FORUThe George Wright M volume 20 number 3 * September 2003 Trie (Challenge of VViiaerness Origins Founded in 1980, the George Wright Society is organized for the purpos­ es of promoting the application of knowledge, fostering communication, improving resource management, and providing information to improve public understanding and appreciation of the basic purposes of natural and cultural parks and equivalent reserves. The Society is dedicated to the protection, preservation, and management of cultural and natural parks and reserves through research and education. Mission The George Wright Society advances the scientific and heritage values of parks and protected areas. The Society promotes professional research and resource stewardship across natural and cultural disciplines, provides avenues of communication, and encourage public policies that embrace these values. Our Goal The Society strives to be the premier organization connecting people, places, knowledge, and ideas to foster excellence in natural and cultural resource management, research, protection, and interpretation in parks and equivalent reserves. Board of Directors DENNIS B. FENN, President • Flagstaff, Arizona ABIGAIL B. MILLER, Vice President • Alexandria, Virginia DWIGHT T. PrrCAlTHLEY, Treasurer • Rcston, Virginia GILLIAN BOWSER, Secretary • College Station, Texas JERRY EMORY • Mill Valley, California BRUCE M. KlLGORE • Pocatello, Idaho DAVID J. PARSONS • Florence, Montana JOHN J. REYNOLDS • Castro Valley, California RICHARD B. SMITH • Placitas, Mew Mexico STEPHEN WOODLEY • Chelsea, Quebec Executive Offjce DAVID HARMON, Executive Director ROBERT M. LINN, Membership Coordinator EMILY DEKKER-FIALA, Conference Coordinator P. O. Box 65 • Hancock, Michigan 49930-0065 USA 1-906-487-9722 • fax 1-906-487-9405 [email protected] • http://www.georgewright.org The George Wright Society is a member of US/ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites—U.S. Committee), IUCN-The World Conservation Union, and The Natural Resources Council of America © 2003 The George Wright Society, Inc. All rights reserved. (No copy­ right is claimed for previously published material reprinted herein.) ISSN 0732-4715 Society News, Notes & Mail 3 Renewing the U.S. Biosphere Reserve Program President Bush’s decision that the United States will rejoin UNESCO has inspired efforts to renew the U.S. Man and the Biosphere Program. A reinvigo- rated U.S. program, and active participation in the UNESCO international net- work of biosphere reserves, can make an important contribution to human wel- fare. The UNESCO biosphere reserve program, which representatives from the U.S. helped to design in the early 1970s, has enabled nations to improve the management and protection of the planet’s important representative ecosystems. The importance of this program was clearly indicated in the summit meeting of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. in 1974, when President Nixon and General Secretary Brezhnev signed an agreement and joint communiqué to “[d]esignate certain natural areas as biosphere reserves for protecting valuable plant and animal genetic strains, and ecosystems, and for conducting scientific research needed for more effective actions concerned with global protection.” Today there are 425 biosphere reserves in 95 countries voluntarily partici- pating in programs of scientific research and education to sustain irreplaceable natural ecosystems and the plant and animal life they support. President Bush’s decision to rejoin UNESCO has significant long-term consequences because it will enable the U.S. to participate, once again, in a program that fosters peaceful international relations and makes an important contribution to human welfare. An indication of the importance of the biosphere reserve program is expressed in the following resolution of 450 scientists and managers of protected areas who met recently at the SAMPAA Conference in Canada: “Participants at the Fifth Conference of Science and the Management of Protected Areas Association (SAMPAA), held in Victoria, B.C., Canada, May 12–16, 2003, acknowledge the value of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Program as a practical means to achieve collaborative conser- vation of biodiversity, through integrated ecosystem-based management with the participation of local communities and indigenous cultures. We recognize that efforts to strengthen a network of biosphere reserves in North America have been initiated at this meeting by biosphere reserve representatives from the three North American countries of Mexico, the USA, and Canada. We, the participants at SAMPAA 5, hereby resolve to support these efforts for the timely establishment of an effective and functional North American network.” Steps are being taken now to plan the renewal of the U.S. biosphere reserve program. A United States Biosphere Reserves Association has been chartered to 2 The George Wright FORUM assist in planning a renewed program of community-centered collaborative con- servation focusing on the 47 U.S. biosphere reserve areas. For further informa- tion about the U.S. Biosphere Reserves Association, contact: Vernon C. Gilbert SAMAB Foundation 314 Conference Center Building Knoxville, TN 37996-4138 Phone: 1-865-974-4583 [email protected] (Ed. note: Vernon C. “Tom” Gilbert was the first president of the George Wright Society, in 1980.) Lecture Series on Conservation at the Landscape Scale Adrian Phillips’ paper “Turning Ideas on Their Head: The New Paradigm for Protected Areas,” published in the last issue of The George Wright Forum, was first presented in February 2003 as part of the lecture series “Conservation at the Landscape Scale: Emerging Models and Strategies,” sponsored by the National Park Service Conservation Study Institute and the University of Vermont. The series also included lectures by Reed Noss, conservation biology professor at the University of Central Florida, and Nancy Bell, Vermont director for The Conservation Fund. This fall, a second lecture series on this topic includes Brenda Barrett (NPS national coordinator for heritage areas, on October 14, 2003) and Jeffrey McNeely (chief scientist, IUCN, on November 11). McNeely’s presentation will be followed by a panel discussion that will be part of a distance learning broad- cast on November 12, 2003. You are invited to join this interactive broadcast and to view lectures at www.uvm.edu/conservationlectures, or contact Daniel Laven, CSI fellow at the University of Vermont ([email protected]), for more information. GWS Co-Publishes Yellowstone Science Proceedings Partnering with the Yellowstone Center for Resources, the Society recently co-published Yellowstone Lake: Hotbed of Chaos or Reservoir of Resilience?, the proceedings of the 6th Biennial Scientific Conference on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, held in October 2001. The volume contains a variety of scientific and cultural resource papers focused on the lake: its hydrology, ther- mophilic organisms, archeology,history,influence on artists, limnology,wildlife, and much more. The 307-page softbound volume can be purchased for $15 ($10 CD) or you can download individual papers for free in PDF format from the GWS website. For more information, go to: www.georgewright.org/01yell- proc.html. Volume 20 • Number 3 2003 3 GWS Members Contribute to New Book on Park Values A number of Society members were involved in creating The Full Value of Parks: From Economics to the Intangible (Rowman & Littlefield, July 2003), the first comprehensive review of the range of values associated with parks and other protected areas. Chapters from around the world examine the recreational, spir- itual, cultural, identity,aesthetic, educational, scientific, peace-promoting, thera- peutic, and economic values of parks. GWS executive director Dave Harmon co- edited the volume along with Allen D. Putney, the chair of IUCN’s Task Force on Non-Material Values of Protected Areas. GWS members Brad Barr, Gary Davis, Dave Graber, and Mike Tranel authored or co-authored chapters. The book is a contribution to the World Parks Congress. For a table of contents and ordering information, go to www.rowmanlittlefield.com and type in “Full Value” in the search box. 3 4 The George Wright FORUM MISSION STATEMENTS Where We Need to Go—Lessons from Septima Clark Dwight T. Pitcaithley am deeply honored to have been asked to speak today as we dedicate this fountain, this plaza in the name of liberty and Septima Clark. It is altogether fitting and proper that we dedicate a fountain in memory of a civil rights sol- Idier of the twentieth century in a park dedicated to America’s Civil War of the nineteenth century. The connections between the two are many and direct. The threads of history tightly bind the Civil War and this country’s search for civil rights. The Civil War ended, as every embrace and defend this “New birth school child knows, with the passage of Freedom.” The flowering of and ratification of three constitutional American citizenship for black amendments that profoundly changed Americans was, as we also know, short the face of democracy in this country. lived. After only a decade during None would have predicted on the which freedom and citizenship were occasion of South Carolina’s leaving exercised, the darkness of Jim Crow the Union that only a few years later, and black codes and debilitating seg- slavery would be abolished and former regation descended upon the country. slaves would become citizens and The racism that Septima Clark given the right to vote. Neither side in