Managing Wilderness

Wilderness and management may seem to be contradictory terms, but without some sort of management to monitor and control the use of wilderness, many outstanding areas would lose the very values they were established to preserve. Wilderness management, most often, is not the management of physical and biological resources but of the human activities affecting those resources.

Additional Resources

• About Wilderness
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Wilderness Quotes
• Wilderness Act
  
• Wilderness Eonomics
• Wilderness Timeline
  

The Wilderness Act sets forth congressional policy regarding some aspects of wilderness management. But day-to-day details are left to the federal agencies that manage wilderness. In 1992, The Wilderness Society in association with the US Forest Service published Keeping It Wild: A Citizen Guide to Wilderness Management. This handbook outlines the operative principles of wilderness management for managers and citizens. Familiarity with these principles can improve our understanding of wilderness management objectives and be of use in evaluating wilderness management plans and subsequent management activities.
 

Wilderness Management Principles

• Attain the highest level of purity in wilderness within legal constraints
  The overall goal for managing wilderness is to keep it as wild and natural as possible, including restoring the wilderness character where it has been severely damaged by human use.
• Manage wilderness as a distinct resource with inseparable parts
  Wilderness areas are unique and vital resources. We must be careful that even well-intentioned management activities do not unravel the ecological processes that support the "web of life," in wilderness.
• Allow natural processes to operate freely within wilderness
  In wilderness, nature is free to perform "management" and "manipulation" of vegetation and wildlife species. Wildfire, insects, disease and predator/prey relationships play important ecological roles, unfettered by human interference. In wilderness, these processes are not good or bad, but natural.
• Preserve air and water quality
  Air and water can carry pollutants into a wilderness and affect the health of its ecosystem. Pollution sources inside wildernesses, such as domestic animal and human waste, are also of concern.
• Provide for human use while preserving the wilderness character
  The Wilderness Act recognizes the benefits to humans of undisturbed wilderness. But it also emphasizes the importance of wildlands as a natural store of biological diversity and value to science. Preserving the character of wilderness allows its ecological functions to continue and provides a setting for scientific study.
• Preserve outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined recreation experience in each wilderness
  One of the most important human benefits of wilderness is the opportunity to enjoy solitude in a natural outdoor setting. While people should be allowed freedom from management regulations, it may be that rules are the only effective means of preventing damage to the wilderness resource. Crowding and physical impacts from visitor use should not be allowed to reach the point where solitude is destroyed or evidence of humans dominates.
• Control and reduce the adverse impacts of human use through education or minimum regulation
  When human use must be controlled to prevent crowding or damage to the environment, actions should exert the least amount of control possible. Education is preferred over regulations, although some restrictions on use may be needed in most wilderness areas.
• Favor wilderness-dependent activities when managing wilderness use
  Wilderness is a scarce resource. Many recreational or other activities taking place in wilderness can be enjoyed elsewhere. Pursuits that require a wilderness environment should receive priority where there are competing demands for human uses.
• Accomplish necessary wilderness management work with the "minimum tool"
  The "minimum tool" has the least discernible impact on the land and is the least manipulative or restrictive means of achieving a management objective. For example, trailhead bulletin boards that explain camping regulations are less restrictive than posting warning signs or law enforcement staff in the wilderness.
• Establish specific management objectives, developed in concert with the public, in a management plan for each wilderness
  Together, citizens and managers should define standards of acceptable conditions and management practices in each wilderness. It is important for wilderness managers to develop public support for their decisions.
• Harmonize wilderness and adjacent land management activities
  Wilderness does not exist in a vacuum. Land management on both sides of wilderness boundaries should take into account differing goals. Constructing a large parking lot at a wilderness trailhead, for example, may lead to crowding in campsites. Or severe insect outbreaks within a wilderness may cause unacceptable damage to timber resources located outside a wilderness.
• Manage wilderness with interdisciplinary scientific skills
  Because of the complex relationships involved in wilderness management, the skills of physical, biological and social scientists are needed to preserve wilderness.
• Manage special exceptions provided by wilderness legislation with minimum impact on the wilderness resource
  The Wilderness Act protects the interests of private landowners and establishes exceptions for activities that do not normally conform to the wilderness ideal, such as valid mining claims and livestock grazing that existed before the law. Some subsequent pieces of legislation designating particular wilderness areas also provide for special management exceptions. All exceptions should be handled in a manner that adheres to the Wilderness Act's basic management direction and creates the least impact on the wilderness resource.

photo: Hikers in Bob Marshall Wilderness, Montana. Photo by Jeff Fox.