GWS2005 ABSTRACTS as of 1 February 2005 DRAFT • subject to change PLENARY SESSIONS Monday, March 14 • 8:00–9:30 am Why the Division Between Natural and Cultural Resources in the National Parks Serves Neither Well: A Plea for Integration William Cronon, Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin Session abstract: Professor Cronon offers insights from the field of American environmental history to argue that the national parks should adopt a more fully integrated approach to the protection and interpretation of natural and cultural resources, and that doing so will better serve the overall mission of the National Park Service. William Cronon’s research seeks to understand the history of human interactions with the natural world: how we depend on the ecosystems around us to sustain our material lives, how we modify the landscapes in which we live and work, and how our ideas of nature shape our relationships with the world around us. His first book, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (1983), was a study of how the New England landscape changed as control of the region shifted from Indians to European colonists. In 1984, the work was awarded the Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians. In 1991, Cronon completed a book entitled Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, which examines Chicago’s relationship to its rural hinterland during the second half of the nineteenth century; it was awarded several prizes. In 1992, he co-edited Under an Open Sky: Rethinking America’s Western Past, a collection of essays on the prospects of western and frontier history in American historiography. He then edited an influential collection of essays entitled Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, examining the implication of different cultural ideas of nature for modern environmental problems. He is currently at work on a history of Portage, Wisconsin, that will explore how people’s sense of place is shaped by the stories they tell about their homes, their lives, and the landscapes they inhabit. He is also completing a book entitled Saving Nature in Time: The Past and the Future of Environmentalism on the evolving relationship between environmental history and environmentalism, and what the two might learn from each other. In July 1992, Cronon became the Frederick Jackson Turner Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison after having served for more than a decade as a member of the Yale History Department. In 2003, he was also named Vilas Research Professor at UW-Madison, the university’s most distinguished chaired professorship. He has been President of the American Society for Environmental History, and serves as general editor of the Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books Series for the University of Washington Press. A native of New Haven, Connecticut, Cronon received his B.A. (1976) from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He holds an M.A. (1979), M.Phil. (1980), and Ph.D. (1990) from Yale, and a D.Phil. (1981) from Oxford University. Cronon has been a Rhodes Scholar, Danforth Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow, and MacArthur Fellow; has won prizes for his teaching at both Yale and Wisconsin; and in 1999 was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society. Tuesday, March 15 • 8:00–9:30 am Environmental Justice: What? So What? Now What? Panelists: Robert D. Bullard, Ware Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center, Clark Atlanta University Other panelists TBA. Moderator: Robert Stanton, former Director, National Park Service Robert D. Bullard is the nation’s leading expert on race and the environment. He is the author of thirteen books that address environmental justice, urban land use, facility permitting, community reinvestment, housing, transportation, suburban sprawl, and smart growth. His award winning book, Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality (Westview Press, 2000), is a standard text in the environmental justice field. A few of his other books include Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots (South End Press, 1993), People of Color Environmental Groups Directory 2000 (Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, 2000), and Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice and Communities of Color (Sierra Club Books, 1996). He co-edited with Charles Lee (Commission for Racial Justice) and J. Eugene Grigsby (UCLA) Residential Apartheid: The American Legacy (UCLA Center for African American Studies Publications, 1994). He also co-edited with Glenn S. Johnson Just Transportation: Dismantling Race and Class Barriers to Mobility (New Society Publishers, 1997) and, with Glenn S. Johnson and Angel O. Torres, Sprawl City: Race, Politics and Planning in Atlanta (Island Press, 2000). His most recent books are entitled Just Sustainabilities: Development in an Unequal World (Earthscan/MIT Press, 2003) and Highway Robbery: Transportation Racism and New Routes to Equity (South End Press, 2004). He is completing work on a new book entitled Racialized Place: The Black Metropolis in the 21st Century (Rowman & Littlefield, forthcoming 2005). Thursday, March 17 • 8:00–9:30 am “Science and History on the Landscape: Yellowstone in Fact and Fiction” Diane Smith, author Diane Smith is a novelist and science writer who lives in Livingston, Montana. Her first novel, Letters from Yellowstone, follows a scientific field study in Yellowstone Park in the 1890s. It won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association award for fiction, and was selected for the “campus-wide read” at Northern Arizona University in 2003. Her latest novel, Pictures from an Expedition, chronicles the history of paleontologists, artists, and Civil War veterans along the Missouri River, right after the Battle of the Little Big Horn. It won the first-ever Montana Book Award, which recognizes one book of any genre for its literary and artistic excellence, and was featured on the National Public Radio program, “Theme and Variation.” Both books are part of the permanent collection at the Smithsonian Institution. Friday, March 18 • 8:00–9:30 am “Fire in the Parks: A Case Study in Change Management” Norman L. Christensen, Jr., Professor of Ecology and Founding Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University Norman Christensen came directly to Duke in 1973 from his doctoral studies on chaparral fire at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In addition to continuing studies on the ecology of fire, Norm’s research interests include connections between land use history and ecosystem dynamics, biodiversity consequences of forest management activities and the application of basic ecological principles to ecosystem management. Over the past decade, Norm has served on the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project. He was co-chair of California Spotted Owl Federal Advisory Committee, and Chair of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Ecological Consequences of Forest Management in the Pacific Northwest and the National Commission on Science for Sustainable Forestry. Norm was launched on his career of advisory committee gadfly in the late 1980s, when he chaired a review of the fire management programs of National Parks in the Sierra Nevada and the Interagency Panel on the Ecological Consequences of the 1988 Yellowstone Fires. His plenary presentation will reflect in part on lessons learned from these experiences. Concurrent Session Abstracts (listed chronologically by session number) Monday, March 14 • morning concurrent sessions • 10:00 – 12:05 Session 1 • Contributed papers Public Involvement in Critical Natural Resources Issues Chair: John Reynolds, National Park Service (retired), Castro Valley, California Public Understanding of Complex Natural Resource Issues Constantine Dillon, Superintendent, Horace M. Albright Training Center, National Park Service, Grand Canyon, Arizona A variety of issues related to parks can cause fear, anxiety, anger, or a perception of risk to the general public. At one time parks were viewed as places we needed to protect from the public. Now, in some cases, the public perceives the parks to be a threat to them. Examples include West Nile Virus, wildlife encroachment into urban areas, exotic and endangered species management, shoreline management, and the re- introduction of native animals. As the demographics of the country change to an increasingly urban population far removed from the natural world and with little understanding of natural processes, park managers may find it more and more difficult to garner public support for policies and practices that the public perceives to be a danger to them, inappropriate, or a waste of money. This session will look at the changing population, some of the issues causing concerns, and some techniques and approaches managers can use to overcome public perceptions and improve support for resource management activities. Partnerships and Protected Landscapes: New Conservation Strategies that Engage Communities Jessica Brown, Vice President for International Programs, QLF/Atlantic Center for the Environment, Ipswich, Massachusetts Nora Mitchell, Director, Conservation Study Institute, National Park Service, Woodstock, Vermont In North America, as in other regions of the world, conservation strategies are becoming more inclusive, recognizing multiple values, encompassing the interests of local communities and indigenous