September 1 2009

This week I am thinking about wilderness. The Hidden Gems Wilderness Campaign hopes to add new wilderness in the White River, Gunnison National Forest and related BLM lands. The closest proposed area is the east side of Treasury Mountain, just north of North Pole Basin. Personally I’ve always liked the idea of wilderness. The idea of “an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain[Wilderness Act of 1964]” appeals to me. Unfortunately, it isn’t clear whether wilderness is compatible with research.

On its face, it would seem the research and wilderness might go hand in hand. One of the reasons wilderness was created was to facilitate research. The wilderness act states “wilderness may contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.” One of the earliest proponent’s of wilderness was driven by the importance of wilderness to knowledge. Aldo Leopold’s process of understanding the western US landscape was quickly deepened by a visit to a Mexican ecosystem that was largely unimpacted by humans. He began arguing for untrammeled areas as reference points for understanding a changing world.

The reality, however, is that while our need to understand a changing world has never been more pressing, wilderness is managed primarily for aesthetic value. For example, Treasury is part of the GLORIA network, a program set up to establish long-term monitoring plots around the world to understand whether biodiversity is being lost due to climate change. In many ways it is the perfect example of how wilderness might be used to understand the world. It does not involve a manipulative experiment, but rather collection of biological and climatic data. Half of Treasury is currently in wilderness and half is not (though the Hidden Gems would place it in there). When that experiment was set up, it was made clear to us that we could not collect climatic data nor use markers to establish permanent plots in wilderness. If both sides of Treasury had been in wilderness when it was set up, RMBL scientists could not have set the study up. If this type of study cannot be done in wilderness, does the value of wilderness to understanding the world really exist? Our desire to have pretty places to hike and the focus on managing ecosystems solely for aesthetic experience comes at a cost. The generations that follow us will inherit ecosystems to manage, but no legacy of understanding. My gut feeling is that Aldo Leopold would not be proud of our overly simplistic approach to managing a complex and changing landscape.

For more on research in wilderness, check out “Wilderness for science: pros and cons of using wilderness areas for biological research”, Six, Diana L.; Alaback, Paul; Winfree, Robert A.; Snyder, Delia; Hagele, Anne, from McCool, Stephen F.; Cole, David N.; Borrie, William T.; O’Loughlin, Jennifer, comps. 2000. Wilderness science in a time of change conference. —Volume 3: Wilderness as a place for scientific inquiry; 1999 May 23-27; Missoula, MT. Proceedings RMRS-P-15-VOL-3. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. p. 271-275