National Wilderness Workshop

The National Wilderness Workshop is an annual event for the national wilderness stewardship community designed to facilitate connection, collaboration, and learning for all of us working in wilderness stewardship. Participants include wilderness scholars, hands-on wilderness stewards, Indigenous peoples, nonprofit partners, and attendees from each of the federal land management agencies - the Forest Service, National Park Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Land Management. The National Wilderness Stewardship Alliance (NWSA) collaborates with the Society for Wilderness Stewardship (SWS) to offer this event, with each organization hosting the Workshop every other year. 

2024 National Wilderness Workshop

There's a lot to celebrate in 2024! It's a big year for wilderness and for wilderness gatherings with the 60th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act and the 100th Anniversary of the Gila Wilderness along with many other wilderness anniversaries happening this year. 2024 also brings the 12th World Wilderness Congress (Wild12) to the U.S., which has happened only twice since the first gathering in 1980. The most recent World Wilderness Congress held in the U.S. was Alaska in 2005.  

In lieu of holding a 2024 National Wilderness Workshop, NWSA is working with the Wild Foundation to make the 12th World Wilderness Congress (Wild12) event accessible and relevant for our typical National Wilderness Workshop participants. Having Wild12 right here in the U.S. presents a unique opportunity for our national wilderness community to come together while learning from and sharing with our global counterparts. We don't want you to miss this awesome experience!

Our goal is encourage maximum participation in these opportunities to celebrate and learn without stretching our collective time and budgets thin. To this end, Wild12 is offering a lower cost partial access pass to attend 3 days of the 7-day event from August 29-31. The pass includes access to concurrent sessions, evening events, the resolution voting process, and the closing ceremony. 

NWSA is also encouraging all in our community to submit abstracts if you have topics of particular interest or expertise to share. There's more information on Wild12 registration and the Call for Abstracts below.

If you've been looking forward to attending the National Wilderness Workshop this year but this doesn't work with your schedule or budget, the Workshop will be back in 2025 and we will hope to see you there!

Past National Wilderness Workshops

2023 National Wilderness Workshop, Missoula, MT

2021 National Wilderness Workshop, Virtual

2020 National Wilderness Workshop, Virtual

2019 National Wilderness Workshop, Bend, OR

2018 National Wilderness Workshop, Gunnison, CO

2017 National Wilderness Workshop, Russellville, AR

2016 National Wilderness Workshop, Missoula, MT

2015 National Wilderness Workshop, Missoula, MT

2014 National Wilderness Workshop, Albuquerque, NM