WILDERNESS CHARACTER MONITORING

1. Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center, March 2012 Wilderness Character Webinar #4 WILDERNESS CHARACTER MONITORING 1

2. KEY REVIEW POINTS • Wilderness character is composed of five qualities that are comprehensive, nationally consistent, and locally applied • This framework and language allows agency staff to discuss, evaluate, and make more informed and transparent decisions • These ideas are relatively new, so HOW they are implemented will likely improve over time 2

3. THE STEWARDSHIP TASK: PRESERVE WILDERNESS CHARACTER MORE State of wilderness character at the time of Congressional designation or agency study Wilderness Character Our task is to sustain or improve this state LESS MORE LESS Modern Human Impact 3

4. HOW DO WE KNOW IF WE ARE PRESERVING WILDERNESS CHARACTER? 4

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7. Hierarchically organized • Trend is assessed from change within a wilderness • Balances national consistency with local flexibility and relevance because every wilderness is part of the National Wilderness Preservation System, yet is also unique 7

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9. Every wilderness assesses trend in these qualities using at least one measure per indicator • Baseline for evaluating change is the time of wilderness designation or agency study (if data exist) or the first time this monitoring is conducted • Many measures are simple counts over a 5-year time period, with “significant change” defined locally • Trend for each measure is assessed as “improving,” “stable,” or “degrading” • Consistent rules used to roll up measure trends to assess trend for the indicator, quality, and wilderness character once every 5 years 10

10. RULES FOR SYNTHESIZING TRENDS • Cannot combine the data from different measures • Can combine the trend from different measures 11

11. COMPILING TRENDS WITHIN A REGION AND ACROSS THE NATION Can combine the trend from different wildernesses within a region, agency, and NWPS to derive a percent of wildernesses for which wilderness character is preserved and degrading 12

12. NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN MONITORING: MAPPING WILDERNESS CHARACTER Death Valley Wilderness Untrammeled Natural Solitude Undeveloped Map built from equally weighted qualities composed of 41 weighted input variables 13

13. NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN MONITORING: INTERAGENCY, ONLINE DATABASE • Still in development • Goals: library of measures; easy data entry; standard one-button reporting for unit, region, nation; repository 14

14. QUESTIONS?