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Wilderness has been called an enduring resource. But those who know it well understand that it needs nurturing, tending and protecting if it is to endure.
Climate change and its attendant wildfires and insect infestations, along with overuse and access issues are just some of the threats to our nation’s wilderness. Another is a shrinking federal budget. The four federal agencies charged to manage wilderness (BLM, NPS, USFS, and USFWS) are falling further and further behind in maintaining wilderness areas as their funding dries up.
Indeed, shrinking budgets during the past 15 years or so have galvanized the wilderness stewardship movement, according to Dave Cantrell, National Wilderness Stewardship Alliance (NWSA) Board Chair.
“Right now, just a fraction of the nation’s 757 wilderness areas have local volunteer groups dedicated to their stewardship. But we've seen across every American landscape that we citizens will engage, that we will protect our heritage, whatever the state of federal budgets. Our confidence in that vision was the impetus to form the NWSA, the only national organization that focuses exclusively on wilderness stewardship."
“The good news is that volunteers are out there. But they need support: to build capacity, to learn from each other, and to create synergy around programs and opportunities for partnership,” Cantrell says. “Our wilderness areas have lacked funding for full stewardship for years, and additional cuts are underway. As NGOs, wilderness stewardship groups can still go after funds from the nonprofit world.”
Since forming two years ago, the NWSA has:
• Met with numerous agency staff, beginning to forge long-term, strategic relationships
• Built the essential groundwork for a sustainable national organization
• Worked with three local groups to build capacity, leadership and skills
• Designed workshops to help local volunteers learn how to incorporate, write a mission statement and partner with federal agencies
• Convened the popular annual stewardship conference.
“We’ve set some ambitious goals for ourselves in 2012,” Cantrell says. The NWSA will work to:
• Understand the ways each agency works with volunteer stewards, so we can support each agency within their model.
• Support our members’ desire to see consistent training and certification with traditional tools.
• Complete MOUs with all four NWPS agencies.
• Continue our research to identify every stewardship group across the National Wilderness Preservation System,
and invite them to join our critical work.
• Hold workshops to show new stewardship groups how to form, and help them get underway.
• Find more and more ways to support our members, and help them network to support each other.
“And our annual conference, scheduled for November 1-4 in Asheville, NC, is shaping up great,” Cantrell notes. "Of course there will be great presentations and workshops. But the most important part of the conference is to meet other stewards — we heard loud and clear that the networking at last year's conference was both invaluable and inspiring.”
“It has been thrilling to see the enthusiasm for our mission from local stewards everywhere, from national and regional NGOs, and from the National Wilderness Preservation System agencies,” Cantrell says. “The need is clear and urgent, and we're confident we have the support to meet it. We'll work hard now to forge strong, enduring, functional relationships with all wilderness stewards,” he concluded.
Who are you working with?
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