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Special Issue: Wilderness Stewardship and Science - Park Science 28(3), Winter 2011-2012 (ISSN 1090-9966, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior
Leopold Institute's Carol Miller, and four other Forest Service participants recently helped conduct studies as part of a comprehensive forest research programme looking at the impacts of climate change on forests. The Climate Change Leadership Fellowship Program at the Earthwatch, Latin America Regional Climate Center, is working with scientists to develop management strategies that minimize the negative impacts of climate change on forest biodiversity. The study will reveal which tree species are becoming more common in changing conditions, which trees are being lost, how much carbon is stored by the trees and how neighboring trees interact with each other over time. Carol's assignment included collecting data on the phenology and productivity of the Atlantic rain forest and helping with a forest restoration project. At the end of her 5-day expedition, funded by a Borun Family Foundation grant, 600 trees were measured, 60 litter traps collected, 30 bee hives weighed, 37 bags of litter sorted, and 100 trees planted.
For the second year, the Leopold Institute contributed to a US State Department's exchange program, hosted locally by the University of Montana's Mansfield Center. Titled "US Institute on Global Environmental Issues," the University hosted 20 English-speaking undergraduate student leaders from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, and Vietnam for five weeks to study environmental issues we have in common with this section of the world - climate change, balancing economic and environmental interests, food security and water resource management. Alan Watson led a discussion on the development of a land ethic in the US and how that land ethic, championed by Aldo Leopold in A Sand County Almanac and through the formation of the Wilderness Society, has been embodied in our science program and contributed to growth of an international community committed to wilderness protection.
Leopold Institute's Peter Landres, recently gave presentations and led discussions on "Preserving Wilderness Character with a Rapidly Changing Climate" and "Preserving Wildness and Naturalness: Making Difficult Decisions" at the Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Stewardship Training in Missoula. This training is offered annually for federal line officers and decision-making staff from the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, National Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service.
Leopold Institute's Alan Watson, was awarded with an Honorable Mention for Tribal Professional Excellence. Alan was honored for his collaboration and partnership with Tribes in Montana, Alaska, and elsewhere, through which he has earned their confidence and trust. The National Office of Tribal Relations Awards honor individuals and groups for excellence in their efforts working with Tribes, building partnerships, and in their leadership in the field of Tribal Relations.
Leopold Institute's David Cole, was recently honored with the George Wright Society's (GWS) Natural Resources Achievement Award. The Society's most distinguished award recognizes David's 30+ years of pioneering practical and applied research in recreation ecology and wilderness management. It was presented at the GWS 2011 conference, held March 13-18 in New Orleans.
Leopold Institute's Peter Landres will lead a new program of Wilderness Fellows, funded by the US Department of Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service. The Fellows will be on-the-ground leads in developing and testing wilderness character monitoring in approximately 20 wildernesses located within the National Wildlife Refuge System, administered by the Fish and Wildlife Service. Hired through the Student Conservation System, they recently completed their Masters degrees in various natural resource fields. Peter says these Wilderness Fellows are well qualified and excited about working for a federal land management agency to improve wilderness stewardship.
Scientists with the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute (ALWRI) and the University of Idaho met with the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness district rangers, staff officers, and Wilderness Program Manager for Region 1 to provide science syntheses for the Wilderness. Missoula scientists presenting included: Research Geographer David Cole - Campsite Monitoring and Management: From Rivers to Terrestrial Wilderness; Research Ecologist Carol Miller - Consequences of Management Practices on Fire Dynamics; and Research Social Scientist Alan Watson - Wilderness Ecosystem Services. After the presentations, managers and scientists brainstormed research needs for the Frank Church Wilderness. ALWRI hosted the meeting at the Missoula Fire Lab.
Ecologist Peter Landres, recently spent a week at Death Valley National Park (CA) helping an interdisciplinary planning team apply the concept of wilderness character. The Team is developing a new wilderness stewardship plan that will be used to guide the management of the 3,099,770-acre Death Valley Wilderness, the largest wilderness in the contiguous 48 states.
The "High-Five" Symposium will be held June 28-30, 2010, on the University of Montana Campus. This symposium is being organized by the Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation in an effort to provide information exchange and networking opportunities for individuals involved in different aspects of research and restoration of the high elevation pines. Topics include:
The symposium is being sponsored by USFS Region 1, National Park Service, Rocky Mountains Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Unit, and the University of Montana College of Forestry and Conservation. More sponsors are expected. The proceedings will be published by the USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. For more information, Online Registration and Call for Abstracts, please vistit http://www.umt.edu/ce/cps/highfive/
On August 13, the Wilderness Policy Council, consisting of SES leaders from the five agencies with wilderness responsibilities (BLM, FS, FWS, NPS and USGS) hosted a working session, "A Dialogue... Wilderness and Climate Change: Impacts, Challenges and Opportunities" in Washington D.C. RMRS, through the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, helped to organize science presentations on the challenges climate change presents to wilderness managers, the opportunities wilderness presents to help address climate change (from both the mitigation and adaptation perspectives), as well as policy implications and potential management options. Forest Service R&D was represented by Rob Doudrick (WO Staff Director and Policy Council member), Anne Hoover (WO staff) and Ecologist Peter Landres, ALWRI Ecologist, Missoula. Peter offered his thoughts on how agency policies might address some of the implications of climate change for wilderness, and how wilderness might help the agencies adapt to climate change./P>
The Jerry O'Neal Fellowship, funded through the Crown of the Continent Research Learning Center at Glacier National Park, was announced for graduate work in summer 2009. The competition was facilitated through the Rocky Mountains CESU and was open to students at all of the RM-CESU universities. One of two winners this year was Blake Hossack, Zoologist at the Leopold Institute and Ph.D. student with the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of Montana. He is working on the genetics of boreal toad populations in Glacier National Park and the role of disease and fire in genetic selection and habitat connectivity.
Peter Landres, Ecologist at the Leopold Institute, was recently presented a monetary award along with a unique plaque with the insignias of the four federal agencies that manage Wilderness (Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service). The award, presented by the four agencies, was in recognition of his leadership in conceptualizing and developing an interagency protocol for monitoring wilderness character (RMRS-GTR-151 and RMRS-GTR-212), along with other contributions to helping these agencies improve their stewardship of wilderness. As one manager stated in the justification, "Peter has displayed a special ability to transfer the scientific process to creation of a management tool that is understandable and useful to wilderness managers. Peter's efforts provided him with a comprehensive awareness of each of the agencies' unique concerns and issues regarding wilderness." Monitoring is at the heart of managing wilderness and there is a strong consensus that Peter's efforts will help all future wilderness managers preserve wilderness character for the long term.
During the recent RMRS Leadership Team meeting in Fort Collins, Leopold Institute Director Dave Parsons, was presented an award for outstanding performance for providing outstanding leadership in developing and using the knowledge needed to sustain wilderness ecosystems and values, and leadership supporting the development of roles and responsibilities at RMRS.
The Interagency Wilderness Character Monitoring Team--representing the Department of the Interior (DOI) Bureau of Land Management, DOI Fish and Wildlife Service, DOI National Park Service, DOI U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S. Forest Service-offers in this document an interagency strategy to monitor trends in wilderness character across the National Wilderness Preservation System. The overall strategy is for each wilderness to: 1) choose a set of measures from those provided in this document that are relevant, cost-effective, and tied to preserving wilderness character, 2) periodically collect data to assess trend in these measures, and 3) use these trends to assess and report on the trend in wilderness character. Each agency would then compile these trends from each wilderness to assess broad scale agency performance in preserving wilderness character. Similarly, data from each agency would be compiled to assess performance in preserving wilderness character across the National Wilderness Preservation System. This interagency monitoring strategy provides a solid foundation to tie wilderness stewardship to the legislative direction of the Wilderness Act and agency policies to preserve wilderness character.
Research Biologist David Cole, in cooperation with Lisa Therrell and the Arthur Carhart Wilderness Training Center, successfully developed a wilderness and site restoration guide. David Cole wrote several sections of the guide which was compiled and written primarily by Lisa Therrell.
Our new "Project Details & Resources" section on the AWLRI website was developed to supply further details and resources from selected Leopold Institute research projects including their associated publications and products. Project Details & Resources are ongoing and will include future projects as they become available. |
Watson, Alan; Murrieta-Saldivar, Joaquin; McBride, Brooke, comps. 2011. Science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values: Ninth World Wilderness Congress symposium; November 6-13, 2009; Meridá, Yucatán, Mexico. Proceedings RMRS-P-64. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 225 p. 
McKenzie, Donald; Miller, Carol; Falk, Donald A., editors. 2011. The Landscape Ecology of Fire. Springer. New York. 312 pages. 
The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center at the University of Montana and the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute co-hosted Drs. Chin Yin Hwang and Chau Chin Lin (photo) of the Taiwan Forest Research Institute for two weeks. Chin Yin is a wood chemist and Chau Chin is a fire ecologist working on Long Term Ecological Research Networks in the East Asia region. While guests of Supervisory Research Chemist Wei Min Hao and Research Forester Kevin Ryan of the Fire Sciences Lab, they met with University faculty and students and presented a seminar at the Forest Sciences Lab. They also worked with the Leopold Institute to create a strategic plan to assist the Tao people of Orchid Island (between Taiwan and the Philippines). They are working to establish indigenous community conservation practices to protect their culture, their language, biodiversity, water and their relationship with the island they have occupied for many generations. While in Missoula, Leopold Institute's 
Cole, David N. and Laurie Yung. 2010. Beyond naturalness: Rethinking park and wilderness stewardship in an era of rapid change. Washington DC: Island Press. 287 p.
This comprehensive guide focuses on restoration of small-scale impact caused by human actions in wilderness and backcountry areas. The guide's goals are to (1) help practitioners develop plans that thoroughly address the question of whether site restoration is the best management action and, if so, develop a site-specific restoration plan that incorporates ecological concepts and addresses patterns of human use, (2) provide the latest information on site-specific restoration techniques, including site preparation, soil amendments, planting, mulching, and so forth, (3) explore the various methods of plant propagation both on and off a restoration site and (4) provide approaches for project monitoring and documentation. Techniques discussed in the guide do not rely on motorized tools or mechanized transport, although those options may be mentioned. Examples are drawn primarily from the Western United States. Many of the techniques could be used in other settings. The laws regulating wilderness management and the philosophy guiding it are considered when discussing whether restoration activities are appropriate in areas designated as wilderness.| Leopold Institute Home / Top of Page |
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