protected areas, funding them, andevaluating the effectiveness of manage-ment. This site details plans for in-creased interactivity, but currently it isan online brochure for WCPA.

The Wilderness.Net site (www.wilderness.net) is sponsored by theWilderness Institute at the Universityof Montana, and the four federal agen-cies that manage designated wilder-ness in the United States. The missionof the site is to “heighten the wilder-ness dialog worldwide.” The contentof the site is organized by areas includ-ing education, research, and the Na-tional Wilderness Preservation System.Audiences include managers, scien-tists, educators, students, legislators,and the general public. Many interac-tive features can be found here includ-ing a library of full-text research

publications, lesson plans for studentsand teachers about wilderness, wilder-ness news, and discussion forums.

The World Heritage InformationNetwork (WHIN) site (www.unep-wcmc.org/whin/index.html) is spon-sored by the World HeritageConvention by the United NationsEducational, Scientific and CulturalOrganization (UNESCO). The missionof the site is to act as “a clearing-housefor information about the natural andcultural sites identified as being of ‘out-standing universal value’ and inscribedon the World Heritage List by the In-tergovernmental World Heritage Com-mittee.” The clearing-house is set upas a searchable index of partnerwebsites that house information aboutWorld Heritage sites. Interactive fea-tures on the site include the ability toadd your resource to the searchableindex of World Heritage sites andsearch other partner sites.

The Earth Trends site (http://earthtrends.wri.org) is sponsored bythe World Resources Institute and is“an environmental think tank that goesbeyond research to find practical waysto protect the earth and improvepeople’s lives,” and it acts as an envi-ronmental information access portal.The content is organized aroundthemes including coastal and marineecosystems, climate and atmosphere,and biodiversity and protected areas,and so forth. For each theme, there isa searchable database, data tables,country profiles, maps, and features.

As part of the United Nations En-vironment Program, the World Con-servation Monitoring Centre(WCMC) site (www.unep-wcmc.org)includes many interactive featuressuch as databases and online mapping,as well as many Web pages withsupporting information. The contentis organized around resources, habitats,

Table 1—Protected Area and Wilderness Website Summary

General Resources Interactivity CommunityBuilding

Program and Website

World Commission on Protected Areas X X X(wcpa.iucn.org)

Wilderness.Net (www.wilderness.net) X X X X X X X

World Heritage Information Network X X X X(www.unep-wcmc.org/whin/index.html)

EarthTrends from World Resources X X X X X XInstitute (earthtrends.wri.org)

World Conservation Monitoring X X X X X X X XCentre (www.unep-wcmc.org)

Dow

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dabl

e D

ocum

ents

List

serv

s, E

-mai

l New

s

Link

s to

Ext

erna

l Site

s

Onl

ine

Map

s

Mul

tiple

Lan

guag

es

Sear

ch E

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e

Sear

chab

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ases

Inte

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Map

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Dis

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species, regions, climate change, pro-tected areas, conventions, and agree-ments. This site also hosts theProtected Areas Virtual Library, a da-tabase of information about all areasthat meet the guidelines put forth bythe IUCN in 1994, and includes a dis-claimer explaining the database limi-tations and plans for the future. Theinteractive maps on this site are of highquality and utilize the latest in onlinemap browser technology.

DiscussionAll of the websites reviewed contain agreat deal of information, and mostutilize search engines enabling websitevisitors to quickly find what they arelooking for on various topics (Table 1).The intended audiences for these sitesrange from the organization membersto those that host very specialized con-tent for technical audiences. EarthTrends and Wilderness.Net containinformation for many different audi-ences. Two of the sites listed offer theadded feature of Web pages and docu-ments in languages other than English.

Three of the sites have interactiveresources that help to build commu-nity among website visitors (i.e.,Wilderness.Net, EarthTrends, andWCMC). These community-buildingresources include discussion forums,listservs, and news delivered throughe-mail. Other types of interactive re-sources were online databases andgeographic mapping engines.

In general, we found good re-sources and information on many top-ics. However, the fact that so manyresources exist creates in itself a searchproblem when searching for specificinformation and there is no librarianto help. For example, there seems tobe two very discrete set of results when

using Google to search for wildernessand protected areas. While the termwilderness is used primarily in theUnited States and in some other areasin the world, the recognized lexiconfor the global arena favors the termprotected areas.

Toward a Strategyof Protected AreaInformation CoordinationThe libraries of documents on these sitesreflect the affiliations and work beingconducted by the host organizations.Although the content is often excellentand in many cases is supplemented byWeb links to other organizations withsimilar content, the burden of respon-sibility for finding good information ison the website visitor. What is missingis a coherent searchable global resourceor some other form of organized guideto the topics of wilderness and protectedareas on the Internet. The WHIN projectcomes the closest to making this need areality, at least for World Heritage sites.By collecting information about WorldHeritage resources on the Internet, andindexing those sites, the WHIN projectallows Web visitors to search many hun-dreds of external Web pages and docu-ments through one interface.

A coherent searchable global re-source could take resources from anycontent source, gather those resourcesin one location, and organize the con-tent based on content type, audience,and level of intended specificity. In ad-dition, such a resource could help to

simplify and indeed blur the lines be-tween the institutions and organiza-tions that produced the information.This is especially important to thosewho may not be familiar with all ofthe jargon inherent in any complexconcept like protected areas.

The current challenge is to developan efficient structure for the manytypes of wilderness or protected areawebsites that exist. Such a structurecould organize and add value to indi-vidual sites. The need is there to pro-vide a more efficient resource that willbe visitor centered and contribute tothe global community that is alreadyengaged in the conservation of wilder-ness and protected areas worldwide.We recommend the development of aglobal clearinghouse that approachesthe global supply of information aboutwilderness and protected areas fromthe user perspective rather than theagenda of the organizations that areproducing the information.

REFERENCESFreimund, W. and L. Queen, 1996. Wilderness

@ Internet–Enhancing the potential forwilderness electronic communication. Inter-national Journal of Wilderness 2(1): 33–36.

CHARLES BESANCON is the webmasterfor wilderness.net at the WildernessInstitute, University of Montana, Missoula,e-mail: [email protected] FREIMUND is the webmaster forIJW and the Arkwright Associate Professorof Wilderness Studies and Director of theWilderness Institute, University of Montana,Missoula, e-mail: [email protected].

The term protected areas is better suited to find thesites of the major global organizations that influencethe conservation of wilderness.


IntroductionOver the last four decades, the number of programs offeringan opportunity for students to participate in outdoor educa-tion experiences has increased substantially. The popularityof these programs has been attributed to factors such as theirability to foster self-esteem, leadership skills, and environ-mental values in students compared to more traditional aca-

demic experiences (Kellert1998). Moreover, our increas-ingly urban and populated soci-ety provides fewer opportunitiesfor young people to experienceunpolluted and undevelopednatural settings. Participating inoutdoor education activities pro-vides a venue to fulfill this need(Kellert 1998). The concurrentincrease in popularity of outdoorand adventure recreation activi-ties such as backpacking, rockclimbing, and mountaineering

(ORCA 1993; Ewert and Hollenhorst 1997) has undoubt-edly influenced this trend, because many outdoor organiza-tions utilize these activities as essential components of theirprograms to foster personal growth (Abbott 1995).

Numerous studies have been conducted in an effort tocharacterize the overall consequences of outdoor educa-tion experiences, with most studies indicating that these ex-periences can have a substantial impact on participants acrossa wide range of physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritualfactors (e.g., Ewert 1989; Kellert 1998). The most extensive,

recent work was conducted by Kellert (1998) in a study ofthree well-established, national outdoor education programs:National Outdoor Leadership School, Outward Bound, andStudent Conservation Association. In this work, students re-ported that the course experience provided a positive impacton many factors including skill attainment, personal growth,and environmental awareness. These trends were similar acrossthe organizations studied, although some student-reportedoutcomes were different across the three programs.

The National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) wasestablished in 1965 as a program to achieve specific educa-tional objectives in an outdoor recreation setting. AlthoughNOLS courses vary in length, geographic setting, andspecific outdoor skills taught, the overall educationalobjectives are largely consistent across the program. Theseobjectives include:

1. providing opportunities for leadership development;2. effectively teaching minimum-impact wilderness travel

skills; and3. maintaining successful group dynamics in challenging

situations (NOLS 1999).

Several recent research studies have examined various aspectsof the NOLS student experience and program effectiveness.In one study, overall self-efficacy (a self-reported index thatmeasured student perceptions of their ability to perform cer-tain tasks expressed out of 100%) increased from 48%precourse to 82% immediately after, with males being ini-tially significantly higher (53%) than females (41%) (Koesler1994, 1995). Postcourse, no gender differences were observed,indicating that female student’s self-efficacy increased more

EDUCATION and COMMUNICATION

Evaluating Student Satisfactionin Wilderness Education Courses

An example from theNational Outdoor Leadership School

BY CHRISTOPHER MONZ

Article author Christopher Monz.


dramatically than males. Hammitt(1995) investigated changes in NOLSstudents’ behaviors, intentions, and at-titudes as they pertain to the environ-ment and found a significant increasein responsible environmental behaviorafter a course experience. An investiga-tion of the effectiveness of the NOLSeducational model for female studentsreported a high degree of program sat-isfaction and highlighted the impor-tance of female field instructors as rolemodels (Tyson and Koesler 1996). In-vestigations into precourse physical andemotional preparedness of students re-vealed that the most successful stu-dents were athletically oriented withlittle or no history of psychologicaltreatment or counseling (Monz andSchimelpfenig 1997).

Satisfaction is an important measurethat can aid in monitoring the qualityof the services offered and provide in-formation as to whether specific educa-tional goals are being achieved.Participant and visitor satisfaction hasbeen an important variable in the studyof outdoor and wilderness recreationbehavior (e.g., Kuss et al. 1990; Cole etal. 1995) and is regarded as a goal forvisitor management by U.S. land man-agement agencies. Williams andNikerson (1987) reported a high degreeof participant satisfaction in NOLScourses with some small differencesamong course types. Satisfaction wasalso found to be higher among studentswho engaged in additional physical ex-ercise in preparation for their course.Outward Bound has collected satisfac-tion data since 1989, and recent analy-sis of 1997 data showed that 94% ofstudents report that “they benefited fromthe experience,” 86% report that thecourse was “an investment in their fu-ture,” and 95% report improvement inoutdoor skills (Sakofs 1998).

This report examines wilderness-based outdoor education course offerings

from a student satisfaction perspective.The educational mission of NOLS andcurrent program priorities offer the op-portunity to examine the reliability ofthe established student satisfaction mea-surement instrument. This study is anexamination of overall student satisfac-tion in NOLS courses and tests the hy-potheses that the student’s gender andtype of course completed can affect stu-dent satisfaction.

MethodsA questionnaire was administered to allstudents completing NOLS coursesduring the spring and summer seasonsin 1998. Students were surveyed at allNOLS branch schools located in theAlaska, Rocky Mountains, PacificNorthwest region of the U.S.; and in-ternationally in Western Canada, Chile,and Kenya. The survey was adminis-tered by NOLS personnel during thestandard course debriefing period, af-ter students returned from the field, re-turned all equipment, and were meetingwith staff members to review and dis-cuss the course. An effort was made toallow every student the opportunity torespond; however, several courses wereaccidentally overlooked, yielding acourse compliance rate of 90%. Coursesare conducted in a variety of locations,and four basic types of experiences areoffered: hiking courses with an empha-sis on general backpacking and camp-ing skills; mountain courses that focuson mountaineering and rock climbingskills; water environment courses thatemphasize kayaking and canoeing skills;and multienvironment, semester-lengthcourses that are taught in multiple set-tings. Students rated their satisfactionusing a six-point scale (strongly agree =6, agree = 5, mildly agree = 4, neutral =3, mildly disagree = 2, disagree = 1,strongly disagree = 0.) on 18 questionsincluding the level of precourse service,skill attainment, level of respect from

students and staff, and ability to leadwilderness trips following coursecompletion. Students were asked to ratetheir overall satisfaction and whetherthey would recommend a NOLS courseto a friend. A total of 1,187 useable ques-tionnaires were completed and analyzedfrom 90% of the courses in 1998.

Data processing and statisticalanalyses were performed with SPSSstatistical software. Factor analysis uti-lized a principal components analysis(PCA) approach with a varimax rota-tion and tests of scale reliability. Vari-ables with loadings less than 0.4 wereeliminated for ease of interpretationand factors were retained if the eigen-value was equal to or greater than 1.0.ANOVA and t tests were performedusing standard statistical methods.

Figure 1—NOLS students are challenged to improve theirwilderness and technical skills. Photo courtesy of NOLS.

Figure 2—NOLS courses provide students with a wide variety ofchallenges and new experiences and information. Photo courtesyof NOLS.


ResultsThe entire survey of 18 questions wasanalyzed with an exploratory factoranalysis, resulting in a reduction of thedata into six factors (Table 1). The sixfactors explained 61% of the variationin the data. Of the 6 factors identified,4 were readily interpretable as educa-tional concepts at NOLS: Factor 1—precourse attention from admissionspersonnel; Factor 2—feelings of respectfrom fellow students and instructors;Factor 3—learning wilderness skills; andFactor 4—overall satisfaction. These fourfactors account for 12 out of the 18 NOLSsurvey items, with the remaining six items

being unassociated with any interpret-able factor: expectations, safety, in-townstaff, environment, ability to lead, andteaching strategy. Reliability analysis offour scales (Table 1) revealed that theywere reliable (Cronbach alpha ≥ 0.60).

The effect of the type of NOLS courseon student satisfaction is shown in Table2. Overall, students report a high de-gree of satisfaction. Reported averagesatisfaction with precourse attention wassignificantly lower on mountain environ-ment courses (4.09) compared to the hik-ing, water-based, and multienvironmentcourses (4.65, 4.80, and 4.62, respec-tively). Students reported a significantly

higher average satisfaction with learn-ing wilderness skills on multi-environment courses (5.62), but also asignificantly lower feeling of respect(5.17) as compared to the other coursetypes. No statistically significant differ-ences in overall satisfaction were foundamong the four course types.

Female students reported higher sat-isfaction than male students for severalfactors. For precourse attention, femalestudents scored significantly higher onaverage (4.74) than males (4.56, t =2.95, p <0.05). Females also reported asignificantly higher overall average satis-faction (5.43, t = 2.44, p <0.05) thanmales (5.32) and females rated learningwilderness skills higher (5.63, t = 3.99,p <0.05) than males (5.51). No statisti-cally significant differences were reportedin average student feelings of respect be-tween females (5.28) and males (5.27).

DiscussionStudent satisfaction is an importantgoal for outdoor programs, particu-larly given the arduous nature of theactivities, remote surroundings, andchallenging group dynamics of thecourse settings. Creating an environ-ment where students are comfortableand feel safe is particularly crucial tothe attainment of educational goals.

Williams and Nikerson (1987) ad-dressed two dimensions of the studentexperience by measuring overall satis-faction as an index of the quality of therecreational experience and helpfulnessof the course as an index of the attain-ment of educational goals. Studentsoverall reported a high degree of satis-faction (7.6 to 8.3 on a 9-point scale)across all course types, and a high degreeof course helpfulness (6.3 to 7.9). Themost comparable results in this studywould be the overall satisfaction factor,and it indicates a high degree of satis-faction with NOLS courses in 1998 (5.28to 5.41 on a 6-point scale) (Williams and

Table 1—Factor analysis and reliability results, and mean scores for12 of 18 survey items in 1998 NOLS courses.

Rotated Factor Mean Item Total Cronbach’sFactors and Survey Items Loadings Scores Correlation Alpha

Precourse attention .62Precourse service .843 4.70 .45Precourse info .770 4.55 .45

Feelings of respect .73Respect (students) .571 5.13 .40Respect (instructors) .792 5.33 .56Receptiveness .795 5.35 .55

Learning Wilderness skills .71Leadership skills .479 5.43 .44Wilderness skills .774 5.69 .58Navigational skills .801 5.62 .58Technical skills .623 5.48 .40

Overall satisfaction .77Satisfied with education .670 5.49 .57Recommend to friend .803 5.63 .68Would take another course .785 4.99 .50

Table 2—A Comparison of Reported Mean Factor Ratings forFour Types of NOLS Courses in 1998.

Course Type (mean value)1

Factors Hiking Water-based Mountain Multi-environment

Precourse attention 4.65a 4.80a 4.09b 4.62a

Learning wilderness skills 5.49b 5.34b 5.33b 5.62a

Feelings of respect 5.54a 5.39a 5.38ab 5.17b

Overall satisfaction 5.41 5.28 5.22 5.381 Course type group means followed by different letters are significantly different at p≤ 0.05 using theScheffe’ multiple comparisons test.


Nikerson 1987). Overall satisfaction didnot differ significantly with course typein this study, and this trend is similar toprevious work where little differenceamong course types was observed.

Students on multienvironment (se-mester-long) courses reported highersatisfaction with learning wildernessskills compared to other course types.These courses offer a long period in thefield (90 days) as compared to the stan-dard 30-day experience with the otherNOLS course types. In the longercourses, students have more of an oppor-tunity to practice basic wilderness skillssuch as navigation, and the opportunityto learn a variety of setting-dependentskills, such as mountaineering,kayaking, and skiing. These results in-dicate that perhaps these courses offerthe opportunity for students to gain ahigher level of proficiency in overalloutdoor skills. In contrast, students inthe same courses have the lowest feel-ings of respect. Possibly, students arefeeling tired toward the end of thesecourses, as it is a long period to remainenthusiastic about the rigors of the fieldexperience with a group of peers and,as a consequence, feelings of respectmay be slightly diminished.

Student ratings on precourse atten-tion were the lowest on mountaincourses and lower than other NOLScourse scores. This suggests the need tobetter prepare students for their experi-ence, especially on mountain environ-ment courses, which can be particularlydemanding, especially in the remoteareas where NOLS teaches these coursessuch as Alaska and Patagonia.

Higher ratings by females for theconcept of learning wilderness skills issupported somewhat by previous re-search. Koesler (1994) reported a higherdegree of skill attainment (in terms ofself-efficacy) for females than for males.Therefore, females may be more satis-fied with their overall satisfaction as re-

ported in our 1998 study. There wereno differences in feelings of respect be-tween genders, and this suggests thatoverall, female students feel equally welltreated as males by their instructors andfellow students. These results supportprevious findings (Tyson and Koesler1996) of a high degree of program sat-isfaction overall by female participants.

Students reported a high degree of sat-isfaction overall, and satisfaction withlearning wilderness skills is highest onmultienvironment courses. This is an im-portant finding to outdoor programs asit suggests that the longer and more di-verse course experiences may be moredesirable if skill proficiency training is aprimary objective. Future researchshould examine courses of varying lengthin the field to determine the relationshipbetween time in the field, course curricu-lum, and reported satisfaction on learn-ing skills. The current NOLS survey is areliable instrument for concepts exam-ined, but several important componentsof the NOLS educational mission, suchas leadership, should be included infuture assessments.

AcknowledgementsThis study was supported by the Re-search Program at the National OutdoorLeadership School with assistance fromSharon Kehoe and Debbie Derbish.

REFERENCESAbbott, K. S. 1995. Outward Bound and wil-

derness. International Journal of Wilderness1(1): 21–24.

Cole, D. N., A. E. Watson, and J. W.Roggrnbuck. 1995. Trends in visitors andvisits: Boundary waters canoe area, shiningrock and desolation wildernesses. USDA

Forest Service Research Paper. INT-463.Ewert, A. W. 1989. Outdoor adventure pursuits:

Foundations, models and theories. Scottsdale,Ariz.: Publishing Horizons, Inc.

Ewert A. W. and S. J. Hollenhorst. 1997. Ad-venture education and its implications forwilderness. International Journal of Wilder-ness 3(2): 21–26.

Hammitt, J. P. 1995. Responsible environmen-tal behavior: Metaphoric transference ofminimum-impact ideology. Master’s thesis,Montana State University.

Kellert, S. R. 1998. A national study of outdoorwilderness experience. Unpublished report.New Haven, Conn.: Yale University.

Koesler, R. 1994. Factors influencing leadershipdevelopment in wilderness education. Ph.D.thesis, Michigan State University.

Koesler, R. 1995. Forging a new understandingof leadership in wilderness education. Parksand Recreation (July): 12–18.

Kuss, F. R., A. R. Graefe, and J. J. Vaske. 1990.Visitor Impact Management: Vol. 1, A Reviewof Research. Washington, D.C.: National Parksand Conservation Association.

Monz, C. A., and T. Schimelpfenig. 1997. Ananalysis of the medical review process at theNational Outdoor Leadership School. Wilder-ness and Environmental Medicine 8: 138–147.

National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS).1999. Catalog of course offerings. Lander,Wyo.: NOLS.

Outdoor Retailers Coalition of America (ORCA).1993. Human powered outdoor recreation:state of the industry report. Boulder, Colo.

Sakofs, M. 1998. The results of the 1997 end-of course questionnaire. Unpublished reportOutward Bound. Garrison, NY.

Tyson, B., and R. Koesler. 1996. Effective learningenvironments for women: An analysis ofgender distinctions at the National OutdoorLeadership School. Unpublished report.Lander, Wyo.: NOLS.

Williams, D. R., and N. Nikerson. 1987. Mea-suring satisfaction of National Outdoor Lead-ership School (NOLS) students. Unpublishedreport. Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah.

CHRISTOPHER MONZ is a faculty memberat Sterling College, Craftsbury Common,Vermont 05827. E-mail:[email protected].

Overall satisfaction did not differ significantly withcourse type in this study, and this trend is similar toprevious work where little difference among coursetypes was observed.


IntroductionAlthough the word wilderness is not familiar to the Japa-nese people, the Japanese concept of wilderness can be seenin its view of nature. The Japanese view of nature has helpedto develop the Japanese sense of values, ethics, and aes-thetics of unifying Japanese life with nature. This articledescribes the Japanese wilderness and the Japanese view ofnature as affected by geography and culture and discussesfuture issues of development.

At the present time,Since I could bring no offering,

See Mount Tamuke!Here are brocades of red leaves,

As a tribute to the gods.(Kanke, Circa 845–903)

Many old Japanese songs, called tanka, tell us how closea relationship with nature the ancient Japanese people hadand how they enjoyed life blessed by nature in those days.The ancient Japanese people seemed to have dialogues aboutnature. From these songs, we see a sensitivity to naturethat the modern Japanese may have lost, just as they havelost much of their natural environment. There is a move-

ment in Japan of people whoare trying to revive this tradi-tional Japanese view of nature.For example, the InternationalResearch Center for JapaneseStudy conducted research in1990 and 1991 regarding theJapanese indigenous view ofnature from the Jomon Period(10000 B.C to 400 B.C) to thepresent, which involved consid-ering the viewpoints of history,

ethnology, literary, and comparative culture. This researchsuggested reconsidering the relationship between people andnature (Ito 1995). As one’s view of nature influences one’sbehavior toward the natural environment, reflecting on tradi-tional views may bring about a new approach for future de-velopment of a relationship between humans and nature.

The Traditional Japanese View of NatureOriginally, there was no word corresponding to “nature” inthe Japanese language. The reason the Japanese did nothave the concept of nature as a separate term is that natureand people’s lives were unified. Nature had existed as itselfand did not include any concept that implied the oppositemeaning of artificiality (Momokawa 1995). The word na-ture was translated into Japanese as shizen borrowed from aChinese word from the 19th century. However, shizen en-compassed several definitions that originated differentlyfrom the Japanese view of nature. Therefore, comparisonwith the Western view of nature is often used in order toreveal the Japanese view (Tsukahara 1984; Umehara 1995).A view of nature may be clarified by examining the twocommon types of relationship between nature and humans:(1) humans as a part of nature, such as in the Japanese orEastern view of nature; and (2) humans as separate fromnature, such as in the Western view of nature. Although ananimistic view originated in many societies, factors like ge-ography, climate, and history led to different types of rela-tionships with nature in each society (Tsukahara 1984).

Geographic and Climatic Influenceon View of NatureThe reason for these different views is often explained as ageographic artifact (Yasuda 1997; Suzuki 1998). The West-ern view of nature, which reflected the Judeo-Christian tradi-tion, was born in the desert areas of the Middle East. Due to

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

Finding the Voiceof Japanese Wilderness

BY AYA HAYASHI

Article author Aya Hayashi and friend. Photocourtesy of Aya Hayashi.


the severe climate, the people who livedthere looked at nature as harsh and sepa-rated nature from humans in order tosurvive. In this environment, the peoplecarefully observed the rules of nature,and that is said to have been the start ofnatural science. They began to controlthe natural environment using new sci-entific knowledge that they had gainedthrough their observation of the natu-ral environment. They used the rawmaterials available for development.This raw material was supposedly givenby God with the stipulation that peoplewould have dominion over their envi-ronment and should modify it to theirneeds (Tsukahara 1984).

The Japanese view of nature wasborn in a less harsh environment ofmountains and forests. Even today, 67%of Japan is mountain, forests, or fields(National Land Agency 1998), and theclimate is affected by monsoon seasons.For ancient Japanese people, in thisenvironment, nature was a mysteriousand powerful place, and people devel-oped effective methods for living in har-mony with it. People realized thateverything is ephemeral in the circula-tion of life, and they aimed for unifica-tion with all animate beings. They didnot have ideas of “managing” nature(Gloy and Ishida 1994). The Japanesewere awed by nature, saw divinities innatural beings, and believed that naturewould retaliate if it were not treated withrespect. This belief and attitude still ex-ists today within the spiritual structureand religions of the Japanese people(National Parks Association of Japan1996). This awe of nature has uninten-tionally benefited conservation.

Suzuki (1998) suggested that unify-ing with nature can be better realizedin forests. In deserts, such unity maymean death due to the severe environ-ment. Therefore, the relationship be-tween people and nature evolveddifferently in each environment. In my

Figure 2—Waterfalls at Sandankyo Valley in the mountains nearHiroshima, Japan. Photo courtesy of Aya Hayashi.

Figure 1—Small shelters are built in the forest as a place to appreciate nature. Photocourtesy of Aya Hayashi.

personal experience,when I went on a solowilderness trip througha desert area of theUnited States, I had a to-tally different experiencethan when I did a solotrip in a Japanese forest.I felt awe and familiarityin assimilating myselfinto nature in Japaneseforests. However, whenI was in the desert in theUnited States, I was over-whelmed by the magnifi-cence and felt isolatedfrom nature. It was a very valuable op-portunity to directly experience differ-ent types of wilderness and imagine thevarying influences of each.

The Effect of the JapaneseReligion and CultureThe traditional Japanese view of naturecan be found in Japanese religions andcustoms. Shinto is the Japanese tradi-tional religion based on an ancientJapanese philosophy that is an animis-tic ethnic belief with influences fromBuddhism and Confucianism. The maindoctrine of Shinto is the worship ofnature and the ancestors. In this phi-losophy, the Gods, called Kami, live ev-erywhere, especially in pristine nature;humans are able to live by receivingblessings from nature. This pantheisticbelief has developed from the basic Japa-nese way of thinking rather than from areligious doctrine. Today, some of thesetraditional customs remain in daily life.For example, before eating a meal weput our hands together in prayer, andsay “Itadaki-masu,” which signifies anappreciation for the cook, farmers,Kami, ancestors, environment, and ev-erything that went into the productionand preparation of the food. Food sym-bolizes a kind of blessing from nature.The Japanese view of nature and the

concept of wilderness came from thesegeographic and religious contexts.

The Concept of theJapanese Wilderness in theTraditional View of NatureIt is difficult to understand the mean-ing of wilderness for Japanese peoplebecause the concept of wilderness doesnot clearly exist in Japan. There are some


words that are used as a translation ofwilderness, but these words do not cor-respond closely to the original mean-ing in English. The word wilderness isnot usually translated into Japanese andis used for wilderness education or re-lated topics. In conversation, words re-lated to nature, such as mountains,forests, or sea, sometimes imply not onlyactual geographic areas, but also themeaning of wilderness.

The Mountain Belief, an ancient Japa-nese belief, might be a similar conceptto the Western view of wilderness. Mostmountains in Japan are covered by for-ests, and there are many Shinto shrines

and Buddhist templesin the mountains.Mountains are the placewhere Gods live and towhich the souls of deadpeople climb. Moun-tains represented amodel of the universewith high altitude andopen places often hav-ing names associatedwith heaven; valleys, es-pecially volcanic land-forms, often called hell;

and the rivers between them connect-ing both worlds. People expected theirpersonalities to develop through receiv-ing the grace of God in mountains(Yamaori and Ohmori 1999). In histori-cal literature, some mountains and Kamiwere given a high status, by the Impe-rial Court of ancient Japan, to show theirrelationship with people’s life (Koizumi2001). A sect of Buddhism calledShugendo developed out of these be-liefs. Shugendo placed an emphasis oncommunication with nature, and itstraining was very strict, taking place inremote mountains. Certain parts ofmountains, such as the summits, were

treated as sanctuaries for religious rea-sons. Ito (2000) explained that in thosedays the Japanese people tried to desig-nate these places as wilderness by sepa-rating them from other places becausethere was little wilderness, in the West-ern sense, in remote areas of Japan be-cause of the small amount of land.

The Contemporary Viewof NatureJapanese society has accepted scienceand technology from Western culture.As a result, people have become sepa-rated from nature and only value na-ture for the benefits that can be gained.Tsukahara (1984) pointed out that theawe toward nature in the traditionalJapanese view has decreased and thecontemporary view of nature is basedboth on superiority over nature anddependence on nature. Today, manyJapanese people develop a view ofnature without directly experiencingthe historic and traditional relation-ship with nature. Some people say thatthe spiritual foundation of Japanesepeople is in danger, and that it isdoubtful that the modern concept ofnature will lead to the developmentof the relationship between humansand nature as a culture resource.

Some problems have been reportedabout the modern view of nature in Ja-pan. For example, Tsukahara (1984)claimed that contemporary Japanesepeople lack responsibility for nature;whereas, the people in the United Statesdeveloped a system of nature conserva-tion. Sato (1996) mentioned that theJapanese have been so spoiled by na-ture that they still believe nature canaccept anything and purify it. Miyauchi(1997) suggested that the Japaneseshould recognize that the damage fromscientific technology is often beyond theability of nature to correct, and theyshould seek new approaches utilizingthe traditional view of nature.

Table 1—The Area of Designed Parks in Japan in 1999(Japanese Ministry of Environment 2001).

Designed Parks Number Area (ha) Proportion ofNational Land (%)

National Parks 28 2,046,508 5.4

Quasi-National Parks 55 1,343,181 3.5

Local Natural Parks 307 1,957,360 5.2

TOTAL 390 5,347,049 14.2

Table 2—The Area Designed for Conservation in Japan in 2000(Japanese Ministry of Environment 2001).

Conservation Area Number Area (ha) Proportion ofNational Land (%)

Wilderness Area 5 5,631 0.02

Natural Conservation Area 10 21,593 0.06

Local Conservation Area 524 73,739 0.20

Figure 3—The Mitaki Temple near Hiroshima, Japan is for the gods who live in nature.Photo courtesy of Aya Hayashi.


Japanese WildernessManagementJapan’s National Parks Law, enacted in1931 and rewritten in 1957, aims toconserve scenic areas and their ecosys-tems; to promote their utilization; andto contribute to the health, recreationand environmental education of theJapanese people (Table 1). The NatureConservation Law was enacted in 1972for the purpose of designating and con-serving the natural environment, wil-derness areas, nature conservation areas,and prefectural nature conservation ar-eas in Japan (Table 2). The Nature Con-servation Law followed the model of theU.S. Wilderness Act of 1964. Ito (2000)has criticized the Nature ConservationLaw because it mostly values conserva-tion of valuable natural environmentsand neglects recreation use for its in-trinsic value.

The National Parks Law and theNature Conservation Law do not workwell in some natural areas because ofvery complicated management sys-tems. Only the wilderness areas desig-nated by the Nature Conservation Law(Table 2) could be called wildernesswith approximately the same meaningas wilderness areas defined by theWorld Wilderness Congress.

ConclusionThe concept of wilderness and the Japa-nese view of nature have been influencedby geographic artifact and history. East-ern and Western concepts have devel-oped independently according to uniquesocial and cultural features. Each culturehas developed its own approach to envi-ronmental issues to fit its own conceptof nature. For example, the United Stateshas sophisticated systems and techniquesfor resource management. Likewise, theJapanese view of nature may be usefulfor considering the management of therelationship between people and nature.If we are able to listen to the voice ofnature as the ancient Japanese did, wecan find what is really needed for natureas well as people, in terms of building aharmonious relationship, not only in sci-entific ways, but also in humane waysfor mutual understanding. In wilderness,we may be able to give people opportu-nities to assimilate nature and listen to

its voice, which, hopefully,will become the beginningof building a new relation-ship with nature.

REFERENCESGloy, K., and M. Ishida (trans.)

1994. Nature in westernand eastern understand-ings, Journal of Human Sci-ences and Arts Faculty ofIntegrated Arts and Sci-ences, The University ofTokushima 1: 20–47.

Ito, S., ed. 1995. The JapaneseView of Nature. Tokyo:Kawaide Shobo.

I to, T. 2000. Wilderness depending on the relation

with roads. National Parks 589: 6–12.Japanese Ministry of Environment. 2001. The

Area of Designed Parks in Japan (1999).www.biodic.go.jp/jpark/jpark.html.

Kanke. Circa 845–903. In T. Fujiwara, ed.1235. One Hundred Poems from One Hun-dred Poets. Translated by The University ofVirginia, University of Pittsburgh JapaneseText Initiative (http://etext.virginia.edu/japanese/index.html)

Koizumi, T. 2001. The Birth of Mountaineering:Why Do People Climb Mountains? Tokyo:Chuoh Kouron Shinsha.

Miyauchi, T. 1997. Japanese view of nature andnature conservation issue. Comparative Phi-losophy Study 23: 23–25.

Momokawa, T. 1995. The view of nature forscholar of antient Japanese thought andculture. In S. Ito, ed. The Japanese View ofNature. Tokyo, Japan: Kawaide Shobo.

National Land Agency. 1998. Current Land Usein Japan. www.mlit.go.jp/.

National Parks Association of Japan. 1996.Natural Parks and Nature ConservationSystem in Japan. Tokyo: National Parks As-sociation of Japan.

Sato, M. 1996. A critical thought of the harmo-nious view of nature: Comparison betweenEuropean style of thinking and Japanese styleof thinking. Modern Esprit 352: 72–82.

Suzuki, H. 1998. World view in forest. ForestCulture Association 19: 1–11.

Tsukahara, M. 1984. A study of view of natureand outdoor activities. The Bulletin of TokyoGakugei University, Part 5 Arts and Physi-cal Education 36: 175–182.

Umehara, T. 1995. View of the world in the ro-tation. In S. Ito, ed. The Japanese View ofNature. Tokyo: Kawaide Shobo.

Yamaori, T., and H. Ohmori. 1999. What is amountain to us: Japanese view of Nature andfour seasons. Yama to Keikoku 762: 58–61.

Yasuda, Y. 1997. The Civilization ProtectingForest, The Civilization Controlling Forest.Tokyo: PHP Kenkyujo.

AYA HAYASHI is a Ph.D. student at IndianaUniversity, Department of Recreation andPark Administration, Bloomington, Indiana;e-mail: [email protected].

In wilderness, we may be able to give peopleopportunities to assimilate nature and listen to itsvoice, which, hopefully, will become the beginningof building a new relationship with nature.

Figure 4—Japanese children learn to develop a relationship with naturenear Miyagi, Japan. Photo courtesy of Aya Hayashi.


IntroductionThis article examines the effect of technological develop-ments over the last 30 years on the experience of walkersin wilderness areas. My assumption is that one key aspectof the wilderness experience is the absence of awareness ofmodern technological society. I assume that self-reliance isan important component of the wilderness experience, butI do not consider that self-reliance extends to not wantingto seek the best available assistance as quickly as possibleshould an emergency occur.

My thesis is that the decision on how to use, or not use,any of this high-technology personal equipment is the deci-sion of the individual user, and it is predominantly theirpersonal experience which is affected, and that only to alimited extent. Some of the real threats to the wildernessexperience are an ever-increasing number of users, associ-ated increased management inputs, and increasing commer-cialization of wilderness use. These are more subtle in their

effect and much harder to avoid.This article is an essay on the

subject of technology and wil-derness; it is intended to pro-voke debate and is based largelyon my personal experience of 30years of backcountry walking,primarily in Tasmania, Austra-lia, with particular reference tothe Overland Track, which hasbeen Tasmania’s most popularlong-distance (5 days) walkingtrack since the 1930s. In addi-tion to my personal experienceas a walker, I have been increas-

ingly involved in recreation management issues since themid-1980s, and have worked for seven years as a planningofficer for the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service. Mymaster’s thesis in 1991 was on “Management of Bushwalkingin the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area”. How-ever, the views expressed in this article are mine alone andshould not be taken as representing those of the Parks andWildlife Service.

Technological DevelopmentsPersonal equipment includes rucksacks, tents, sleepingbags, sleeping mats, clothing, cooking stoves, food, andalmost all the small items that one carries on a wildernesswalking trip. I will not examine each in detail, but the ef-fect of technological developments in all of these items hasbeen more functional equipment that increases comfort andreduces the weight to be carried. This can have the effect ofeither making short-easy trips more comfortable or mak-ing long-hard trips more feasible.

Global Positioning Systems (GPS) tell the users theirlocation with an accuracy of a few meters and work un-der almost any outdoor conditions except very densetree cover. They usually feature other computational gim-micks to supposedly aid navigation. I have carried a GPSon my wilderness trips for about five years, since theybecame affordable and sufficiently small and lightweight.I regard it as a very useful aid to navigation, but I use itrarely and have never been lost. On most trips I wouldnever take it out of my rucksack, but it can be very use-ful to be sure exactly where you are (e.g., in thick mist).GPS equipment does not remove the need to understanda map because the walker who does not understand map

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

New Technologyand the Future of

the Wilderness ExperienceBY NICK SAWYER

Article author Nick Sawyer.


symbols and relies only on the bear-ing from his or her GPS to guide himor her to the next “waypoint” acrossrugged, untracked terrain will en-counter problems. The GPS equip-ment does “deskill” a person inoff-track navigation because you canalways find out your exact location;without a GPS, fixing your positioncan be difficult in good conditionsand impossible in bad conditions.GPS units are almost irrelevant toon-track walking where most walk-ers spend most of their time andwhere the required navigation skillsare similar to reading a road map.

What is the difference in principlebetween using a compass to aid navi-gation and using a GPS? Both are ar-tificial aids to navigation. One wasinvented over 500 years ago, theother within my adult lifetime, but ifthe wilderness purist is going to ar-gue that wilderness users shouldnavigate without technological aids,they should give up their compassand accept that they cannot orientatethemselves when the sun or the starsare obscured. I suggest that a fargreater threat to the sense of “explo-ration” or adventure in a wildernesstrip is the availability of ever moredetailed maps and information.

Emergency Position Indicator RadioBeacon (EPIRB) equipment can beused to summon help quickly in anemergency and are sufficiently smalland lightweight to be feasible to carryon extended wilderness walking trips.A satellite first detects the signal andindicates the approximate (100-kilo-meter or 60-mile radius) location tothe search authorities. The search he-licopter can then use the radio bea-con to locate the EPIRB positionexactly. The use of EPIRBs in wilder-ness areas in Tasmania is strongly en-couraged by the authorities.

There have been suggestions thatEPIRBs discourage self-reliance, encour-age frivolous calls for help, or encour-age ill-equipped parties to attempt tripsthat are beyond their ability, knowingthat they can easily summon assistanceif they get into difficulties. I do not doubtthat there have been examples of bothof these abuses of EPIRBs, but I am notaware of any data that suggest that suchabuse is widespread. My guess is thatthe vast majority of EPIRBs are carriedby responsible wilderness users who willuse the equipment as an additional safetyfactor should an emergency occur.

The most obvious practical disad-vantage of EPIRBs is an increase inrisk to the rescuer in some circum-stances because the EPIRB signalgives no indication of the nature ofthe emergency. Does the caller havelife-threatening injuries that requireimmediate assistance, or do theysimply require evacuation when con-venient? There have been cases of therescue helicopter making a hazard-ous trip in darkness or bad weatherto retrieve a casualty with a twistedankle who was in no immediate dan-ger or even discomfort; their onlyproblem being that they were unableto walk out to civilization withoutassistance.

I do not believe that responsible useof EPIRBs or mobile phones to sum-mon help in an emergency compro-mises the wilderness experiencebecause I do not believe that peoplewould not want to be rescued if theyinjure themselves or fall ill in a remotearea—I know that I do, and the soonerthe better! Remember that the alterna-tive is that some other person(s) wouldneed to get out to civilization as fast aspossible, and this may be hazardous initself to those summoning help.

Satellite and cell phones couldpossibly set the definition of a wil-

derness area as those areas “beyondcell phone coverage,” although thisis now becoming less relevant withthe availability of lightweight andaffordable satellite phones that al-low communication from anywherewith a clear view of the sky. Themost obvious reason for carryingthis equipment is safety becausethey go one step beyond the EPIRBand eliminate the “search” from“search and rescue.” In the event ofan accident, you can talk directlyto the rescue authorities, tell themwhere you are and what the prob-lem is, and get medical advice whilewaiting for help to arrive, or tell therescue authorities that the situationdoes not demand immediate assis-tance and the helicopter crew doesnot need to risk their lives in foulweather. Anything that reduces theneed for extensive searches for over-

Figure 1—The author using his satellite phone in the TasmanianWilderness World Heritage Area. Is carrying a satellite phone asensible safety precaution or an insidious intrusion into thewilderness experience? Photo courtesy of Nick Sawyer.


due walkers is very beneficial, notjust for the rescue authorities, butalso for the wilderness experienceof other users of the area, becausemajor search operations can bringlarge numbers of people and heli-copter activity into a remote area foran extended period.

The potential effect of carrying aphone depends on how you use it.Most wilderness users would agreethat use of a mobile phone in the wil-derness just to keep in touch with themodern world is a major intrusioninto the wilderness experience, butfor some people this is the price theyhave to pay for being able to get awayinto the wilderness at all. For ex-ample, family or business responsi-bilities may require a daily phone callto reassure or check for emergencies.If the phone is kept purely as a de-vice for summoning assistance inemergencies it will rarely be used, andthe effect on the user’s wildernessexperience is essentially nil becauseit is carried just for the knowledgethat help can be summoned quicklyin an emergency.

Radio receivers and personal stereoshave been available to carry on ex-tended walking trips since their in-

vention. Assuming that these are usedresponsibly (e.g., headphones) so thatthey do not annoy others (a separateissue) these affect only the user. A ra-dio can, assuming adequate recep-tion, be a reminder of the outsideworld (e.g., news broadcasts, cricketscores), and it can also bring usefulinformation such as weather forecaststhat can change plans for a wilder-ness trip and reduce personal relianceon observing the weather pattern.Unlike the phone, which can be rea-sonably carried for emergency useonly, a radio receiver can only serveto diminish the wilderness experi-ence, although it could be argued thatforewarning of really bad weatherserves a useful safety role. Personalstereos have appeared on the scenemore recently. However, used sensi-bly, is a personal stereo any differentin principle to the book that I usu-ally carry on extended trips?

Major Influencesin the Past 30 YearsEquipment like my rucksack isslightly lighter now than it was forthe same trip 30 years ago, and theequipment it contains will keep mesubstantially more comfortable forlonger periods. This will occasion-ally result in a trip continuing whenpreviously I would have turnedback, or not gone at all. Wildernesswalking is still essentially the sameas it ever was in Tasmania. It is stilla very physical activity conductedin intimate contact with the natu-ral environment. I still have to carrya substantial weight on my back. Istill get hot and sweaty in the sunand cold and damp in the rain, de-spite what some advertisements forhi-tech outdoor clothing may sug-gest. If I am a three-day walk fromthe end of the nearest road, then the

comforts of civilization are still thatfar away, even if my GPS will in-stantly tell me my location and mysatellite phone means that I have thepotential to contact family or emer-gency services immediately. Ichoose not to let the outside worldintrude during my wilderness tripsany more than necessary.

So what do I consider to be themajor changes during my walking life-time? Not any of the technical ad-vances discussed above, but ratherthree issues:

1. More wilderness management.Use of wilderness areas has increasedsubstantially since the early 1970s. Be-sides the obvious effect of increasingthe number of encounters with otherpeople in the wilderness, this inevita-bly increases the level of managementof these areas (e.g., repair of tracks andprovision of toilets are necessary toreduce the environmental impact ofusers) and intrudes on the wildernessexperience, no matter how sensitivelyit is done.

2. Increased quantity and qualityof information. When I first walkedthe Overland Track in 1973, it wasstill an adventure for walkers of lim-ited experience, there were relativelyfew other walkers around, and thetrip had elements of an adventureinto the unknown. We had to ac-tively seek out the very limited quan-tity of information that was available.The map showed a track and somehuts; a crudely copied note sheet andpersonal contacts confirmed thatthere was a distinct track for thewhole distance. Now there is achoice of readily available guide-books. The main guide to Tasmaniafor overseas backpackers promotesthe Overland Track as a “must do”experience. Plus there is the Parks

Figure 2—A hand-held Global Positioning System unit in use. Isthis a minor technological aid to wilderness navigation or amajor de-skilling of the wilderness user? Photo courtesy of NickSawyer.


and Wildlife Service literature, andinformation from many sources onthe Internet. The Parks and WildlifeService actively manages the experi-ence of walkers on the track, andmarkets the Overland Track as oneof the “great walks.” Walking theOverland Track is no longer a bigstep into the unknown.

In Tasmania, the effect of increasedinformation is even more noticeablewhen walkers venture off the major es-tablished tracks. In the 1960s therewas incomplete map coverage of theseareas at a scale of 1:100,000. Majorcliff lines might not show at all, andthe indicated vegetation cover waslittle better than guesswork. Vegetationcover was a major influence on the fea-sibility or otherwise of cross-countrywalking. By the mid 1990s the wholestate was covered by 1:25,000 mapsthat showed both topography andvegetation in far greater and more re-liable detail than previously available.

Planning new cross-country routes be-came dramatically easier.

3. Increased commercialization. Inthe early 1970s commercial (guided)walking opportunities were very lim-ited in Tasmania and elsewhere inAustralia and New Zealand. Commer-cial use of the Overland Track was atits lowest point with less than 3% ofthe users being clients on commercialtrips. Now guided walking opportu-nities abound and about 25% of walk-ers on the Overland Track are clientson commercial trips.

Very few walkers of my generationwould have started their backcountrywalking on a commercial trip, andthose who did so would soon have towork out how to do it themselves, be-cause so few commercial walking op-portunities were available. Most olderwalkers probably started in groups suchas scouts, or clubs where the main aim

was instructional to foster indepen-dence. By contrast, the main aim ofmost commercial trips is to make lifeas comfortable as possible for the cli-ents and not to instruct them. Willwalkers whose experience is confinedto such trips ever graduate to organiz-ing their own self-reliant trips, or willbackcountry walking remain forthem a consumer product to be pur-chased whenever they feel like achange of scene? What will this doto their attitude to the land? Manyindependent backcountry walkersbecome passionate advocates for thewildness of the land they use. Willthis sense of advocacy apply to cli-ents on commercial trips? Much re-search remains to be done. In thelong-term, this could be one of thebiggest threats to wilderness.

NICK SAWYER is a senior environmentalofficer for the Tasmanian Department ofPrimary Industries, Water and Environment;e-mail: [email protected].

areas. In this way, diverse experienceopportunities might be preserved.However, such regional planning re-quires site-specific information fromother areas as well. It is our hope that

additional research efforts of this kindwill help further understanding ofwilderness experiences and also pre-serve the value of a diverse wildernesssystem.

From ALDO LEOPOLD WILDERNESS RESEARCH INSTITUTE on page 19

BRIAN GLASPELL is a research assistant atthe Aldo Leopold Wilderness ResearchInstitute and a recent Ph.D. graduate in theSchool of Forestry at the University ofMontana. E-mail: [email protected].


WILDERNESS DIGEST

Wild Foundation andSierra Club Team Up onAfrican Wildlife ProtectionGrants ProgramThe Sierra Club has partnered with theWILD Foundation to implement theSierra Club’s African Wildlife Protec-tion Grants Program in Southern Af-rica. The program was designed tobuild community support among in-digenous communities and environ-mental decision makers for wildlifeprotection, particularly for large mam-mal protection in southern Africa. Inkeeping with the Sierra Club’s tradi-tion of involving local communitieswith environmental protection,WILD’s “hands-on” projects help cre-ate long-term solutions, which protectand sustain wilderness and wildlifewhile meeting the needs of indigenouscultures. More on the program can befound at www.sierraclub.org/beyondtheborders/africa/.

Wilderness Watch LaunchesWilderness GuardianWilderness Watch announced a newservice for 2002. The WildernessGuardian is a monthly online digestdedicated to providing up-to-date

news and information concerning wil-derness protection and stewardship inthe United States. The Guardian wascreated to help wilderness advocateskeep abreast of breaking news, as wellas providing contact information tofacilitate public participation. Under-standing the importance of limiting thee-mail arriving in your inbox the Guard-ian will be limited to once-a-month pub-lication, with no superfluous e-mail. Ifyou are interested in receiving the di-gest, please contact Hilary Wood [email protected], indicatingyour request in a brief note in the sub-ject heading of your letter.

Guidelines for MarineProtected Areas Publishedby IUCN/WCPA andCardiff UniversityThe World Conservation Union(IUCN), in partnership with CardiffUniversity, recently published a set ofguidelines for managing marine pro-tected areas. The publication is avail-able online at http://wcpa.iucn.org/pubs/publications.html. Other onlinepublications in the “Best Practices Pro-tected Area Guidelines” series include:• Guidelines for Marine Protected

Areas

Announcementsand Wilderness Calendar

COMPILED BY STEVE HOLLENHORST

Submit announcements and short news articles to STEVE HOLLENHORST, IJW Wilderness Digest editor. E-mail: [email protected].

• Indigenous and TraditionalPeoples and Protected Areas

• Evaluating Effectiveness—AFramework for Assessing the Man-agement of Protected Areas

• Mining Position Statement• Economic Values of Protected Areas• National System Planning for

Protected Areas• Guidelines for Protected Areas

Management Categories• Transboundary Protected Areas for

Peace and Co-operation

Lawsuit Seeks toProhibit Motorized VehicleTours in CumberlandIsland WildernessWashington, DC—Three conservationgroups filed a lawsuit in federal courtchallenging the National Park Service’s(NPS) decision to authorize motorizedvehicle tours in the Cumberland IslandWilderness. The suit, filed by Wilder-ness Watch, Defenders of WildCumberland and Public Employees forEnvironmental Responsibility, seeks tostop motorized tours in the Wildernessto protect the area’s primitive characterand to bring the NPS management ofthe area into compliance with the law.


Located off Georgia’s southeast coastjust north of the Florida border, the is-land is the largest undeveloped barrierisland on the eastern seaboard. Theentire island was designated as theCumberland Island National Seashorein 1972. Ten years later Congress des-ignated the 8,800-acre CumberlandIsland Wilderness at the north end, andthe entire Island was named an Inter-national Biosphere Reserve in 1984.The Island provides shelter for over 300species of birds and nesting sites for seaturtles, including the threatened logger-head sea turtle. The groups oppose thetours, citing that the Wilderness Actprohibits the use of motorized vehiclesin wilderness except in rare cases suchas emergencies. The suit also allegesthat the commercial nature of sometours violates the Wilderness Act’s limi-tation on commercial use. Althoughsome of the tours are operated by theNPS itself, the majority are conductedby Greyfield Inn, a private corporation.In both cases, the suit claims the NPSfailed to consider the environmentalimpacts of the tours or to elicit publicreview and comment.

World Heritage Committeeadds 31 sites toWorld Heritage ListThe 25th session of the United NationsEducational, Scientific and Cultural Or-ganization (UNESCO) World HeritageCommittee in a meeting held inHelsinki, Finland, in December 2001inscribed 31 new sites from 24 coun-tries on the World Heritage List. The 31new inscriptions included six naturalsites: the Brazilian Atlantic Islands andChapada dos Veadeiros and Emas Na-tional Parks (Brazil); Alejandro deHumboldt National Park (Cuba); TheSikhote-Alin mountain range (RussianFederation); The Jungfrau-Aletsch-Bietschhorn region (Switzerland), and

the Dorset and East Devon Coast (UnitedKingdom). Several natural sites alreadyon the World Heritage List were also ex-tended, including: the Galápagos Is-lands, Equador (extension to include themarine reserve); Lake Turkana NationalParks Kenya, (extension of the Sibiloi/Central Island National Parks to includeSouth Island National Park); and Volca-noes of Kamchatka, Russian Federation(extension to include Kluchevskoy Na-ture Park). The World Heritage List nownumbers 721 sites of outstanding uni-versal value in 124 countries, 554 ofwhich are cultural sites, 144 natural sites,and 23 mixed sites. More informationabout each site, along with the entireWorld Heritage List, can be reviewed atwww.unesco.org//whc/nwhc/pages/news/main2.htm.

“Linking WildernessResearch andManagement” SeriesAvailable Online from theAldo Leopold WildernessResearch InstituteThe Aldo Leopold Wilderness ResearchInstitute has developed a set of four an-notated reading lists in order to help landmanagers and others access scientific in-formation relevant to protecting and re-storing wilderness and similarlymanaged lands, as well as the myriad ofvalues associated with such lands. Thepublications are available online at http://leopold.wilderness .net/resapp.htm.

Titles to date include:Volume 1–Wilderness Fire Restora-

tion and ManagementVolume 2–Defining, Managing, and

Monitoring Wilderness Visitor Ex-periences

Volume 3–Recreation Fees in Wilder-ness and Other Public Lands

Volume 4–Understanding and Man-aging Invasive Plants In Wilderness

References in these reading lists havebeen categorized to draw attention to therelevance of each publication and thenorganized to provide a logical frameworkfor addressing the issue. Each volumebegins with references necessary to un-derstand the overall issue and then pro-vides references useful for identifyingmanagement goals, understanding influ-ences on those goals, and finally, for se-lecting and implementing managementapproaches.

UNESCO/UNEP ReleasesMountain CDIn tribute to the International Year ofMountains 2002, the United NationsEducational, Scientific and CulturalOrganization (UNESCO) has pro-duced a CD-ROM in collaborationwith the United Nations EnvironmentProgramme (UNEP)–World Conserva-tion Monitoring Centre. The CD-ROM, which includes an overview ofthe main UNESCO programs operat-ing in mountain regions, provides in-formation on mountain WorldHeritage Sites and Mountain BiosphereReserves. The information containedon the CD Rom is also available onlineat http://valhalla.unep-wcmc.org/unesco/index.htm

Judge RejectsLandowner’s Bid ToBuild Road Into Absaroka-Beartooth WildernessBillings, Montana—A federal judgehas rejected a landowner’s lawsuit torequire nearly nine miles of new roadconstruction to reach a private parcelof land deep within Montana’sAbsaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Area.In an April 2 ruling, U.S. MagistrateJudge Richard W. Anderson concludedthat existing trail and helicopter ac-cess to the landowner’s property was


adequate to permit use of the propertywhile preserving “the pristine and primi-tive nature of the wilderness.” “This rul-ing protects one of our nation’s mostoutstanding wilderness areas from amisguided road proposal, but it also rep-resents a victory for the entire wilder-ness system,” said Earth Justice attorneyTim Preso, who represented a coalitionof conservation groups in opposing thelandowner’s lawsuit. “The law does notrequire destruction of the public’s wil-derness every time somebody buysproperty within a wilderness area andwants to drive to it.” The court rulingwas in response to a lawsuit filed in De-cember 2000 by the Absaroka Trust, atrust established by Livingston residentJames Sievers. The Trust sought to over-turn a decision by the U.S. Forest Ser-vice denying a request to build a20-foot-wide gravel road through theAbsaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Area toaccess a 120-acre private inholding prop-erty consisting of former mining claims.The Forest Service estimated that 8.6 milesof new road would be required to reachthe property. The Trust sought the pro-posed road to log and mine the inholdingproperty, and to construct and operate ahunting and fishing lodge. In its lawsuit,the Trust asked the Court to order theForest Service to permit road construc-tion and to require the taxpayers to payall construction costs. The Court’s rulingrejected that request, finding that existingnonmotorized access to the property wasadequate under federal law.

Reprieve for ANWR:Arctic Drilling Rejectedby U.S. SenateThe U.S. Senate defeated a measure onApril 18 to allow oil exploration in theArctic National Wildlife Refuge(ANWR), killing what Republicans calla central part of President Bush’s plan

to revamp America’s energy policy. By avote of 46 to 54, senators not only failedto overcome a Democratic-led filibus-ter but also fell short of mustering the51 votes needed to argue that the ma-jority of the Senate supports drilling inANWR. Eight Republicans abandonedBush and joined with most Democratsin rejecting drilling in ANWR. “Thereare other, more feasible options for …reducing national foreign oil depen-dence,” said Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I.Although drilling in ANWR passed theHouse and, therefore, will still be partof the House–Senate negotiations overenergy reform legislation, the vote onApril 18 makes it unlikely to pass theSenate at any point. Conservationgroups have vowed to introduce wilder-ness legislation for ANWR.

IJW Solicits Nominationsfor the Keith CorrigallWilderness StewardshipAwardThe International Journal of Wildernesssolicits nominations for the “KeithCorrigall Excellence in WildernessStewardship” award to honor personswhose efforts to protect and managewilderness are worthy of special recog-nition. The award honors the late KeithCorrigall, who was wilderness branchchief for the Bureau of Land Manage-ment during that agency’s formativeyears of their wilderness program fromthe mid 1980’s to mid 1990’s.

Keith was a strong leader and advo-cate for wilderness education, protectionof wilderness and wilderness study ar-eas, low impact use of all public landsand wilderness skills training. His influ-ence extended beyond BLM to all thewilderness agencies, universities, andenvironmental organizations. Keith’squiet determination, passion and highstandards for wilderness and all resource

management provided leadership andmentoring to all his colleagues and co-operators. Rarely outspoken, he set anoutstanding example of dependability,vision and professionalism that charteddirection and fostered cooperation.

The “Keith Corrigal Award for Ex-cellence in Wilderness Stewardship” isgiven annually to an individual or teamof persons whose efforts to protect and/or steward wilderness is worthy of spe-cial recognition. Nominees may be pro-fessionals or citizens involved inwilderness work. Nominations are so-licited until August 30 each year for theannual award. Submit a 500 word state-ment and seconding letter to: SteveHollenhorst, IJW Digest editor, IJWCorrigal Award [[email protected]]describing why the award is deserved,with complete snail mail, e-mail andtelephone contact information for thenominee(s) and the person(s) makingthe nomination.

Protected AreaManagement TrainingSeminarThe University of Montana, ColoradoState University, and the University ofIdaho, in collaboration with the U.S. For-est Service International Programs Office,will again deliver the International Semi-nar on Protected Area Management Au-gust 8–24, 2002. Participants will discussand see examples of innovative ap-proaches to critical protected area man-agement issues, including resourceassessment and planning tools, tech-niques to address visitor interests andimpacts, and mechanisms to reconcileresource protection with developmentpressures. For further information, pleasevisit www.fs.fed.us/global/is/ispam/welcome.htm or contact Dr. James A.Burchfield by phone at 1-406-243-6650or by e-mail, [email protected].


WILDERNESS DIGEST

Dear IJW,The BLM and Student ConservationAssociation (SCA) California Primi-tive Skills Team is honored to receivethe first Keith Corrigall WildernessStewardship Award sponsored by theInternational Journal of Wilderness andthe WILD Foundation. Keith was awonderful mentor, and we all thinkhe would have been proud of thework being carried out by the BLM/SCA Primitive Skills Team.

We in the wilderness managementagencies spend most of our time anddollars defending wilderness bound-aries from illegal uses, dealing withusers, or completing compliancedocuments and plans. And when wedo undertake on-the-ground work,agencies too often use the excusethat the work cannot be done with-

Letters to the Editor

out the use of motorized equipmentor vehicles (because of cost and con-venience). The Primitive Skills Teamis proving that we can do on-the-ground work and that we can useprimitive skills and tools, and oftenfor less cost to the government thanusing motorized equipment. Theseyoung adults in the SCA are doingwith primitive skills what we oncethought could only be accomplishedby motorized means.

But the most important feature ofthe Primitive Skills Team is that theyare experiencing wilderness areas anda wilderness ethic. My hope is thatthis will lead to a cadre of future wil-derness managers steeped in how touse primitive skills for wildernessprotection.

My long-term goal is to establish aninteragency Primitive Skills Center inthe Desert Southwest to expand thenumber of teams and primitive skillsexpertise. These teams could then bemade available to help wilderness man-agers complete more on-the-groundrestoration work whenever and wher-ever it’s needed. We need to protect andenhance the values of wilderness, andour future depends on giving youngadults opportunities such as this!

Thank you for honoring the workof the BLM/SCA Primitive Skills team.

Sincerely,

Paul BrinkBLM California Wilderness [email protected]

The BLM/SCA Primitive Skills Team building barricades to exclude vehicles from wilderness.

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Dear IJW,Please allow me to alert IJW readers tothe fact that northwest Pennsylvania’sAllegheny National Forest (ANF) willformally begin the public process ofrevising their Land and Resource Man-agement Plan (LRMP) this October,providing an important opportunity toadvocate new federal wilderness des-ignation in the Forest. The LRMP is a10–15-year document that dictatesmanagement direction for the entireANF that is Pennsylvania’s sole na-tional forest.

The ANF has been one of theUnited States’ most heavily utilizednational forest areas since occupationby European settlers began in earnestin the mid-19th century. Today, Penn-sylvania is significantly under-represented in terms of landdesignated as wilderness under the1964 Wilderness Act (which waschampioned by Howard Zahniser, anative of Tionesta, Pennsylvania, lo-cated on the southwest boundary ofthe ANF). The existing Hickory Creekand Allegheny Islands wilderness ar-eas total approximately 3,617 hectares,or less than 2% of the 207,617-hect-are ANF. The mean for national for-est land designated as wildernessnationally is 18%. The current LRMPfor the Allegheny states that “It must

be concluded that the demand for wil-derness experience on the ANF is veryhigh, given that half the country’spopulation lies within a day’s drive ofthe Forest. … It seems obvious thatthe demand for wilderness designationon the Forest is high, and the avail-able supply in the regional area is low.”

Pennsylvania Senators Hugh Scottand Richard Schweiker strongly ad-vocated for ANF wilderness duringthe Eastern Wilderness Areas Act(EWAA) debate in 1974. Unfortu-nately, Congressman Albert Johnson,who represented the region at thetime, blocked inclusion for the ANFin the EWAA when the bill reachedthe U.S. House of Representatives. Atleast five parcels retaining significantwilderness attributes exist in the ANF.These potential additions to the Na-tional Wilderness Preservation Sys-tem could total as much as 16,000hectares depending on final bound-ary placement.

Friends of Allegheny Wilderness isleading a campaign to complete theunfinished business begun by Sena-tors Scott and Schweiker to preservein perpetuity significant representa-tions of the Allegheny Plateau forest.Of particular note is our effort to gainwilderness protection for a 1,670-

hectare tract of hemlock-beech old-growth in the upper reaches of theTionesta Creek drainage known as theTionesta Scenic and Research NaturalAreas (Johnson, N.L. 2001. A proposalfor Tionesta wilderness designation inthe Allegheny National Forest, Penn-sylvania, USA. Natural Areas Journal21: 338–345).

To get involved in the public pro-cess of LRMP revision, write to: KevinElliott, Supervisor, Allegheny NationalForest, 222 Liberty Street, Warren, PA,16365. It is vital that the Forest Servicereceive recommendations in theearliest stages of the revision processso that wilderness will be incorpo-rated in their LRMP “need for change”documentation.

For more information on wilder-ness potential in the ANF, please con-tact Friends of Allegheny Wildernessat the following address.

Sincerely,

Kirk JohnsonExecutive DirectorFriends of Allegheny Wilderness220 Center StreetWarren, PA [email protected]


Edward Abbey: A LifeBy James M. Calahan.2001. University of Arizona Press,Tuscon. 357 pp., $27.95 (cloth).

You know someone has reached iconstatus when half the population labelyou the devil incarnate, and the otherhalf a national hero. Such is often thereaction to Edward Abbey, whoseMonkey Wrench Gang and Earth First!escapades would no doubt be labeled“environmental terrorism” in today’spolitical climate, but who is also rec-ognized by many as one of the mostinfluential environmental writers andactivists of the 20th century.

James Calahan’s biography of Ed-ward Abbey indicates how complex hewas, and how his life was riddled withcontradictions. It is easy to admireAbbey’s commitment to wilderness,especially his beloved desert land-scapes in the American Southwest, andthe quality and uniqueness of his writ-ing style when describing these areas;Desert Solitude alone is one of the mostinfluential “nature” books ever writ-ten. Yet it is equally hard to understandAbbey’s sexist attitudes towards

women (he had five wives, includingan 18-year-old wife when he was 47,and rarely practiced monogamy) or hisinability to practice what he preached:in his own words, “I wanted a life offreedom, passion, simplicity; I leadinstead a life of complicated deals,sloth, acedia and vanity” (p. 219).

Indeed, Abbey’s public persona wasvery different from his reality. For ex-ample, Abbey did not identify himselfas a “nature writer”: he longed to beknown as a novelist, and fell on na-ture writing simply as a means to sur-vive. Moreover, Abbey was extremelyskillful in creating a cult image thatbecame increasingly difficult to escape:as he noted in his journals, “The Ed-ward Abbey of my books is largely afictional creation: the true adventuresof an imaginary person. … Somewhatof a recluse, emerging rarely from hisfictional den only when lured bymoney, vice, the prospect of applause”(p. 20). As Calahan notes, “Abbey’swritings built a politicized public per-sona for him, while behind this per-sona was a man much more interestedin his own private life of friendships

Book Reviewsand sexual relationships, which pro-ceeded from happiness to difficultyand disaster” (p. 151).

But these complexities and incon-sistencies perhaps explain why hiswritings became, in the words ofWallace Stegner, “the burrs under thesaddle of complacency … he had thezeal of a true believer and a stinger likea scorpion when defending the natu-ral, free, unmanaged, unmanhandledwilderness of his chosen country” (p.267). Perhaps the greatest value ofAbbey’s writings is that they still chal-lenge us to maintain our battles for wil-derness and to serve as a gadfly in ourflawed civilization.

James Calahan has ably provided apassionate, detailed view of EdwardAbbey’s life—warts and all—remind-ing us that despite his human failings,Edward Abbey was a giant of a man, aperson whose message still rings clearfrom desert rimrock to rimrock in con-temporary society and, I expect, forfuture generations to come. Long mayhis words echo.

Review by JOHN SHULTIS

The Porcupine WildernessJournalsEditors Christopher Julian-Fralish, StaceyJulian-Fralish and James Julian-Fralish.2001. The Stacis Group, Carbondale, IL.356 pp., $15.95 (paper)(See www.wildernessjournals.com/purchase.htm for purchase details).

A busy academic life and the associatedlack of time for wilderness contact have,once again, conspired to increase my

stress levels, decrease the amount of joyavailable in my life, and give me a fewmore grey hairs. But I began to devourThe Porcupine Wilderness Journals, like ahobo welcomes a steaming hot coffeeon a cold winter’s day; the passagesallowed me to vicariously hike the beau-tiful landscapes of the Porcupine Moun-tain Wilderness Area along the shoresof Lake Superior in Michigan. For over

50 years, journals have been providedin 16 backcountry cabins in the “Por-kies”, as the area is affectionatelyknown among its users. The editorshave collected the musings and artworkof thousands of visitors and distilledthem into a wonderful collection ofvignettes that reflect the joy that such

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WILDERNESS DIGEST


wilderness areas bring: from the silly tothe serious, from the poetic to the pro-saic, from the joyous to the melancholy,an incredible breadth and depth of emo-tions can be found in these pages.

For example: “I am here with my tenyear old son … I hope to instill in myson a love and respect for wilderness,and a self-confidence and self-sufficiencythat only the wilderness can teach. Butwill there be any place for wild thingsby the time he is a man? I don’t know.It’s easy to despair and lose hope. Butout here I am renewed and again mywill to fight for a place that man has not

and will not manipulate for profit burnsanew. The fight to preserve the wilder-ness is the fight to preserve the humanspirit. It cannot be surrendered.” Or:“Adding my thoughts by flashlight—moon sitting on the horizon with mil-lions of stars to keep it company. Steadybreathing from buddies Daryl andEmma keeps beat to the sound of theriver. Many different feelings here, mindalways a-drifting.”

I wish there was more opportunityfor quoting visitors. As there is not, I canonly give my highest recommendationto this book and hope that reading

through the deeply emotional messages,hopes, and insights will help restoreother readers’ faith in the importance offighting to create and defend wildernessareas like the “Porkies.” It would makean excellent companion both at homeor on your next wilderness trip; at ei-ther location, it will reaffirm the incred-ible range and depth of benefits obtainedfrom wilderness use and the value of wil-derness in contemporary society. In mytime of stress, I needed this book: thewriters reminded me of what is real.


Ecological Integrity: IntegratingEnvironment, Conservation,and HealthEditors David Pimentel, Laura Westra,and Reed Noss.2000. Island Press, Washington, DC.400 pp., $35.00 (paper).

The conceptual lens we use to man-age wildlands is constantly evolving.Not too long ago, land managers be-lieved in the concept of ecological suc-cession; it seemed eminently logical tomanage lands for a “climax” state, alsoassumed to be the state of wild landswhen Europeans first entered the NewWorld. However, a new frameworkwas required when the concept of theclimax forest, and thus of a static, “op-timum” landscape was debunked. Dis-turbance began to be identified as theprimary regulator of landscapes.

In order to adapt to this new vision,a new conceptual framework—ecologi-cal integrity (EI)—was adopted. Ifchange is constant, and a crucial com-ponent of the landscape, then the land-scapes’ overall integrity allowing it toadapt to disturbance and changeseemed to be a paramount concern. EIis thus defined as “an ecosystem’s undi-minished ability to continue its natural

path of evolution, is normal transitionover time, and its successional recov-ery from perturbations” (p. 387).

In 1992, the Global IntegrityProject (GIP) brought together an in-terdisciplinary group of researchers toaddress the cumulative problems ofthreats to the well-being of humans,the degradation of wild lands andwaters, and our unsustainable eco-nomic system. That is, the GIP at-tempted to address not only the knottyissue of defining and measuring EI, butto champion this concept as a meansto save humanity and Earth itself fromeventual destruction.

It is an audacious task, but Ecologi-cal Integrity provides a fascinating,compelling analysis of the dangers fac-ing humanity/wild lands and the roleEI serves in maintaining ecologicalprocesses. Reflecting the objectives ofthe GIP, the book is divided into sixsections: (1) the concept of EI (twochapters); (2) historical and philo-sophical discussions of EI (four chap-ters); (3) biophysical and socialdimensions of EI (seven chapters); (4)human and social health and its rela-tionship to EI (three chapters); (5) theeconomics and ethics of achieving EI

(five chapters); and (6) recommenda-tions for maintaining EI (one chapter).

This book contains a wonderfullywide set of disciplinary approaches tothe issue of EI, incorporating both bio-physical and human dimensions. Therole of wild lands and protected areas inmaintaining EI are incorporatedthroughout the book, with many au-thors using wilderness to define andmeasure baseline EI. Like the relatedWildlands Project, the GIP re-enforcesthe great need for wildlands to ensureour planet’s EI, emphasizes the need forsignificant buffers and corridors aroundwild lands, and advocates for rapid andsignificant changes to our economic andpolitical systems to ensure that humansdo not make the earth uninhabitable.

Although the changes recom-mended by the authors of EcologicalIntegrity will be seen as extreme tomany people, the book provides awide-ranging, unflinching insight intosome of the problems facing EI andprovides a state-of-knowledge assess-ment of what we can do to maintainEI, both for its intrinsic value andhumanity’s self-interest.


international journal of wilderness, vol 08 no 2, august 2002

Documents

wilderness calendarletters

chungbuk national university

university of alberta

university of lapland

indiana university

university of montana

darien national park

fundy national park