Stories Archive
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ALWRI welcomes Social Scientist, Jaclyn Rushing
Jaclyn is a social scientist who focuses on outdoor recreation, parks, and protected area management with a specific interest in relevance, diversity, equity, and inclusion. She is energized by relationships with practitioners, stakeholders, and fellow scientists. Jaclyn has worked for...
Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute develops new strategic plan and science charter
In 2021, through a collaborative ground-up engagement process, the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute developed a new strategic plan and science charter that addresses high priority wilderness research needs identified by partners and wilderness stakeholders. This strategic plan lays out...
ALWRI welcomes Biological Scientist, Dr. Kira Hefty
The Aldo Leopold Wilderness Institute welcomes Dr. Kira Hefty on board as a (non-RGEG) biological scientist! Kira is a wildlife biologist whose research has focused on wildlife distribution modeling and habitat assessment, including vegetation composition and structure, patterns of biodiversity,...
ALWRI welcomes Science Delivery Specialist, Olga Helmy
The Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute recently welcomed Olga Helmy to our team!
Olga is a science delivery outreach specialist who uses graphic design, data visualization, interpretive writing, and interpersonal skills to communicate science to diverse audiences. Building upon her...
ALWRI scientists meet with USDA Under Secretary Wilkes
June 8, 2022: The Under Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resource and Environment (NRE), Dr. Homer Wilkes, and his staff visited Missoula and met with members of the Rocky Mountain Research Station. As part of the visit, research scientists from the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute...
Armatas, Carim, and Holsinger earn station awards
Each year, the Rocky Mountain Research Station recognizes the accomplishments of outstanding employees (nominated by their peers) across a variety science, science support, and other categories. In May of 2022, three Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute (ALWRI) scientists received 2021...
ALWRI's Parks receives Eminent Science Publication Award
We are pleased to share that Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute Research Ecologist, Dr. Sean Parks received the 2020 Eminent Science Publication Award. The award was conveyed in 2021 and issued by the U.S. Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station.
The Eminent Science Publication...
ALWRI welcomes new scientist Dr. Lauren Redmore
The Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute recently welcomed Dr. Lauren Redmore to our team!
Lauren is a social scientist who uses mixed qualitative and quantitative methods to understand how people govern natural resources. Her work centers questions of natural resource access and management...
ALWRI welcomes new scientist Dr. Kellie Carim
The Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute is excited to welcome Dr. Kellie Carim to our team!
Kellie is an aquatic biologist whose research has focused on using genetic information and tools to inform management of freshwater fish and aquatic ecosystems. She graduated from Carleton College...
Wilderness research needs prioritization
The Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute is developing its next science strategic plan. This plan, to be established on three pillars: science for wilderness, wilderness for science, and wilderness in a landscape context, will orient the Institute’s work over the next five to ten years,...
ALWRI launches wilderness science planning
The Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute is developing its next science strategic plan. This plan will orient the institute’s work over the next five-to-ten years, and, we hope, move us toward the Institute’s vision…A world where science, wilderness, and relationships between all people...
ALWRI welcomes new director
Jason Taylor, Superintendent at Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, in Skagway, Alaska, has been selected as Director for the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, Rocky Mountain Research Station, in Missoula, Montana.
As Superintendent for the most visited national park unit in...
Land use changes in areas surrounding wilderness
In the next half century America’s population will grow by 50 percent, and so too will the demand for food, feed, water, fiber and energy development. Urbanization will lead to more roads, more pollution, and more noise. In order to protect wilderness areas it is important that we identify where...
Alan Watson retires after 35 years of federal service
ALWRI’s Senior Research Social Scientist quietly packed up his gear on Friday April 24, 2020 and left camp. Alan Watson was an active wilderness researcher with the Forest Service for several years before ALWRI was officially founded in 1993. Alan’s title as Social Scientist belies the breadth...
New scientists at ALWRI
The Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute is excited to welcome two new research scientists to our staff!
Research Social Scientist: Dr. Christopher (Chris) Armatas
Chris joins the Leopold Institute after years of working as a social scientist focused on wildlands management and planning...
Getting back to fire suméŝ: exploring a multi-disciplinary approach to incorporating traditional knowledge into fuels treatments
The Leopold Institute and the Elouise Cobell Land and Culture Institute at the University of Montana provided “fuzzy GIS” support to the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program in Washington. In this project to evaluate fuel treatment effectiveness, led by the Colville National Forest...
Climate change likely to reshape vegetation across North America's protected areas
Potential changes in vegetation distribution in Yellowstone and Grand Teton NP, adjacent Forest Service wilderness areas: (a) the baseline period and years 2055 and 2085 of vegetation, (b) vegetation composition for each time period, (c) projected shifts
We evaluated how climate change may...
Why and where high-severity fire occurs
Wildland fire is a critical process in forests of the western United States (US). Variation in fire behavior, which is heavily influenced by fuel loading, terrain, weather, and vegetation type, leads to heterogeneity in fire severity across landscapes and even within individual fires. Sean Parks...
The Leopold Institute is hiring new researchers!
The Leopold Institute is dedicated to the development and dissemination of knowledge needed to improve management of wilderness, wildlands, wild and scenic rivers and similarly protected areas. Applications for the Research Social Scientist position are being accepted until September 19, 2019....
In Memory of Dave Campbell
1952-2019
Dave Campbell, the longest-serving district ranger in the U.S. Forest Service’s Northern Region, died suddenly on Monday, March 25, 2019. The 66-year-old Conner resident worked 17 years as the line officer for the Bitterroot National Forest’s West Fork Ranger District and 24 years total...
Leopold Institute and Arthur Carhart Training Center twenty-fifth anniversary
Silver Anniversary Milestone for the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute &
Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center
Twenty-five years ago this summer, in the spirit of cooperation, the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and U.S....
Sean Parks wins prestigious award
FORT COLLINS, Colo., Nov. 27, 2017 – Dr. Sean Parks’ accomplishments conducting high-impact relevant and applicable scientific studies with the potential to advance ecological and fire sciences has earned him the 2017 Research & Development Deputy Chief’s Early Career Scientist Award. He earned...
Why and Where High-Severity Fire Occurs
Wildland fire is a critical process in forests of the western United States (US). Variation in fire behavior, which is heavily influenced by fuel loading, terrain, weather, and vegetation type, leads to heterogeneity in fire severity across landscapes and even within individual fires. Sean Parks...
Peter Landres retiring Dec. 2017
Peter Landres Retiring Dec. 2017
After more than 25 years of federal service, Peter Landres will retire at the end of December.
As an ecologist with the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, Peter has contributed to improving wilderness stewardship and science nationwide. Of particular note...
Camping near water bodies in wilderness: sustainable camping management strategies
Wilderness areas are designated as a place where the imprint of man's work is substantially unnoticeable. Yet as Wilderness and other protected areas see an increasing number of recreationists, managing those impacts becomes increasingly complex. Impacts from what is commonly considered...
Intergenerational Differences in Wilderness Values
As populations and built-up environments increase around the globe, governments on every continent are setting aside pristine, natural landscapes from development to preserve their wild nature. In the USA, these areas are designated by Congress as wilderness areas and the connections people have with these wild places shape their wilderness values, i.e., the values they believe wilderness areas provide to society. Even though Congress has increased the number of acres under official wilderness protection since the passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964, congressionally designated wilderness...
Pioneering wilderness scientists
David Cole has been leading the effort to capture and record the history of Wilderness science. Wilderness science is a young field of inquiry, with a relatively short history. Most of the pioneers in the field are still alive. The systematic study of wilderness—because it is wilderness and must...
Whitebark Pine Conservation and Wilderness
Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis), an important component of western North American high-elevation forests, has been declining in both the United States and Canada since the early Twentieth Century from the combined effects of mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) outbreaks, fire exclusion policies, and the spread of the exotic disease white pine blister rust (caused by the pathogen Cronartium ribicola). The pine is now a candidate species for listing under the Endangered Species Act. Within the last decade, with major surges of mountain pine beetle and increasing damage and...
Can protected areas in Canada, the United States and Mexico provide safe harbor for important species as climate changes?
Scientists from Canada, Spain, and the U.S.’ Leopold Institute completed an analysis of the conservation capacity of protected areas in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. More detail about their work here.
Their findings suggest that the protected area network is likely to be severely compromised by...
Ecological interventions in wilderness
Leopold Institute staff recently led revisions to the Ecological Intervention and Site Restoration Toolbox on Wilderness Connect. This toolbox contains material pertaining to large-scale interventions and small-scale site restoration in wilderness, and includes the project-level tool for...
Ecosystem Services
Social scientists from the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute of the Rocky Mountain Research Station, and a research team from the University of Montana, are collaborating with the Forest Planning team on the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. The goal is to provide the Forest Plan...
ALWRI enhances leadership
FORT COLLINS, Colo., Dec. 19, 2016 – The Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute is committed to providing scientific leadership in developing and using knowledge needed to sustain wilderness ecosystems and value. The strength of that leadership has become enhanced with the appointment of...
Wilderness science and its role in wilderness stewardship
MISSOULA, Mont., June 9, 2016 – For so many people, wilderness areas provide a unique and special place to disconnect from civilization and reconnect with nature. It is easy to assume these lands require little to no management given their protected status but that can’t be farther from the...
Comparing expected to observed area burned in the western United States
FORT COLLINS, Colo., Dec.16, 2015 – In order to restore and maintain resilient and healthy ecosystems, land managers need better information on what level of fire is appropriate for any given region, and further, a better understanding of current departures from natural levels of fire activity....
Pacific Crest Trail Campsites
The Pacific Crest Trail was designated as a National Scenic trail in 1968, after about forty years of proposals, exploration, and hard work. Since then, it has become widely recognized for its opportunities to see some of the most beautiful natural areas in the U.S., and many feel that it is...
Keeping the wild in wilderness
FORT COLLINS, Colo., Dec. 9, 2015 – Wilderness has a distinct character. It provides a unique environment where one can disconnect from civilization and reconnect with nature. Monitoring trends in wilderness character using a consistent approach is key to preserving wilderness areas and is the...
Wilderness highlighted during shared anniversary celebration for the Carhart Center and the Leopold Institute
Twenty years ago Former Chief of the Forest Service Jack Ward Thomas recognized, as high priority, the need to bring together the four wilderness management agencies under one roof to help share resources, science and information. In 1993 the Arthur Carhart National Training Center and the Aldo...
50 Years of the Wilderness Act: Balancing Restrictions with New Technologies
(JUNE 1, 2014) - When the Wilderness Act was passed in 1964, NASA was sending astronauts into space guided by an IBM 360 computer with 1 megabyte of memory. That's enough to hold one minute of a video on today's iPhone.
And that's a conundrum for people like Pat Tabor. His Swan Mountain...
Economic Outdoor Recreation
Non local visitors spent over $56 million in the three counties surrounding the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in 2016, generating $78 million in total economic output and creating 1100 full and part-time jobs. Estimated economic impacts of outdoor recreation and their sustainability can...