The Importance of Partnership and Community Stewardship

Interpretation and Education in Wilderness Training November 2020 Presented by McKinney Briske “If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them something more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.” —President Lyndon B. Johnson, upon signing the Wilderness Act, 1964 • Community Support for Wilderness • Youth Corps In this • Partner Groups presentation • Volunteer Groups • Thinking Outside of Wilderness: Ideas from Conservation Efforts History of “ Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are Community beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and Support for reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.” Wilderness —John Muir, “Wild Wool,” 1875 “1935: THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY IS FOUNDED. Community A group of visionaries--Aldo Leopold, Robert Marshall, Robert Sterling Yard, Benton MacKaye, Ernest Oberholtzer, Harvey Based Broome, Bernard Frank and Harold C. Anderson--form The Wilderness Society to save some of America’s dwindling Wilderness wildlands. At the time, forests and other public lands are mainly seen as resources for logging, mining and other development. Movement Setting out to conserve the wildest places is a revolutionary idea.” https://www.wilderness.org/about-us/our-team/our-history • “There is just one hope of repulsing the tyrannical ambition of civilization to conquer every niche of the whole earth. That hope is the organization of spirited people who will fight for the freedom of wilderness.” Youth Corps Volunteer Program How do we get the community involved with wilderness, including the non-visitors, and other interests? • This can include: • Education Initiatives (partnering and working with the schools for Think of ways to long term education programs, projects). make your • Regular articles in the newspaper about surrounding wilderness messages and areas. energy effective • Outfitter and guides. • Social media. for people in their • Artist in Residence. lives and in their • Community messaging in interpretation (ex. Valle de Oro – Urban perspectives. Refuges). • Anyway you can reach people in their lives on their preferred terms you have a chance to get your messages to them. Our obligation to our partners and our community as land managers.

“We need wilderness preserved—as much of it as is still left, and as many kinds— because it was the challenge against which our character as a people was formed. The reminder and the reassurance that it is still there is good for our spiritual health even if we never once in 10 years set foot in it. It is good for us when we are young, because of the incomparable sanity it can bring briefly, as vacation and rest, into our insane lives. It is important to us when we are old simply because it is there—important, that is, simply as idea.” —Wallace Stegner, “Wilderness Letter,” written to the Outdoor Recreation “Education and communication are vitally important in order to impress each individual of his or her responsibility regarding the healthy future of the Earth. The best way for students to recognize that their action can make a difference is to have projects organized by the school or community on which the students can work. Once convinced that they can help, people tend to change both their attitude and their behavior. New attitudes towards the environment will be reflected in decisions at home and in corporate boardrooms around the world.”

-- Vanessa Allison (Student at North Toronto Collegiate High School), May 1986, from Our Common Future: The World Commission on Environment and Development Earth Day

Urban Wildlife Refuge Partnerships Urban Wildlife Refuges: “Where the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Community, and Partners come together to promote conservation.” Questions?