Applying the Concept of Wilderness Character to National Forest Planning, Monitoring, and Management Peter Landres, Mary Beth Hennessy, Kimberly Schlenker, David N. Cole, and Steve Boutcher United States Forest Rocky Mountain General Technical Report Department Service Research Station RMRS-GTR-217WWW of Agriculture December 2008 Landres, Peter; Hennessy, Mary Beth; Schlenker, Kimberly; Cole, David N.; Boutcher, Steve. 2008. Applying the concept of wilderness character to national forest planning, moni- toring, and management. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-217WWW. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 45 p. Abstract The U.S. Forest Service is responsible for managing over 35 million acres of designated wilderness, about 18 percent of all the land managed by the agency. Nearly all (90 percent) of the National Forests and Grasslands administer designated wilderness. Although the central mandate from the 1964 Wilderness Act is that the administering agencies preserve the wil- derness character in these designated areas, the concept of wilderness character has largely been absent in Forest Service efforts to manage wilderness. The purpose of this document is to help National Forest planners, wilderness staff, and project leaders apply in a practi- cal way the concept of wilderness character to forest and project planning, the National Environmental Policy Act process, on-the-ground wilderness management, and wilderness character trend monitoring that is relevant to an individual wilderness. Keywords: Wilderness Act, wilderness, wilderness character, wilderness stewardship, planning, monitoring Acknowledgments The authors greatly appreciate the help of Tom Carlson who wrote the Fire Resource Advisor section, and the review comments from Kevin Cannon, Tim Eling, Linda Merigliano, and Dave Parsons that helped clarify the ideas and writing of this paper. The authors also thank Kristi Coughlon for her sure and capable editing. Rocky Mountain Research Station Publishing Services Telephone (970) 498-1392 FAX (970) 498-1122 E-mail [email protected] Web site http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/publications Mailing Address Publications Distribution Rocky Mountain Research Station 240 West Prospect Road Fort Collins, CO 80526 The Authors Peter Landres is an Ecologist at the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, Rocky Mountain Research Station, U.S. Forest Service, Missoula, Montana. He holds a Ph.D. in ecology and biology from Utah State University and a B.S. in natural science from Lewis and Clark College. Mary Beth Hennessy is the Forest Resource Staff Officer for the Inyo National Forest, U.S. Forest Service, Bishop, California. She holds a M.S. in environmental studies from the Uni- versity of Montana and a B.A. in history from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Kimberly Schlenker is the Wilderness and Recreation Program Manager for the Gallatin National Forest, U.S. Forest Service, Bozeman, Montana. She holds a B.S. in natural resource management from the University of Montana. David Cole is a Geographer at the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, Rocky Mountain Research Station, U.S. Forest Service, Missoula, Montana. He holds a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Oregon and an A.B.S. in geography from the University of California, Berkeley. Steve Boutcher is the national Information Manager for the Wilderness & Wild and Scenic Rivers Staff, Washington Office, U.S. Forest Service and is based out of Burlington, Vermont. He holds a B.S. in forestry, with a Coordinate Degree in environmental studies from the University of Vermont. Author’s Note: This publication was developed by a technical working group and solely represents the views of its authors. It does not represent and should not be construed to represent any agency determination or policy. Contents Introduction. 1 How to Use This Document. .2 Wilderness Character. 2 The Importance of Wilderness Character. .2 Application to Wilderness Stewardship. 3 Untrammeled quality . 3 Natural quality . 4 Undeveloped quality. 7 Solitude or primitive and unconfined quality. .9 Applying Wilderness Character to the NEPA Process. 11 Plan to Project: “Left Side of the Triangle” Analysis. .12 Desired condition/Existing condition. 12 Need for change. 12 Possible activities. 14 Scoping: “Right Side of the Triangle” Analysis. .14 Proposed action and “Purpose and Need” . 15 Issue identification . 16 Alternatives. 17 Effects. 17 Cumulative effects . 19 Decision Document . 20 Monitoring Trend in Wilderness Character at the Local Level. 21 Process to Monitor Trend in Wilderness Character. 21 Step 1 — Review the list of indicators. .21 Step 2 — Identify measures for each indicator . 21 Step 3 — Assess trend for each measure. 22 Step 4 — Assess trend for each indicator. .22 Step 5 — Assess trend for each quality of wilderness character . 24 Step 6 — Assess overall trend in wilderness character . 24 Monitoring and Information Management. .24 Applying Wilderness Character to Managing Wilderness. .25 Minimum Requirements Decision Guide. 25 Fire Resource Advisor . 26 Information Needs Assessment . 27 Work Planning . 27 References. 28 Appendix A—Indicators and Example Measures for the Four Qualities. 30 Appendix B—Hypothetical Decision Memo Scenario . 32 Appendix C—Summarizing Effects Using Wilderness Character Indicators. 43 Applying the Concept of Wilderness Character to National Forest Planning, Monitoring, and Management Peter Landres, Mary Beth Hennessy, Kimberly Schlenker, David N. Cole, and Steve Boutcher Introduction The U.S. Forest Service is responsible for managing over 35 million acres of designated wilderness, about 18 percent of all the land managed by the agency. Nearly all (90 percent) of the National Forests and Grasslands administer designated wilderness. Although the central mandate from the 1964 Wilder- ness Act is that the administering agencies preserve the wilderness character in these designated areas, the concept of wilderness character has largely been absent in Forest Service efforts to manage wilderness. The purpose of this document is to help National Forest planners, wilderness staff, and project leaders apply in a practical way the concept of wilderness character to forest and project planning, on-the-ground wilderness management, and wilderness character trend monitoring that is relevant to an individual wilderness. The ideas in this document are based on the Forest Service’s national frame- work to monitor selected conditions related to wilderness character (Landres and others 2005), the Technical Guide for monitoring these conditions (Landres and others, in press), and the recently released interagency strategy for monitoring trends in wilderness character (Landres and others 2008). Applying the concept of wilderness character to National Forest planning, management, and monitoring should be directly useful to improving on-the- ground wilderness stewardship in several ways: ! encouraging a comprehensive, holistic look at important wilderness attributes that are directly linked to the concept of wilderness character; ! building support for preserving wilderness character directly into forest and project planning; ! monitoring trends in wilderness character that are relevant to the individual wilderness and the forest; ! communicating stewardship needs and priorities related to wilderness character within the agency and with the public; and USDA Forest Service Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-217WWW. 2008 1 ! aiding in the fulfillment of Element 8 (“This wilderness has adequate direction in the Forest Plan to prevent degradation of the wilderness resource”) and Element 9 (“The priority information needs for this wilderness have been addressed through field data collection, storage, and analysis”) of the U.S. Forest Service’s 10-Year Wilderness Stewardship Challenge (Wilderness Advisory Group 2008). How to Use This Document This document is intended to demonstrate the direct and practical application of wilderness character concepts to various wilderness stewardship activities. Examples are provided for many activities, but not all. The reader is encouraged to be creative and apply these concepts in many ways to forest level wilder- ness stewardship. Managing to preserve wilderness character may be a new approach to some, and much can be gained from simply trying to incorporate these concepts at the local level. Wilderness Character This section briefly describes why the concept of wilderness character is important to forest level planning and management, and provides detailed information about the four qualities of wilderness character. Those wanting to understand the “how” but not the “why” are encouraged to at least skim the following sections and review the list of indicators and sample measures included u nder each of the fou r qualities of wilder ness character in this section. Skimming these sections will provide an overview of foundational wilderness character concepts before proceeding to the “Applying Wilderness Character to the NEPA Process” and subsequent sections. A complete listing of all the indicators and sample measures is given in Appendix A. The Importance of Wilderness Character The Wilderness Act of 1964, Use of Wilderness Areas Section 4(b), describes the primary direction for wilderness stewardship as “each agency adminis- tering any area designated as wilderness shall be responsible for preserving the wilderness character of the area” (McCloskey 1999; Rohlf and Honnold 1988; United