Transcript Presentation Title

The Wilderness Act
in an Era of Global Change
Gregory H. Aplet
Senior Science Director
The Wilderness Act turns 50
Overview
• A brief wilderness history
• The essence of wilderness
• Implications of global change
• A strategy for sustaining wilderness
values
The Early Years –
Recreation and Ecological Condition
John Muir
Aldo Leopold
Bob Marshall Victor Shelford
“By ‘wilderness’ I mean a continuous stretch of country preserved
in its natural state, open to lawful hunting and fishing, big enough
to absorb a two weeks’ pack trip, and kept devoid of roads,
artificial trails, cottages, or other works of man.”
Aldo Leopold 1921
The Wilderness and Its Place
in Forest Recreational Policy
The Post-War Years –
Humility and Freedom from Control
David Brower
Howard Zahniser
Wallace Stegner
“We must never forget, we are guardians, not gardeners”
Howard Zahniser 1963
The Living Wilderness
The Wilderness Act – 1964
The Wilderness Act
• Defined wilderness and established the
National Wilderness Preservation System
• Established a process for adding to the
system
• Described limitations on use
• Established exceptions to limitations
The essence of wilderness
From Section 2(c) of the Wilderness Act:
A wilderness…is hereby recognized as an area
where the earth and its community of life are
untrammeled by man, where man himself is a
visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness
is further defined to mean in the Act an area of
undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval
character and influence, without permanent
improvements or human habitation, which is
protected and managed so as to preserve its
natural conditions and which…generally appears to
have been affected primarily by the forces of
nature…
The essence of wilderness
Earth and its
community of life
Primeval character
Natural conditions
=
Ecological
condition
(Wholeness or
“historical fidelity”)
Untrammeled by man
Primeval influence
Affected primarily by
the forces of nature
=
Freedom from
human control
“Self-willed”
Dimensions of Wildness
C&O Canal
Controlled
Vacant
Lot
Downtown
Chesapeake
Bay
Arctic
Refuge
Fire-excluded
Ponderosa Pine
Forest
Everglades
Pine
Plantation
Curtis
Prairie
Novel
Pristine
Ecological Condition
Controlled
“Self-willed”
“Directions” of Management
Novel
Pristine
The Ideal of Wilderness
Restoration
Growth of the System
Enter Global Change
• Invasive species
• Atmospheric deposition
• Habitat fragmentation and land use
change
• Climate change
“Self-willed”
Global Change: The End of
Recovery?
Pressure of
Global Change:
Controlled
•Warming
•Invasives
•Fragmentation
Novel
Pristine
Choices in the face
of climate change
Accept change:
Observation only
Resist change:
Restoration
Guide change:
Innovation and
experimentation
Certain Uncertainty
“We might feel confident of broad-scale
future environmental changes (such as
global mean temperature increases),
but we cannot routinely predict even
the direction of change at local and
regional scales (such as increasing or
decreasing precipitation).”
Millar et al. (2007)
What to do?
“Managing in the face of uncertainty will require a
portfolio of approaches, including short-term and
long-term strategies, that focus on enhancing
ecosystem resistance and resilience…as
climates and environments continue to shift.”
Millar et al. (2007)
“A portfolio of adaptation and mitigation measures
can diminish the risks associated with climate
change.”
IPCC Adaptation Report
An Experimental
Landscape Approach
Observation only in some places
(both treatment and control)
Restoration in some places
(“Keeping all the parts”)
Innovation in some places (novel
conservation)
Integrated across the landscape in
a cohesive experiment
Principles of Allocation
• Representation
• Connectivity across gradients
• Configuration
An illustration
The Benefits of
an Observation Only Approach
• Deepening respect for nature’s
autonomy
• Fostering scientific humility
• Sustaining non-focal species
• Reducing unintended adverse
consequences
• Providing unmanipulated benchmarks
• Preserving options and hedging risk
From: “Let It Be: A Hands-Off Approach
to Preserving Wildness in Protected
Areas” by Peter Landres, USFS
Real Life Example:
Hawaiian Ahupua’a
“In different places, in different chunks, we can manage nature for
different ends—for historical restoration, for species preservation, for
self-willed wildness, for ecosystem services, for food and fiber and
fish and flame trees and frogs.” – Emma Marris