Wilderness Science

Science for Wilderness, Wilderness for Science

Science is essential to wilderness stewardship. Once an area is designated as wilderness, stewardship strives to preserve the wilderness character of the area, and science provides managers with vital insight to make informed stewardship decisions. 

Wilderness is also essential to science. Wilderness designation confers long-term protection of relatively large landscapes. This protection makes wilderness the cornerstone of our nation’s conservation portfolio and the premier place to study how untrammeled ecosystems function, as well as the personal and societal values derived from undeveloped landscapes.

The importance of science for wilderness and wilderness for science will only increase with time as the contrast between wilderness and developed lands widens, as the recognition of wilderness values grows, and as the threats to those values intensify. All proposals to conduct science in wilderness are first evaluated by agency staff who will determine if the research meets the high and unique legal standards to be permitted in wilderness. 

• Science informs wilderness stewardship as we learn more about ecological systems, individual species and their habitats, human behavior, and the successes and failures of various policies and management activities.
• Science helps us understand the nature of the systems for which we are a steward and how they might be used and enjoyed without destroying them. 
• Science helps us learn how to correct human-caused perturbations in such systems.
• Science helps us understand how valuable wilderness is to people and how it might enhance their lives.