Guardians and gardeners: Managing wilderness for the twenty-first century

This webinar shares a presentation and discussion on wilderness in the 21st century. The 1964 Wilderness Act provides robust protections to landscapes designated as federal wilderness. The National Wilderness Preservation System, which includes 806 wilderness areas and 111 million acres, represents the world’s largest highly protected conservation network. However, a long-standing ethos of nonmanagement—exemplified by the philosophy that managers should be guardians but not gardeners—obscures long legacies of Indigenous stewardship and may not sustain essential wilderness values in a time of unprecedented ecological stressors. Many wildernesses are increasingly subject to complex and compounding unintentional (as well as intentional) human influences. In this webinar, Dr. Boerigter will present how a guardians and gardeners approach would acknowledge Indigenous influence, recognize contemporary and future environmental challenges, and provide managers the necessary rationale to respond to these complex realities. In the twenty-first century, it may be necessary to carefully, thoughtfully, and compassionately reimagine the dominant wilderness philosophy. Read the full paper: https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biaf141