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The Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute (ALWRI), administered by the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS), is an interagency national research facility. We are the only federal research program in the United States dedicated to the development and exchange of knowledge critical for stewarding the ~112-million acre U.S. National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS) and similarly protected wild lands.

ALWRI has a long history of conducting and sharing science in support of the NWPS. Established in its current incarnation in 1993, the research institute grew out of a Forest Service Wilderness Research Management Unit, founded soon after the passing of the 1964 Wilderness Act. We were intended to serve as a “model for integrated research and management to advance the understanding of the social, cultural, and ecological significance of wilderness and wildlands.”

Our program serves as a resource for scientists, managers, and stewards from different disciplines and backgrounds who seek to conduct, communicate, and learn about wilderness and wildlands science.

We envision "a world where science, wilderness, and relationships between all people and wild lands thrive”.  Our research staff collaborate with partners in the U.S. and around the globe.

To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from.

--Terry Tempest Williams

ALWRI recognizes that wilderness means different things to different people. Our research, research application, and knowledge-sharing programs honor and acknowledge the breadth of these meanings. Our current work aligns with five research priority areas: Biodiversity Conservation, Climate Change and Disturbance, Stewardship Effectiveness, Relevance and Inclusivity, and Shared Stewardship.

Advancing wilderness stewardship through transformational science.  --ALWRI Mission Statement

Leopold.wilderness.net is hosted by the University of Montana (UM) associated with Wilderness Connect (wilderness.net), a wilderness web resource first developed in 1996 through a collaborative partnership between the W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation's Wilderness Institute at UM, the Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center, and the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute (ALWRI). This ALWRI component of wildereness.net shares national and international wilderness research efforts and outputs, and in part serves to meet interagency-agreement reporting requirements of the Federal, Interagency Wilderness Policy Council and Steering Committee.