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Desired Character / Need for Change What are we trying to protect?
Desired Character Tells you where you want to end up. Without a clear and specific statement of desired wilderness character, how will you know when you have arrived?
Desired Character Purpose: • Define wilderness character for area • Prevent management by default • Define what will be achieved in the future Process: • Identify role of the Wilderness in regional or national context • Define strategic position for this Wilderness on spectrum of wildness • Develop descriptions of desired character Product: • Description of desired character (strategic position)
Wild Not so Wild South Slope Denali Cathedral Spires Lower Ruth Upper Kahiltna Cathedral Spires Lower Ruth Upper Kahiltna Wilderness Continuum
Strategic Wilderness position Middle Fork Tributaries Middle Fork Salmon Hells Canyon Salmon Alseck Selway Most Wild Least Wild Yacobi Togiak Bob Marshall Frank Church Boundary Waters Wisconsin Islands
Desired wilderness character • Untrammeled:degree of modern human manipulation • Undeveloped:degree of human improvements • Natural:ecological integrity, air/water quality • Solitude/primitive-unconfined recreation:degree of solitude,primitive and unconfined recreation, challenge, self-reliance…
Key Points • Tier to area purpose and significance • Prescriptive • Qualitative • Meaningful for area • Dynamic
Need for Change Sell the problem, not the solution
Need for Change Purpose: • Identify problems/threats • Focus effort Process: • Threats analysis • Which issues/problems can be dismissed? • Which problems are most important? • What are consequences of doing nothing? Product: • Problem statement – what is the problem, why is it important, why does it need to be addressed now, what will happen if it not addressed
INCREMENTAL CHANGE Valhalla Canyon, Grand Teton National Park • No trails or campsites • 10-12 people per year • Zoned as pristine
INCREMENTAL CHANGE TEN YEARS LATER! Valhalla Canyon, Grand Teton National Park • New trails beat in by use • Numerous bare soil campsites • 100 people per month, and growing
If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them with a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it” L.B. Johnson