The Wilderness Society Blog

A promising trend - science and policy are reunited

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:31:51 +0000

This year is shaping up to be a banner year for environmental policy. The Obama administration is making decisions based on sound science and reason, peeling away actions and policies created in the past administration that significantly weakened environmental protections. The administration is establishing a new hope for our forests and wildlife.

A conversation with the creator of Outdoor Afro

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:36:31 +0000

In a recent bout of Googling, I fortuitously found the wonderful Web site and blog, Outdoor Afro. Outdoor Afro is a “website community that reconnects African-Americans with natural spaces and one another through recreational activities.” The owner and operator of the website, Rue Mapp, sat down (virtually, of course) and talked to me about the passion behind Outdoor Afro and why conservation organizations should play a role in encouraging people of color to get outside and care about our wild places.

Discussing renewable energy and brownfields in New Orleans

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:38:17 +0000

I’m in The Big Easy today to engage in a national dialog on redeveloping brownfields for renewable energy. (Brownfields are parcels of land that have been previously used for industrial purposes). The Environmental Protection Agency, under the leadership of Assistant Administrator Mathy Stanislaus, is doing some exciting things to capitalize on this remarkable opportunity.

From the Wild9 Congress comes hope

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:43:04 +0000

My experience at the 9th World Wilderness Congress started with a red-eye flight that got me to Merida, Mexico just in time to hear Dr.

Back Country Horsemen team up with Wilderness Society

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:30:08 +0000

Aldo Leopold, co-founder of The Wilderness Society and a preeminent voice in the conservation world defined wilderness as “a continuous stretch of country preserved in its natural state, open to lawful hunting and fishing, big enough to absorb a two week’s [horse] pack trip.” In his most famous book, A Sand County Almanac, he provided two examples of “primitive skills in pioneering travel…”one of these is canoe travel, and the other is travel by packtrain.”

Congaree National Park expanded: Our work with South Carolina’s local youth and legislators

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:58:02 +0000

Of the 50 states, South Carolina is not one often associated with land preservation. But that’s not the case this fall. A bill passed by Congress in October has granted part of the funding to expand the state’s only national park and the home of the nation’s largest tract of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest.

What Mexico is teaching this Alaskan scientist

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:49:38 +0000

On my first day at Wild 9, I found it funny that I had to come all the way to Merida, Mexico to see colleagues from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office in Anchorage and the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and to make new contacts with people from Lake Clark National Park and wildlife photographers that have captured Alaska’s amazing landscapes on film to share with the international audience.

Learning from the world while in Mexico

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:30:40 +0000

My favorite thing about being here in Merida at the 9th World Wilderness Congress — Wild9 — is the chance to learn from peers and colleagues from around the world who are pursuing the same goal of protecting wild places and the values they provide to people.

Our chief of economics and ecology reports from the 9th World Wilderness Congress in Merida, Mexico.

Read more about why we're there.