Technical Core Competencies For Wilderness Stewardship Specialists

This page identifies interagency Wilderness Technical Core Competencies (knowledge, skills and abilities) needed to implement wilderness stewardship law, regulation, and policy at three different levels of expertise for employees who are wilderness stewardship specialists.

Wilderness Stewardship Specialists are those employees having varying levels of responsibility for wilderness program planning, coordination, implementation, stewardship, and other activities.

Wilderness managers and other employees having responsibility for wilderness, no matter how limited, can use competencies to identify gaps between existing and needed wilderness knowledge, skills, and abilities.  With this information they and their supervisors can develop and prioritize Individual Training and Development Plans.

The competencies found under the entry, full performance and expert levels below were developed and extensively reviewed by an interagency team in 2006, drawing from work originally produced by the Forest Service and by the National Park Service in the early 1990s in response to requests from the Forest Service Corporate Training Office and from the Office of Personnel Management. A review of these competencies and the trainings recommended to achieve them is currently underway. To contribute to this effort, please contact Dan Abbe.

Levels of Expertise

Whether 10 percent or 100 percent of an employee's time is dedicated to wilderness stewardship, the complexity of the job remains the same and requires expertise across a number of disciplines.  Expertise needed varies, depending on position.  Three different levels of expertise for wilderness stewardship specialists and non-specialists have been identified.  Levels of expertise are so named to ensure consistency with Office of Personnel Management nomenclature while accommodating agency differences. 

Wilderness Specialists Levels of Expertise

1. Entry Level:  KSAs needed to recognize wilderness stewardship components, opportunities and needs, and to refer opportunities and needs to appropriate specialists. 

2. Full Performance Level:  KSAs needed to fully and independently identify and analyze wilderness stewardship opportunities and needs for most situations, to develop interdisciplinary solutions with appropriate specialists, and to make recommendations for making decisions.  Individual may train other professionals and technicians in the principles, terminology, and field practice of the subject. 

3. Expert Level:  KSAs needed to fully and independently identify and analyze wilderness stewardship opportunities and needs in complex situations, develop programmatic interdisciplinary solutions with appropriate specialists, and make recommendations for making decisions and policy changes.  Individual may train other professionals and technicians in the principles, terminology, and field practice of the subject.